“No Child Left Behind”

by
Peter J. Dirr, Ph.D.

(Written for Trends in Education, a Cable in the Classroom periodic online series, July 2002.)

What Is “No Child Left Behind”?

OnJanuary 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act of 2001. The bill, covering all public schools in the United States, had been passed by overwhelming majorities of both houses of Congress. The Act becomes operational with the 2002-2003 school year.

The new law represents an education reform plan that could result in the most sweeping changes in elementary and secondary education since the start of the Great Society in the 1960s. It is based on four basic education reform principles: (a) stronger accountability for results; (b) local control and increased flexibility; (c) emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work; and, (d) expanded options for parents and the community.

This article will examine the key provisions of the law as they reflect those four principles. The legislation runs approximately 1500 pages. What follows is necessarily a very abbreviated summary.

Major Provisions Of The Legislation

Stronger Accountability For Results

• States must have strong academic standards – clear statements of what every child should know in reading, mathematics, and science at every grade level.
• Schools must administer math and reading tests in grades 3-8 every year and science tests once in each of the following grade clusters: 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12. The tests will be aligned to the state standards.
• The results of the tests must be reported for every major demographic group (grade level, gender, migrant status, ethnic and racial minority groups, the economically disadvantaged, the handicapped, etc.), in formats that are easily understandable so that parents and the community can measure their children’s and school’s performance.
• There will be “Report Cards” at three levels – State, District, School. There will be uniform format among the report cards (a “single accountability system”) to allow comparisons within each State.
• The data will be used for diagnostic purposes -- to close the achievement gap between students of different groups and make sure that “no child is left behind.”
• Schools will be responsible for improving the academic performance of ALL STUDENTS from one year to the next (“adequate yearly progress”).
• Within 12 years, ALL STUDENTS must perform at a “proficient” level under their state standards.
• There will be real consequences for schools and districts that fail to make progress, including: restructuring designed by outside experts, new governance, new curriculum, and loss of students to other schools. Those schools and districts must also provide supplemental services to students to help them improve.

Local Control And Increased Flexibility

• All 50 states and every district will have a greater say in how they use the federal education funds they receive every year.
• The law allows States to shift funds from different federal programs to match local priorities and achieve results.
• The law combines and simplifies federal funding programs so that schools don’t have to cut through as much red tape to use federal funds.

Emphasis On Proven Education Methods

• All federal education funds are targeted to “research-based programs” (a term that is used 108 times in the legislation) that have been proven to help most children learn.
• Reading instruction receives special attention immediately, with $1 billion allocated to the states in FY 2002 for the Reading First plan, which uses scientifically proven ways of teaching children to read in grades K-3, and the Early Reading First, which develops language and reading skills for pre-school children, especially those from low-income families. The goal of both these programs is to ensure that all children can read by third grade.
• Improved math and science instruction is also a focus, with special encouragement of partnerships with higher education, business, and non-profit organizations to raise student achievement in those subjects.
• More than $4 billion is allocated in 2002 to promote better teacher quality through professional development and recruitment. Special attention is paid to helping teachers integrate technology in teaching and learning.

Expanded Options For Parents And The Community

• Parents with a child in a failing school will be able to transfer the child to a better-performing public school or public charter school.
• Parents with a child in a failing school will have access to funds for “supplemental education services,” including tutoring, after school services, and summer school programs.
• In 2002, as much as $200 million in federal funds will be available to states and districts to help establish and fund charter schools.
• $1 billion is appropriated in FY 2002 for the development of 21^st Century Community Learning Centers that will include expanded before-and-after-school and summer programs.
• Community Technology Centers will provide free access to information technology and related training under a competitive grant process to be set up by the Education Department. (Grants will require a 50% local match and a plan for continuance after federal funding ends.)

Importance To The Cable Industry

The “No Child Left Behind” legislation and the vast funds that it channels into specific areas will change the landscape of education over the next several years and perhaps decades. It places strong emphasis on each State’s academic standards. It sets high goals for the teaching of reading, mathematics, and science in all our K-12 schools. It aims to assure that EVERY child will make significant academic and social progress each year, ultimately leaving high school prepared to become productive members of the country’s workforce.

