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In today’s speech, the President praised current efforts by Congressional leaders to replace NCLB and urged Congress to make these vital reforms before the next school year begins. With the United States lagging far behind international competitors in science, reading and math, the need for swift reform has never been greater.
See below for a fact sheet on fixing No Child Left Behind.
FACT SHEET: Fixing No Child Left BehindNo Child Left Behind (NCLB) is the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a landmark federal law established in 1965. ESEA was originally established to ensure educational equity for all students. The law is routinely "reauthorized" by Congress and has not been reauthorized since 2002 – the longest-ever period between rewrites of this law.
NCLB was proposed by the Bush Administration and enacted by the 107th Congress, in 2001, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote and signed into law in 2002. NCLB requires each state to set academic standards; test all students periodically in science as well as in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school ; and to set annual accountability targets for every school to meet. NCLB sets a national goal that by 2014 all students would be "proficient" in reading and math, and requires states and school districts to intervene in schools that miss their annual targets for multiple years. However, 37% of America's schools today are not meeting their annual targets mandated by NCLB. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that number could more than double, to over 80% of schools in 2011, highlighting the need to fix the law.
NCLB helped highlight achievement gaps among low-income students, minorities, students with disabilities, and English language learners, and it requires all schools to show whether they are closing these achievement gaps. However, the law needs urgent attention to be fixed with a new framework that is fair, flexible and focused on results
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Challenging the Status Quo: All Students Ready for College and Career
Maintaining NCLB vs. The Obama PlanNCLB Status Quo: Rely on unsophisticated bubble tests to grade students and schools.
The Obama Plan: Support better tests. The Obama Administration has invested $350 million to support states in their efforts to create more sophisticated assessment systems that measure problem solving and other 21st century skills and that will provide teachers will timely information to help them improve instruction. NCLB Status Quo: Teachers and principals don’t get credit for improving student scores.
The Obama Plan: Replace the current pass-fail school grading system with a system that rewards teachers, principals and schools for showing they’ve helped students improve and doesn’t just judge them for how students did on one test on one day. NCLB Status Quo: States lowered standards to meet yearly goals under No Child Left Behind. Often, students graduating from high school need remedial courses in college.
The Obama Plan: Support efforts of the nation’s governors and State education leaders to adopt college and career ready standards so when kids go to college they won’t need to take remedial courses. NCLB Status Quo: A narrow curriculum focused only reading and math.
The Obama Plan: Invest in state and local efforts to develop a well-rounded curriculum and allow states to include subjects beyond reading and math in their accountability system. NCLB Status Quo: Schools that are doing well often get mislabeled as "failing" under No Child Left Behind’s broken accountability system.
The Obama Plan: Offer greater flexibility to states and school districts in identifying areas of improvement and strategies for addressing poor performance, while requiring more meaningful change in the most challenging schools. NCLB Status Quo: Too often the schools with the greatest challenges don’t have the most effective teachers.
The Obama Plan: Provide incentives and accountability for getting effective teachers to the schools that need them the most, and identifying and leaning from the most effective teachers. NCLB Status Quo: The federal government prescribes “one size fits all” solutions.
The Obama Plan: Do away with unnecessary federal mandates and increase local control to pursue solutions focused on results. If schools aren’t meeting targets, improvement strategies need to be locally crafted to address the problems in those schools. NCLB Status Quo: No Child Left Behind does not promote or reward innovation in schools.
The Obama Plan: Support competitive grant programs that reward states and schools for changing the system by improving how they get the best teachers in the classroom, extending the school day and year, supporting the creation of smarter tests, using data to improve practice, and raising standards for all kids. NCLB Status Quo: Our nation’s lowest-performing schools lack the resources and reforms needed to improve.
The Obama Plan: Invest in ambitious and bold efforts to transform our nation’s lowest achieving schools, while demanding new and dramatic change in their leadership and reforms to teaching and learning at those schools. NCLB Status Quo: Parents are often under-engaged in their child’s education, and schools are often unwelcoming of parents.
The Obama Plan: Double the federal investment in family engagement and provide new incentives for schools to develop innovative ways to engage parents and community members. NCLB Status Quo: States often lack the resources to support and address the unique challenges of rural schools.
The Obama Plan: Support innovation and reform directed at rural challenges. Support the funding necessary for these schools to better use technology in the classroom and address the challenge of recruiting and retaining effective teachers and principals.
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