Research Paper on "Federal No Child Left Behind Act"

Research Paper 5 pages (1589 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

No Child Left Behind -- Analysis

When President George W. Bush, working with Congress in 2001, pulled together the legislation called No Child Left Behind (NCLB) it was believed that NCLB would dramatically upgrade the public school system in the U.S. By emphasizing accountability and consequences for a lack of accountability. It hasn't worked as smoothly and effectively as was hoped for. Indeed, NCLB was created in large part to demand more accountability from schools, students, teachers and school districts. If schools receive federal money, the argument goes, they then must show that they have done a more effective job of helping students learn. In fact the NCLB mandated that each state implement its own system of accountability that included "annual testing of all students in grades three through eight by 2006 and disaggregated data on student performance…" in every public school in every state (Hanushek, et al., 2005, p. 297).

Improved performance was, of course, at the root of the need for NCLB, because previous federal legislative attempts to bring schools up to higher standards had not produced the desired results. This paper reports on an analysis of NCLB's successes and shortcomings (up to 2005) conducted by scholars in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (Hanushek, 2005, p. 297), and supplements that research with additional scholarly research and analysis.

The Hanushek article points out that several states had accountability systems in place prior to NCLB, and some of those "had a clear positive impact on student achievement" albeit the gap between African-American and Caucasian students had not been narrowed, Hanushek writes (p. 297). In addition, placement rates for special education students -- "a frequently identified area of concern" -- did not show "any responsiveness" to those accountability systems in place previous to NCLB, Hanushek continues.

Meantime, Hanushek, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a Research Associate with the national Bureau of Economic Research, and his research colleague, Margaret E. Raymond, also a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, flatly hypothesize that accountability systems lead to more substantial achievement growth than could have been realized without accountability. That having been said, Hanushek asserts that "…without consequences such as monetary awards or takeover threats" mere accountability isn't enough to push schools to become better performing institutions. Hanushek's assertion is not normative; his assertion -- based on the data accumulated, analyzed and put forward -- is empirical. Although Hanushek's research was conducted after only three years of NCLB's implementation, he insists, "the introduction of consequential accountability systems has a clearly beneficial impact on overall performance" (p. 321).

Hanushek admits that there is "no ready comparison group that can indicate what might have happened without any law" and because the rate of implementation across many states is of course quite different, his analysis of NCLB had to look at "growth in performance between fourth and eighth grades" in order to "eliminate fixed differences in circumstances and policies" within each state (p. 298).

What data -- and hypotheses -- did Hanushek use in his analysis? The author explains (p. 299) that there is no consensus as to which factors are relevant in terms of determining the performance of students. And "similar ambiguities" are confronted when researchers give consideration to which "family influences" have the greatest effect on student performance (p. 299). Given the lack of dependable data on the above-mentioned factors, other kinds of analysis must be employed. Further, because the growing concentration of African-Americans in big city public schools, and because of the decrease of Caucasians in those same urban school systems -- and because of the nagging gap between African-American and Caucasian performance -- the "racial composition of schools may interact with efforts to improve schools in ways that policy designers have not yet understood" (Hanushek, 299-300). Notwithstanding those issues, Hanushek utilized data reflecting state differences in mathematics and reading performance provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

First, the authors looked at growth in performance between the fourth and eighth grades "to eliminate fixed differences in circumstances and policies of each state" (p. 298). Next, the authors included "explicit measures for major categories of time varying inputs" (such as school spending, racial exposure and parental education). Thirdly, the analysis delved into an estimate of "growth models with state fixed effects to eliminate any other policies" that establish trends up or down in the performance of students in each state (p. 298). And lastly the approach used was to identify differences "by race or ethnicity" and then "disaggregate the state results for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics" (Hanushek, p. 298).

Hanushek admits that because states employ different policies and data, "statistical estimates of accountability" will very likely "be biased" (p. 301). The approach here is in some respects qualitative (because of the variation in the quality of schools and the resulting contrasting test scores) but overall Hanushek's approach is an attempt to use quantitative measures. Notwithstanding the analytical complications, by taking into account school background factors (financial structures, rules applied to collective bargaining, curricular dynamics) and/or school resources correlated with policies set forth by the state, these variables "will partially proxy for the other policies" (Hanushek, p. 301).

The objective that is highly relevant to this research is to be able to generalize about what would happen when accountability is brought into all states. That's not an easy assignment because analysis relies on "observed student performance data" and because the researcher's sample of students may not be representative of the entire student population. There are so many variables to take into account when attempting to provide accurate analysis, Hanushek uses page after page of his thirty-page paper extrapolating, digressing and presenting esoteric algebraic formulae. However, Hanushek provides assurance that if NCLB backs up its demands to institute accountability -- with consequences for schools that don't meet accountability standards -- that will (and does) have a "positive influence on school performance" (pp. 309-310).

That data -- using test scores and demographics vis-a-vis parents, ethnicity of students -- shows that higher concentrations of minority students "…has a statistically significant negative impact on Blacks but do not significantly affect either Whites or Hispanics" (Hanushek, p. 312). Moreover, the data used by Hanushek shows that the racial composition of schools is important for African-Americans; e.g., "Blacks do worse when attending less-integrated schools" (p. 312). As regards achievement gaps between races -- an important goal within the context of NCLB -- the Latino - Caucasian gap in gains drops from 0.63 standard deviations to 0.44 standard deviations when "consequential accountability" is introduced in a state. However, the African-American - Caucasian gap in performance (based on accountability tests) actually increases from 0.39 to 0.52 standard deviations (Hanushek, p. 314).

What Hanushek wants to emphasize in particular is that accountability systems do in fact lead to improvements in student performance on NAEP mathematics and reading tests, but as is shown above, they do not meet the objective of closing achievement gaps. So test scores improve overall, but the gap that has existed for a long time in schools -- between Caucasians and minorities -- does not meet NCLB's objectives (Hanushek, p. 314).

There are researchers digging into the issues surrounding NCLB that question the validity of any research that purports to be empirical; that is because the many tests administered in all fifty states have such widely diverse formats. Data can be stacked one way or another, and skewed according to the bias of the data or the bias of the researcher. Because of this diversity accountability systems that have been created by states "…can present real challenges to researchers" (Azin, et al., 2008, p. 72). The methods that are designed to indicate progress can be categorized as "status models, improvement models, and growth models," Azin explains on page 72. Writing in… READ MORE

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