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Questions and Answers about No Child Left Behind 
compiled by Vermonters for Better Education

February 2003 

INTRODUCTION

The No Child Left Behind Act was passed a year ago and still generates questions and concerns among policy makers and ordinary citizens. In this brief paper, Vermonters for Better Education has attempted to identify the major questions about NCLB and to provide answers and references to other sources. This paper is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to the law, but it should help provide an overview of NCLB’s accountability measures, and help clear some of the confusion and fear that critics have helped generate about the law’s implementation and provisions.

To facilitate reading, we did not use footnotes, but instead cited sources within the body of this paper. VBE strove to use unbiased information for this report, relying heavily on experts and sources who traditionally would not be counted on to support an initiative proposed by a Republican president. Therefore, we used information from Education Week, the Democratic staff of the US Congress, and the leader of the Democratic Leadership Council’s 21st Century Schools Project. In addition, we relied on a comprehensive study conducted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and another study prepared by Accountability Works, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Whatever the source, we urge readers to examine the underlying data to make their own judgments. We are confident the information will speak for itself.

An easy-to-navigate web site on the law is available through the U.S. Department of Education (http://www.nochildleftbehind.gov). In addition, it is VBE’s experience that the USDOE is reasonably prompt in answering questions through email or the toll-free number provided on the web site.

Vermonters for Better Education is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with over 3,000 supporters in the state. VBE ‘s mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont, promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents, and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. VBE has published numerous print newsletters, two reports (on privatizing schools in Vermont, and on independent schools’ contributions to the state), and circulates a weekly e-newsletter about local and national educational issues. Sign up for our mailing list here.

Libby Sternberg
Executive Director

See also:  Total cost of implementing the NCLB testing requirements over a three-year period - a study compiled by the nonprofit nonpartisan organization Accountability Works (pdf format)

Q. Who supported NCLB and how was it passed?

A. The No Child Left Behind Act, which is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was the result of bipartisan work in Congress and the Executive branch of government. The bill passed by the following votes:

  • Senate: 87 yeas (44 Republicans and 43 Democrats), 10 nays, 3 not voting
  • House: 381 yeas (183 Republicans and 198 Democrats) to 41 nays
  • Examples of Senators who voted for the bill: moderates John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Lincoln Chaffee, liberals Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Diane Feinstein, conservatives Trent Lott, Orin Hatch, Strom Thurmond, 
Q. What does the bill contain?

A. The following is a recent summary of the bill’s contents, compiled by the nonpartisan publication Education Week, the education newspaper of record:

The 'No Child Left Behind' Act of 2001, signed into law by President Bush on Jan. 8, 2002, is the newly revised version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the central federal law in precollegiate education. The ESEA, first enacted in 1965 and last reauthorized in 1994, encompasses Title I, the federal government's flagship aid program for disadvantaged students. 

As the latest incarnation of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act is expected to greatly expand the federal role in education. Coming at a time of wide public concern about the state of education, the legislation sets in place requirements that will reach into virtually every public school in America. It was also accompanied, for fiscal year 2002, by the largest dollar increase ever in federal education aid. 

At the core of the No Child Left Behind Act are a number of measures designed to drive broad gains in student achievement and to hold states and schools more accountable for student progress. They represent potentially significant changes in the education landscape. 

  • Annual testing. By the 2005-06 school year, states must begin testing students in grades 3-8 annually in reading and mathematics. The tests must be aligned with state academic standards. A sample of 4th and 8th graders in each state must also participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress testing program in reading and math every year to provide a point of comparison for state test results. 
  • Academic progress. States must bring all students up to the "proficient" level on state tests within 12 years (i.e., by the 2013-14 school year). Individual schools must meet "adequate yearly progress" targets toward this goal (based on a formula spelled out in the law) for both their student populations as a whole and for certain demographic subgroups. If a school fails to meet the target two years in a row, its students must be offered a choice of other public schools to attend (with the district paying for transportation). Students in schools that fail to make adequate progress three years in a row must also be offered supplemental educational services, including private tutoring. The consequences, set to commence in fall 2002 for schools already identified as failing, get progressively more serious for continued failures. 
  • Report cards. Starting with the 2002-03 school year, states must furnish annual report cards showing a range of information, including student-achievement data broken down by subgroup and information on the performance of school districts. Districts must provide similar report cards showing school-by-school data. 
  • Teacher qualifications. By the end of the 2005-06 school year, every teacher working in a public school must be "highly qualified." Under the law, "highly qualified" generally means that a teacher is certified and demonstrably proficient in his or her subject matter. Beginning with the 2002-03 school year, all new teachers hired with federal Title I money must be "highly qualified." Within three years, all school paraprofessionals hired with Title I money must have completed at least two years of college, obtained an associate's degree or higher, or met an established quality standard. That requirement went into effect immediately for for newly hired paraprofessionals. 
  • Reading First. The act creates a new competitive-grant program called Reading First, authorized at $900 million in 2002, to help states and districts set up "scientific, research-based" reading programs for children in grades K-3 (with priority given to high-poverty areas). A smaller early-reading program seeks to help states better prepare 3- to 5-year-olds in disadvantaged areas to read. 
  • Funding changes. Through an alteration in the Title I funding formula, the No Child Left Behind Act-along with the accompanying education spending bill for 2002-is expected to better target resources to school districts with high concentrations of poor children. The law also includes provisions intended to give states and districts greater flexibility in how they spend a portion of their federal allotments. 
Q. Won’t NCLB force Vermont to lower its standards in order to avoid being penalized by test scores that don't show adequate improvement from year to year? 

