No Child Left Behind: Trends and Issues

Resident Scholar Frederick M. Hess
Resident Scholar
Frederick M. Hess
The No Child Left Behind Act is the most ambitious piece of education legislation ever enacted by Congress. Designed to promote accountability and prod states to address educational inequities, NCLB includes significant provisions regarding assessment, sanctions for low-performing schools and districts, teacher quality and standards for educational research.

On Jan. 8, 2002, surrounded by members of both the Democratic and Republican congressional leadership, President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into law. NCLB is the nation's most significant federal legislation on K-12 schooling since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, and the most ambitious federal intervention in a domain long regarded as the preserve of state and local government.

Enacted just months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress approved NCLB by large, bipartisan majorities. The U.S. Senate supported the new law 87-10, and the House of Representatives endorsed it 381-41. Emerging from an exhaustive year of negotiations, NCLB refashioned federal education policy in the areas of testing, accountability and teacher quality. More than anything else, NCLB was a demand by Washington, D.C. policymakers that state and local officials do something about low-performing schools.

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Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at AEI.

About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess
  • An educator, political scientist, and author, Frederick M. Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. He is the author of influential books on education including The Same Thing Over and Over, Education Unbound, Common Sense School Reform, Revolution at the Margins, and Spinning Wheels, and pens the Education Week blog "Rick Hess Straight Up."  His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, New York Times and National Review. He has edited widely-cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the school dollar, the impact of education research, and No Child Left Behind.  He serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, on the Review Board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education, and on the Boards of Directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS, and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University, and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum.

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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
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