NCLB / Title I

Research on the civil rights implications of federal policies like the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it's 2001 reauthorization known as No Child Left Behind, or Title I of ESEA.

When Families Are Deported: Schooling for US-Citizen Students in Mexico

This paper summarizes existing research, analyzes response efforts by the Mexican government, and recommends ways federal and state governments in the U.S. can partner with Mexican institutions to meet the educational needs of the estimated 600,000 US-citizen students attending preschool through high school in Mexico.

Why High Stakes Accountability Sounds Good But Doesn‘t Work— And Why We Keep on Doing It Anyway

The Civil Rights Project has been studying the results of NCLB in six states since it was passed and has previously issued 12 reports, as well as two books and a number of articles, on its implementation and the results.

Holding NCLB Accountable: Achieving Accountability, Equity, and School Reform

These essays raise important questions about NCLB's effects and offer strong recommendations for designing workable accountabitlity systems that will lead to coherent efforts to improve schools.

Supplemental Educational Services under NCLB: Charting Implementation

This brief examines trends in the implementation of the NCLB supplemental educational services program over five years (2002-03 to 2006-07). It is based on data collected from six states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, New York, and Virginia) and eleven districts within those states that enrolled large numbers of minority and low-income students. The sample includes the nation’s three largest public schools districts: Los Angeles Unified School District, the Chicago Public Schools, and the New York City Public Schools. Together, these three districts enroll over 2 million students in 1,807 schools. Three districts—Mesa, AZ, Fresno, CA, and DeKalb County, GA—are among the nation’s 50 largest school districts (Sable & Young, 2003). The five remaining districts are located in major metropolitan areas in Phoenix, AZ (Washington Elementary School District), Buffalo, NY, Arlington County, VA, Richmond, VA, and Atlanta, GA. The six states and eleven districts are part of a larger study on NCLB.1 Data was collected from state websites and directly from district officials. A more detailed description of the data sources used in this brief is contained in the appendix.

Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing Opportunities? School District Experience with Supplemental Educational Service

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires districts to offer supplemental educational services to students in schools that are in the second year of school improvement—that is, schools that have been identified for not meeting the state’s adequate yearly progress goals for three consecutive years. NCLB defines supplementaleducational services as “additional academic instruction designed to increase the academic achievement of students in low-performing schools” and states that services must “be provided outside the regular school day.” Supplemental service providers may include non-profit, for-profit, and faith-based organizations in addition to the public schools. These requirements are new and have no precedent in prior federal legislation.

School Accountability Under NCLB: Aid or Obstacle for Measuring Racial Equity?

We conclude from the analysis presented in this policy brief that AYP and the state proficiency targets are not very informative when it comes to determining educational progress because of the ways the law has been changed. The AYP data does not allow us to say whether schools are getting better because some states have retained their original standards while others have modified them. Since states are going in opposite directions—some states report a decline in the number of schools identified for improvement while others report an increase—it is difficult to know how much progress has been made improving student performance.

Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of NCLB on the Gaps

This report concludes that neither a significant rise in achievement, nor closure of the racial achievement gap is being achieved. Small early gains in math have reverted to the preexisting pattern. If that is true, all the pressure and sanctions have, so far, been in vain or even counterproductive. The federal government is providing $412 million a year to help pay for part of the additional testing required by the law and many states claim that they are being forced to divert state funds to testing and other provisions they believe are unnecessary.