The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is the most recent iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), the major federal law authorizing federal spending on programs to support K-12 schooling. ESEA is the largest source of federal spending on elementary and secondary education.

History

ESEA was enacted in 1965 as part of the Johnson Administration’s War on Poverty campaign. The law’s original goal, which remains today, was to improve educational equity for students from lower income families by providing federal funds to school districts serving poor students. School districts serving lower income students often receive less state and local funding than those serving more affluent children.

Since its initial passage in 1965, ESEA has been reauthorized seven times, most recently in January 2002 as the No Child left Behind Act. Each reauthorization has brought changes to the program, but its central goal of improving the educational opportunities for children from lower income families remains. The 1994 reauthorization, the Improving America’s Schools Act, put in place key standards and accountability elements for states and local school districts that receive funding under the law. These accountability provisions were further developed in the most recent reauthorization, the No Child Left Behind Act.

NCLB and Accountability

Although NCLB covers numerous federal education programs, the law’s requirements for testing, accountability, and school improvement receive the most attention. NCLB requires states to test students in reading and mathematics annually in grades 3-8 and once in grades 10-12. States must test students in science once in grades 3-5, 6-8, and 10-12. Individual schools, school districts and states must publicly report test results in the aggregate and for specific student subgroups, including low-income students, students with disabilities, English language learners, and major racial and ethnic groups.

NCLB requires states, school districts, and schools to ensure all students are proficient in grade-level math and reading by 2014. States define grade-level performance. Schools must make "adequate yearly progress" toward this goal, whereby proficiency rates increase in the years leading up to 2014. The rate of increase required is chosen by each state. In order for a school to make adequate yearly progress (AYP), it must meet its targets for student reading and math proficiency each year. A state’s total student proficiency rate and the rate achieved by student subgroups are all considered in the AYP determination.

Source: Wisconsin Department of Education; New America Foundation

The graph above illustrates the percentage of students who must be proficient each year—in aggregate and for each student subgroup—for Wisconsin schools to make AYP. In the 2007-08 school year, 74% of students must be proficient in reading, 58% in math. Like many other states, Wisconsin’s accountability plan sets relatively modest proficiency goals for schools in the first 10 years of NCLB, but predicts dramatic growth in the out-years.

School Improvement, Corrective Action, and Restructuring

Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years are identified for "school improvement," and must draft a school improvement plan, devote at least 10 percent of federal funds provided under Title I of NCLB to teacher professional development. Schools that fail to make AYP for a third year are identified for corrective action, and must institute interventions designed to improve school performance from a list specified in the legislation. Schools that fail to make AYP for a fourth year are identified for restructuring, which requires more significant interventions. If schools fail to make AYP for a fifth year, they much implement a restructuring plan that includes reconstituting school staff and/or leadership, changing the school’s governance arrangement, converting the school to a charter, turning it over to a private management company, or some other major change.

School districts in which a high percentage of schools fail to make AYP for multiple years can also be identified for school improvement, corrective action, and restructuring.

	NCLB School Improvement Timeline
	Years Not Making AYP	Action
	One	No Action
	Two	No Action
	Three	Year One of School Improvement Implement Public School Choice
	Four	Year Two of School Improvement Continue offering public school choice. Implement Supplemental Education Services
	Five	Corrective Action Continue offering school choice and supplemental education services
	Six	Restructuring Planning Year Continue offering school choice and supplemental education services
	Seven	Implement Restructuring
	Source: Elementary and Secondary Education Act

Parent Information, School Choice, Supplemental Educational Services

NCLB requires school districts to provide immediate assistance to children attending schools in need of improvement, in the form of public school choice and supplemental educational services.

The first year that a school is in school improvement (after it fails to make AYP for two consecutive years), the school district must offer children the option to transfer to a higher-performing school in the same district. The second year a school is in school improvement, the district must also offer children the option to receive supplemental educational services—tutoring and other outside-of-school services designed to improve academic achievement. School districts must spend up to 20 percent of their federal NCLB Title I funds on public school choice and supplemental services for students in schools identified for school improvement.

NCLB seeks to empower parents by providing them with information about how students, schools, and school districts are performing. NCLB requires that states and local school districts disseminate to parents annual school report cards describing their student and school performance. Local school districts must also produce and distribute to parents a report card for each individual school.

