No Child Left Behind Act in New York State
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCBL) is a debatable United States federal law. Its main purpose is to create better federal programs in order to improve education, which it will make states and school districts fully accountable for providing students a much higher quality of education (Peterson 215). The act was passed by the House of Representatives on May 23, 2001, by the senate in June 14, 2001 and signed it into law by President Bush on January 8, 2002. The No Child left behind mandates that every school in the United States must make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, each school year. Adequate Yearly Progress is the minimum amount of improvement a school district, school, or state must make each year. Each state department of education is responsible for defining AYP and developing annual objectives that measure student performance.
These objectives are meant to ensure that in 12 years, every student in the United States will score at the “proficiency” level on standardized tests. Each year, a state, such as NY State must review the progress of each district and school receiving Title 1 funds to determine whether or not they are making AYP. If a school or district is unable to make adequate yearly progress consecutively for two years, then that school or district is labeled as “in need of improvement” (Peterson 26). These “low performing” schools must then give their students the option of transferring to another school and/or invest in professional development for teachers and administrators to attempt to fix the problem (Williams 53).
The NCLB is actually the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) originally approved by Congress in 1965. ESEA was the first federal ruling that (part of the “Great Society” program from President Lyndon Johnson) offered true significant amounts of federal money to help local schools enhanced education to be given to students that...