The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) introduced sweeping changes to public elementary and secondary education. Under NCLB, the federal government seeks to emphasize school success by using indexes to measure student achievement.
A portion of the No Child Left Behind Act permits students to transfer to another school if their current school is deemed “persistently dangerous.”
There are many goals of the No Child Left Behind Act, including:
According to the No Child Left Behind Act, a school is persistently dangerous if it records at least two consecutive years of “serious incidents.”
“Serious incidents” in a school can include:
In the event of a serious incident, the school will factor the incident into a ratio involving serious incidents to student enrollment. A score is assigned to each serious incident based on its severity. After adding up the scores for the serious incidents, the sum is divided by the school’s enrollment. The resulting figure is called the “school violence index.”
Persistently dangerous schools have a school violence index of 1.5 for at least two consecutive years. This index translates into about six incidents for every 100 students. In addition, a school is persistently dangerous if its school violence index is at least 50 and it has experienced at least 60 serious incidents, regardless of when they occurred.
Whenever a school is persistently unsafe for two or more years, the school board must provide alternative educational options to students. NCLB offers the following options:
A school district may also be able to modify its current curriculum and policies to provide a safer learning environment for its students.
Among the measures implemented by successful school boards are:
The school board must respond if a school is in critical condition due to serious incidents. A district that fails to implement these required measures may face an investigation by the Department of Education or even a civil or administrative lawsuit.
School districts and individual schools must make a plan of action that describes how their school will comply with meeting the “highly qualified” requirement.
Schools also need to prove their teachers meet the highly qualified requirement through either a subject evaluation or a High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE), which is used to evaluate multi-subject teachers.
As a reward, these schools can receive federal funding that assists them in meeting the requirements.
The NCLB Act created a condition that all schools must employ teachers that are “highly qualified.” Therefore, every teacher must have at least a bachelor’s degree, competence in their subject area, and full certification. Teachers who teach core academic subjects must possess these qualifications.
Parents can inquire about the qualifications of their child’s teachers at the school. Among the information provided will be the teacher’s certification, college degree, and provisional status.
Teacher’s aides who do not meet the highly qualified requirements cannot give instruction but must be supervised by a qualified teacher. Consequently, you should contact the school administration if an unqualified teacher’s aide is teaching your child.
AYP stands for “Adequate Yearly Progress,” and it was one of the key elements of the NCLB. One of the goals of NCLB was to ensure that all children were “proficient” in certain basic math and reading skills by 2014. Proficiency was to be determined primarily by test scores.
This meant that all public schools were to make progress every year towards achieving state academic standards and meeting AYP goals. If a school did not achieve AYP, NCLB specified consequences, including such measures as allowing students at the school to go to a different school in their district.
The NCLB was the reauthorization of existing law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Education reform was based on setting standards and testing students every year to determine whether educational goals had been met. It was based on the belief that its standards and testing program would improve students’ educational outcomes in public schools in the U.S.
Under NCLB, all states were required to develop educational standards and assess progress toward achieving them. States were required to administer these assessments to all students at certain grade levels. The NCLB expanded the federal government’s role in public education by requiring all states to comply. Testing was not the only thing involved. NCLB also mandated report cards, teacher qualifications, and other aspects of education.
By 2015, there was so much criticism of the NCLB that Congress removed the national features of the NCLB and replaced it with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which handed authority to regulate education back to the states.
ESSA replaces AYP and 100% proficiency requirements with a model that focuses instead on supporting struggling schools. States must establish an accountability system that measures progress toward “ambitious long-term goals.”
States must still measure student progress toward goals annually, but how progress is measured is different. It is now based on:
The No Child Left Behind Act’s goals are high standards and expectations for every child. NCLB is viewed by many as a step in the right direction.
The NEA, however, believes the act focuses too much on:
If your child’s school has been classified as “persistently dangerous,” you may wish to get more involved in your child’s educational situation. To voice your concerns, you may wish to attend local school board meetings or schedule a meeting with the superintendent.
Suppose the school district has failed to implement corrective measures. In that case, you may wish to speak with a government lawyer for assistance with initiating further action, such as filing a complaint with a government administrative agency.
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