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With the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in December of 2001, states across the nation have been working diligently to ensure that their students are proficient. They have been mandated to create accountability systems with curriculum standards and aligned benchmark assessments and to make certain that by the year 2014 all students within their state are proficient. However, with this federal mandate came 50 different accountability systems and numerous definitions of proficient. Because there are extreme sanctions for schools and districts that do not meet the NCLB mandates, because countless resources are being poured into ensuring that students are proficient, and because parents believe that proficient actually means something, the definition of proficient should not only be lucid but lead to real proficiency. This paper examines the definition of proficient in four states and compares the states’ definitions to each other and to that of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It explores some of the negative impacts of NCLB law and makes recommendations for the reauthorization of the bill.
This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of education administration. Author: Cheryl James-Ward, Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership Department, San Diego State University

A testing standard that says getting 33 percent of the questions right is a passing grade teaches all the wrong lessons to the kids – and to those who are suppose to be educating them. Yet New Jersey has been setting the mark as low as that for the tests that are used to judge student proficiency and school performance under the federal No Child Left Behind program (Mooney J., 2008, p. E14).

Background

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), ratified December 12, 2001, states that all public schools receiving Title 1 funds must make adequate yearly progress and that by the year 2014, all students must be proficient. Section 1001 of the NCLB Act, states, “The purpose of this title (Title 1) is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency in challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments” (NCLB Act of 2001, 2002, p. 17).

By participating in Title I, a program that funds in excess of $12 billion annually to eligible schools and districts, states agree to commit themselves to bringing all students to proficiency in language arts and math by 2014. In order to determine if schools and districts are on-track to meet this goal, the NCLB law mandates that each state set benchmark goals to measure whether schools and districts are making “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) toward teaching all students what they need to know (Ed Trust West, 2003). Hence, every state is mandated to create an accountability system, each with its own set of standards and aligned benchmark assessments.

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Source:  OpenStax, Ncpea education leadership review, volume 10, number 1; february 2009. OpenStax CNX. Jun 05, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10630/1.9
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