Urban Schools, Effective Practices in

No Child Left behind (NCLB)

NCLB attributed persistent failure in urban schools to low expectations, the absence of measurable goals, and a general lack of accountability for raising achievement. Under NCLB, states would be allowed to establish their own grade-level standards for achievement, but in order to receive federal dollars, they would need to show “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) on standardized tests that measured progress on those standards. These tests were to be given to all third through eighth graders every year, and at least once during high school.

Proponents of NCLB argued that by having each state create common standards to which all students would be held, lower expectations for urban students of color would no longer be tolerated. Through public reporting of every public school's progress on these standards, a system of [Page 2266]public accountability would lift the veil off schools that had been languishing in failure for decades. This would allow for no-nonsense school improvement strategies that either got failing schools back on the right track or closed them down. The stated goal was that by 2014 every child in U.S. public schools would be achieving at or above grade level on standardized tests.

NCLB has had its share of critics from various corners of the education world, many of whom have decried the heavy emphasis on standardized testing and lack of adequate funding for urban schools to meet the stated demands for improvement. Pressure on teachers and schools to raise test scores as the primary measuring stick of improvement has led critics to describe urban schools as test-taking factories that have been forced to cut out, or cut back, programming that is not on the state test (such as art, science, theatre, and music). Ironically, former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch has become one of the most prominent critics of NCLB after playing a central role in the law's initial implementation. Ravitch has since called NCLB's accountability strategies a “nightmare” for U.S. schools and has joined a host of other outspoken critics of the wave of charter schools that have opened as a result of the law.

...