A: (from an FAQ on the NCLB Act compiled by the Democratic Staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce):

“Since 1994, when federal law required states to set academic standards, states have always had discretion as to where to set them. If states feel compelled to lower their standards now for fear of not meeting them, it means one of two things is true: Either the standards were wildly unrealistic and never intended to establish what all children need to know; or, the state has no confidence that its teachers and schools can improve. Instead of abandoning high standards, educators should focus on what changes need to be implemented to meet them.”

Q. Won’t the NCLB Act’s accountability components cost the state more money than it will receive from the federal government?

A. A study of all 50 states, compiled by the nonprofit nonpartisan organization Accountability Works (see document here - pdf format) shows that the total cost of implementing the testing requirements over a three-year period in Vermont would be approximately $12 million, with the largest expenditure occurring in 2004-05. The Accountability Works study was based on extremely conservative assumptions, one being that states would develop their own tests. Vermont, however, has purchased the New Standards Reference Exam from Harcourt in the past. If the state continues to purchase similar tests from Harcourt, development costs should not be even as high as what the Accountability Works study suggests. And even the early costs could be offset by a new federal grant awarded to Vermont and three other New England states to develop standards and tests to comply with NCLB. (See Providence Journal article here). 

The Accountability Works study is a rebuttal of an early study compiled by the National Association of State Boards of Education which mistakenly compared the “total costs of complying with the NCLB requirements over the life of the legislation with the annual federal appropriations designed to pay for these costs.” (Emphasis in original.) 

In addition, Deputy Commissioner of Education Bud Meyers, in a February 24 interview for the Vermont Education Report, said that the $3.4 million Vermont is slated to receive from the federal government for FY02 “will be enough to fund the assessments along with what we’re already doing.”

Q. But doesn’t one local study claim that NCLB will cost Vermont $158.2 million to implement?

A. A local study, compiled by the Vermont Society for Study of Education (available at http://www.aasa.org/issues_and_insights/ESEA/ VT_NCLB_Cost-Benefit_Analysis_10-22.pdf), claims costs of implementing NCLB in Vermont will be $158.2 million. But there are several obvious flaws with this study, not least of which is the startling claim that $150 million would be needed for “remediation” - bringing the nearly 50 percent of Vermont students who are scoring below the standards up to the standards. (In other words, the costs cited in the VSSE study have more to do with making a case for spending more on education in Vermont than on costs directly linked to implementation of NCLB.)

The VSSE researcher, Superintendent William Mathis, appears to have based his calculations on the total public school population in Vermont which, as of October 1, 2001, was 100, 867 students (note: the VSSE study does not cite a source for its Vermont enrollment information, but we found that the 100,867 number corresponds to the total student population as of October 1, 2001 and is available with grade-by-grade enrollment figures at http://www.state.vt.us/educ/new/html/data/enroll_02_table_01.html ). 

In reality, only 46,529 students, in grades 3 through 8, would be subject to yearly reading and math testing under NCLB, a fact noted in the VSSE study. Therefore, any remediation costs associated with NCLB should be confined to this discrete student population, not the entire student body of the state. 

Nonetheless, the VSSE study appears to be based on the premise that remediation would have to include the entire student body in order to comply with NCLB. Even if we accept the premise that bringing students up to the standards would involve remediation before tests were administered in 3rd grade, that still only adds 13,785 students to the affected population (6,780 in 1st grade, and 7,005 in 2nd grade) which brings the total student population affected by NCLB to 60,314. 

The VSSE study bases its high remediation costs on the expense involved in helping two subgroups - students living in “impacted poverty” and students “needing ‘moderate’ intervention.” VSSE estimates the numbers of students in these categories using the entire student population as a reference, not the population impacted by NCLB. (In addition, it is unclear where VSSE gets the figures for “students needing ‘moderate’ intervention.”)

Regardless what student population figures are used to calculate remediation costs, there is hardly consensus among researchers concerning what precisely is necessary to raise student achievement. Is it small classes, small schools, higher teacher salaries, or a combination of factors? It is not clear at all, as the VSSE study suggests, that precise amounts of additional financial resources will have any effect on raising students to certain standards.

In fact, a recent report released by the American Legislative Exchange Council (“Report Card on American Education: A state-by-state analysis from 1976-2001” - available at http://www.alec.org) showed there was scant evidence for a correlation between precise amounts of spending and academic achievement. 

