Tests of academic progress such as those enforced by No Child Left Behind Act are the only practical way to hold schools accountable for educating all children and are therefore essential to the twin aims of quality and fairness. Many of the complaints against the No Child Left Behind law pertain to the supposedly harmful influence of intensive…

Current educational reform in K-12 schools in this nation is much driven by the No Child Left Behind Act. One central goal of NCLB is to "bring all students (including special education children) up to grade level in reading and math, to close the achievement gap and to hold schools accountable for results"(ed.gov). Varied innovative…

This report presents data on home schooling in the state of Arkansas that covers: students withdrawn from home school; home school student count by county, district, and grade level; and home school enrollments by grade and gender. The report contains the texts of the Arkansas Code Annotated Section 6-15-501 through Section 6-15-508 Home School…

Because children living in poverty and minorities consistently demonstrate persistent reading difficulties (Adams, 1990), Congress intervened and passed the No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2006) mandating that scientifically based reading research be implemented in the primary grades. Quantitative studies presented in the…

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one…

This 2-year longitudinal study examined initial evidence of progress in reading for 1,512 children with and without identified speech-language and/or learning disabilities (LD-SLD) in the context of the explicit literacy instruction provided in Michigan's Reading First (RF)schools. The findings suggested that children with LD-SLD labels…

English language learners (ELLs) constitute one of the fastest growing subpopulations of students in the United States. It is important to determine whether the assessments used by states in determining students' proficiencies are valid and fair for ELLs. This study focused on several standards-based assessments in mathematics and science…

This paper profiles the student subgroup achievement and gap trends in Iowa for 2010. In grade 8 (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), Iowa had data for racial/ethnic subgroups, low income students, and boys and girls at the proficient and advanced levels. Trends at the proficient and advanced levels were…

CONCLUSIONS OF JUDGE SWEENEY'S REVIEW OF THE SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, RULING ARE PRESENTED. THERE WAS NO DELIBERATE INTENTION OF THE SCHOOL AUTHORITIES TO SEGREGATE THE SCHOOLS. SEGREGATION RESULTED FROM A RIGID ADHERENCE TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE, WHICH HAD BEEN IN EFFECT SINCE THE LATTER PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…

The passage of the federal educational legislation, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, established foreign languages as a core curricular content area. Nonetheless, educational policy makers at the state and local levels often opt to allocate greater resources and give instructional priority to content areas in which students, and ultimately the…

In recent years, special educators' roles and responsibilities have undergone significant transformations deriving from both internal and external sources. This article initially reviews some of the reform movements that have sought to bring research-based practices into the classroom, particularly for students considered exceptional or at-risk.…

The passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 established foreign languages as a core curricular area. Nonetheless, educational policymakers at the state and local levels often opt to allocate greater resources and give instructional priority to content areas in which students, and ultimately the school systems themselves, are held…

Sustaining improvement and building capacity for ongoing learning is a key challenge for schools, particularly high-performing schools facing increasing pressures from the No Child Left Behind Act. This paper presents a discussion on how goal setting with students increases the academic student achievement in Burleigh Elementary School. Teachers…

President Bush says that the No Child Left Behind Act is working, pointing to student-achievement results from a single subsection of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and tentative Reading First data. But the evidence available to support his claim is questionable. The data Mr. Bush cited are from just the "long-term…