No Child Left Behind: An Analysis of U.S Educational Policy

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is currently the educational policy in the United States. Prior to NCLB the educational policies in effect were “A Nation at Risk, in 1987 America 2000, and a few years later with Goals 2000” (Eisner, 2001, p.21). No Child Left Behind is a test based accountability system used in schools to measure their performance holding the districts, administrators and teachers liable and accountable for the outcomes. Supovitz (2009) States that No Child Left Behind was a major reform initiative intended to bring about widespread improvements in student performance and reduce inequities between ethnic groups and other traditionally under-served populations like economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial

educational policy NCLB and overseen by the U.S. Department of Education, the Tenth Amendment gives the state the autonomy to oversee its own educational system. Thanks to the power given to each state by the Tenth Amendment each state has its own standards and curriculum to which it has students adhere to ensure that they have a mastery of certain educational skills, in order for that to be possible there have to be “50 departments of education, overseeing some 16,000 school districts that serve 52 million students in more than 10,000 schools” (Eisner, 2001,

The state standards are in place for students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. They govern what students should know from one grade to the next. The State Board of Education decides on the essential knowledge and skills that each students should acquire. This is done with the participation of “educators, parents, business and industry representatives, and employers” (TX School Law Bulletin). The curriculum was adopted in the late 1990s with a foundation curriculum development, with subjects including: English, health education, physical education, fine arts, economics, technology application, career development, Spanish language arts and careers and technical development (Texas Education Agency, 2016). The state has managed to change the curriculum over time to keep up with changing trends in education through the use of legislative panels. These panels would explore what changes were needed to the standards and would make recommendations accordingly. However, one of the controversies associated with TEKS is that the changes made by recommendations from these panels often go into effect immediately. They can often significantly impact students that may already be struggling in one are or another (Supovits, 2009,