The ALEC study looked at numerous factors, often cited as reasons for success or failure in schools, for all 50 states over a 20 year period. The factors included per pupil spending, students per school, students per teacher, schools per district, percent of graduates taking SATs and ACTs, NAEP, SAT, and ACT scores, average instructional staff salary, and changes in these indicators over a 20-year period. The researchers used standard regression tests to account for the possibility that several educational “inputs” are factors in student achievement.

The conclusion of the ALEC researchers was that “the number of schools per district, the level of per pupil expenditures, and teacher salaries have no impact on student achievement…these tests demonstrate that the conventional wisdom that primary and secondary education in the United States can be improved by spending more money, creating more school districts, increasing teacher salaries, and spending more resources per pupil is ineffective.”

VBE does not argue, however, that financial resources are not important. But the comprehensive ALEC study confirms what most taxpayers know intuitively - making direct links between precise amounts of money to student achievement improvements is a fool’s errand.

In fact, there is compelling research from other sources (available on the VBE web site) that one of the NCLB reforms - offering school choice - leads to increases in student achievement.

Even if the VSSE analysis is to be accepted at face value, however, it seems to imply that Vermont teachers are incapable of doing remediation work without huge infusions of new cash, despite the fact that the state already enjoys one of the lowest student-to-teacher ratios in the nation.

One final point about the VSSE study is worth a quick observation. The VSSE points out that “Vermont already scores significantly above national averages.” On its face, this is true. Vermont’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are among the highest in the country. However, significant percentages of Vermont students do not score at all well on the NAEP. Vermont student achievement on the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test is as follows:

4th graders proficient or above in math: 29%
8th graders proficient or above in math: 32%
4th graders proficient or above in science: 39%
8th graders proficient or above in science: 40%
The NCLB Act ensures that parents and taxpayers are made aware of achievement levels and whether sufficient progress in achievement levels is being made over time.

Q. Isn’t the NCLB Act a usurpation of local control of education?

A. The NCLB Act is based on a simple premise - if you accept federal tax dollars for education, you must show taxpayers that you are accomplishing clear educational goals. The goals themselves - that is, standards - are set locally, by the states. Similarly, the testing used to determine if schools are making “adequate yearly progress” are developed by the states themselves. Most states, Vermont included, had already begun the process of implementing state standards and assessments as the result of the 1994 reauthorization of the ESEA. In fact, Vermont’s current standards and assessment program is aligned with the 1994 ESEA requirements. Vermont will have to expand its program to comply with the new reauthorization of the ESEA - the No Child Left Behind Act.

Q. NCLB forces schools to offer choice to parents - isn’t that a policy that should be left up to the individual states and schools?

A. The NCLB Act recognizes that not all schools are right for all students. Nonetheless, the Act does not require schools to offer choice. Only those schools that fall on the “needing improvement” list (as determined by the state-developed standards and tests) must open the door to choice for their students. Even these schools are given the flexibility to withhold choice if it is deemed “impracticable.” Vermont’s “needing improvement” schools have all used the “impracticable” standard as a reason for withholding choice from their students, a position with which VBE strongly disagrees. 

Q. Why should the federal government have the ability to label schools as “failing?”

A. As pointed out above, the federal government does not determine which schools within a state are not making adequate progress. That is determined by the states within the parameters of their own standards and assessments program. In addition, NCLB does not use the term “failing” to describe the schools that don’t meet adequate yearly progress standards. Instead, the schools are referred to as “Title I Schools Needing Improvement.” Vermont refers to them as “priority schools.”

Q. Won’t rural states with small schools have a difficult time making adequate yearly progress standards?

A. Small rural states such as Vermont are continuing to work with the federal government to ensure that our schools are not inaccurately labeled as needing improvement because of statistical problems associated with small samples. As Andrew J. Rotherham, director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s 21st Century Schools Project (associated with the Democratic Leadership Council) says: “there are provisions and allowances to ensure that test scores are used in a statistically sound way. Test scores can be aggregated over several years and schools should not be penalized if there are too few students in a particular sub-group to yield reliable information or if a single subgroup fails to meet a particular target but makes progress nonetheless. At a minimum, schools must miss their AYP targets for at least two years before any action is taken and longer before more serious consequences come into play.” (Washington Post, January 28, 2003)

CONCLUSIONS

No law is perfect, and the No Child Left Behind Act is no exception. The U.S. Department of Education continues to work with states in smoothing out the rough patches associated with the implementation of any new reform.

However, the goals of NCLB are ones that most Vermonters and all serious education reformers have embraced for years - setting standards and helping students meet them, providing transparency for taxpayers and parents so they can easily see what is happening in their schools, and providing extra services and choices to students whose schools are having trouble. 

See also: Total cost of implementing the NCLB testing requirements over a three-year period - a study compiled by the nonprofit nonpartisan organization Accountability Works (pdf format)
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