The law recognizes the importance of a highly trained teacher force and provides substantial funds to recruit new teachers to the profession and to train current teachers to be more effective, largely by becoming more expert in their content areas and by learning to use instructional technologies and resources effectively to improve student learning.

This education legislation has tremendous implications for Cable in the Classroom’s members, cable operators and program networks alike.

Importance To Cable Operators

Schools in every community will be undergoing systemic changes. They will be looking for lots of help from the community. The Business Roundtable has endorsed this legislation and sees great opportunities for businesses to partner with local schools. They are encouraging local businesses to build coalitions in support of the reforms called for in the law. The cable industry could be a major player at the table in each local community.

The law also creates business opportunities for cable companies in the communities they serve. State Education Departments and Local Education Agencies (school districts) will be contracting for many services that cable operators do or could provide. For example, cable companies might compete for a portion of the $1 billion appropriated to build 21^st Century Community Learning Centers to extend learning opportunities beyond the school day; or, they might partner with school districts, museums, and libraries to build Community Technology Centers, to provide free access to information technology and related training. Other companies might be in a position to provide schools with the extensive data management systems and support they will need to manage the sea of information they will need to gather and analyze to conform to the requirements of the legislation. Still others might want to focus on ways they could support teacher-parent connections in the communities they serve. Some of these opportunities could result in new business for cable companies; others could yield highly visible public relations coverage. They all represent potential bridges that can be built between the cable industry and the communities it serves.

Importance To Cable Program Networks

The legislation recognizes the importance of multimedia and multimodal learning resources for serving the needs of ALL learners. This should boost the value of the quality programming and online resources the cable industry is currently providing to schools.

At the same time, the legislation also creates expectations that schools will begin to implement “research-based” pedagogical practices. Consequently, schools are going to be looking for instructional resources that have been field tested before they are released, something that many cable program networks do not now do. Program networks might want to consider developing an affordable way to field test programs that are intended for educational use in the schools.

The legislation’s emphasis on improving performance in reading, mathematics, and science, should increase the demand for quality multimedia resources in those areas. The legislation also earmarks smaller amounts of funding for American history, civic education, and writing instruction and resources. In anticipation of a larger market for those resources, some program networks might consider partnering with each other and with educational institutions to produce resources that draw on their combined strengths.

Importance For The Entire Cable Industry

One of the main goals of the “No Child Left Behind” legislation is to increase the quality of the U.S. workforce by improving every student’s academic skills and “21^st Century Work Skills.” To the extent that the legislation is successful, the entire cable industry will benefit from workers who are more highly skilled at a time when job requirements are becoming more complex.

In the meantime, the changes that will be taking place in the nation’s schools offer great opportunities for cable companies and program networks to become active partners in improving learning in the schools. State Education Departments and Local Education Agencies will be looking for companies with which to partner to implement the changes called for in the legislation.

The entire cable industry could get behind the nation’s efforts to create and support a more highly trained teacher workforce, especially in its use of technology to help students improve their academic performance. The legislation requires every local school district to allocate 25% of the funds it receives under this law to sustained, intensive, high quality professional development.

Cable in the Classroom stands ready to help cable operators and program networks take maximum advantage of the opportunities to help teachers and students opened up by the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Sources

Readers who want to know more about the No Child Left Behind legislation and its implications for education are invited to visit these sites on the Internet:

Business Round Table. No Child Left Behind Business Leaders Toolkit. http://brt.org/toolkit/toolkit.html

CEO Forum. School Technology And Readiness (STAR) Charts. http://www.ceoforum.org/starchart.cfm

Northeast and Islands Regional Technology Consortium (NEIRTEC). Technology Briefs For NCLB Planners. http://www.neirtec.org/products/techbriefs

U.S. Congress. PL 107-110, The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. http://www.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA02

U.S. Department of Education. No Child Left Behind. http://nclb.gov/start/index.html