	State, school districts, and school report cards must include the following information:
	* Percentage of students scoring at each proficiency level on the state assessment, in the aggregate and disaggregated by subgroup
	* Comparison of student performance to state's annual goals for AYP and, for schools and districts, to statewide and local averages
	* Percentage of students not tested
	* Two-year trends in student achievement
	* Other indicators used by the state for AYP
	* High school graduation rates
	* Teacher qualifications, including the percentage of classes taught by teachers who are not highly qualified
	* For states and school districts, number and names of schools identified for school improvement
	* For schools, whether or not the school is identified for school improvement

Highly Qualified Teachers

No Child Left Behind requires all teachers be highly qualified. All teachers must be fully certified by the state or have passed the state teacher licensure exam and have a license to teach in the state. In addition, highly qualified teachers must demonstrate their knowledge of the subject they teach through certain credentials or test scores. NCLB also requires states to take steps to ensure that low-income and minority students are not taught by teachers who are not highly qualified at higher rates than are non-minority and low-income students.

NCLB gives parents the right to know about the qualifications of their child’s teacher. Specifically, parents have the right to know if their child’s teacher meets state licensure and other qualifications, if the teacher is teaching under an emergency license or other waiver, the teacher’s undergraduate major, and any graduate degrees he or she holds. Parents also have the right to know if their child is receiving educational services from paraprofessionals (i.e. teacher aides) and what qualifications those paraprofessionals have. School districts are obligated to inform parents in writing if a teacher who is not highly qualified teaches their child for more than four weeks.

Other NCLB Programs

Although public debate around NCLB tends to focus on the law’s testing, accountability, and teacher quality requirements, NCLB authorizes 45 programs, organized into ten sections, and funded at $25.0 billion in fiscal year 2009.

Title I

The Title I program under NCLB provides funds to local school districts to improve the education of disadvantaged students. It is the largest federal program supporting elementary and secondary education and was funded at $14.5 billion in fiscal year 2009. Funds are distributed to school districts according to a set of formulas based on the size and characteristics of a school district’s student population. School districts have some discretion in how they distribute Title I funds among schools within the district, but the law requires them to prioritize the highest-poverty schools. More than 50,000 schools (almost half of all public schools) receive Title I funds annually. Because Title I is NCLB’s largest program and most school districts receive some funding from it, the law’s requirements for annual testing, accountability, school improvement, and highly-qualified teachers are all part of Title I.

Teacher Quality State Grants

Teacher Quality State Grants provide general block grant-like revenue to states and school districts to help them improve teacher quality and ensure that all teachers in core academic classes are highly qualified. The Teacher Quality State Grants program was created by combining several smaller class size reduction and teacher professional development programs that existed prior to NCLB. It was funded at $2.9 billion in 2009. Funds are distributed to states, and to school districts within states, on a formula basis. NCLB also authorizes several smaller programs to improve teacher quality, including the Troops-to-Teachers Program, which trains and places retired military personnel as teachers, and the Transition to Teaching Program, which funds alternative teacher preparation programs.

Education Technology State Grants

Education Technology State Grants provide funds to states and school districts to support technology in elementary and secondary schools. The program was funded at $270 million in 2009. Funds are distributed to states via formula. States distribute 47.5 percent of funding they receive to school districts through a formula, and distribute 47.5 percent to school districts and other local groups through a competitive grant process. States may use five percent of the funding they receive for state technology activities.

English Language Acquisition

The English Language Acquisition Grants program provides funds to states and school districts to improve education and English language acquisition of children who do not speak English. It was funded at $730 million in 2009, with funds distributed to states and school districts within states on a formula basis. This program was created in NCLB and replaces several bilingual education demonstration and professional development programs that existed prior to the law. This change replaced competitive grant programs with a formula grant program that recognizes the growing number of English language learner students and their dispersion across a large number of school districts throughout the United States.

21st Century Community Learning Centers

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers program provides funding to states to support after-school and extended learning time programs that provide academic enrichment activities for children. It was funded at $1.1 billion in 2009. Funds are distributed to states through a funding formula. States award competitive grants to local providers—including school districts, community-based, and faith-based groups—to administer after-school and extended learning time programs.

Safe and Drug Free Schools

The Safe and Drug Free Schools Program provides general block grant-like aid to states and local school districts to support programs that prevent violence and illegal use of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs by students. It also supports national activities—including research, technical assistance, and information dissemination—aimed at preventing violence and substance abuse. State and local school district grants were funded at $295 million in 2009, and national activities were funded at $220 million. State and local funds grants are distributed on a formula basis.

Impact Aid

The Impact Aid program provides funds to school districts that serve "federally connected" children, including children whose parents are in the military, whose parents work on federal property, or who live on Indian lands, federal property, or federally subsidized low-rent housing. This funding helps to offset school districts’ loss of revenue because they don’t collect property tax on federal land, and covers some of the cost of educating federally connected children. Impact Aid was funded at $1.3 billion in 2009. Funds are distributed directly to local school districts based on the number of federally connected children they serve. It is the only Department of Education program that allows funds to be spent directly on school construction.