Congress enacted the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. NCLB requires all students to be proficient on state standards by 2014 and enforces strict interventions for schools and districts that fail to make "adequate yearly progress" toward that goal. NCLB also requires schools to ensure a 95 percent participation rate of students on the state's test.
CSBA strongly supports standards, assessment and accountability for the state's public schools. However, it is evident that the definition of AYP under the federal system will ultimately result in all schools and districts failing to achieve proficiency by 2014 because it establishes a criterion that is statistically impossible to reach. All schools will be labeled "failures," and therefore subject to onerous and potentially expensive sanctions. Resources will not be going to schools that require the most assistance.
CSBA has been a leader in the fight to "Fix NCLB" to ensure that schools and districts are held accountable for student success in a reasonable fashion. With reauthorization of the Act scheduled for 2007, the second phase of the Association's Fix NCLB campaign has been launched. The campaign materials consist of key messages, talking points and advocacy tips that school governance teams can use in their local communities to engage and educate parents, teachers, community leaders and lawmakers on the pitfalls of NCLB — and most importantly, how it can be fixed to ensure that it achieves the laudable goals it was created to meet.
Other Fix NCLB campaign tools