The Myth and Reality of No Child Left Behind: Public Education and High Stakes Assessment

Students of education are aware of the story of public education, of legendary figures like Horace Mann riding from district to district trying to improve the American school by establishing a common school fund and developing teacher-training programs. Those who followed worked hard to broaden the mission and refine the institution. While advancing the distribution of textbooks, developing curriculum materials and employing testing tools, even as early as 1845, standardized testing was used to see if it all worked. Advocates used the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 to make accessible to all an education of worth for social advancement.
Yet today’s No Child Left Behind Act, signed in 2002 is, ironically so, a reform driven not by the advocates, but by public education’s most ardent detractors. NCLB appears to be an attempt to change the public education system fundamentally, from the perspective that it is broken, its mission in need of radical revision.