Education became a federal issue in the 1960s, during the space race, when government officials wanted to keep track of student performance in the United States compared to students in other nations. An accountability movement began, which held school districts and teachers accountable for students' progress, or lack there of. To measure this progress, NAEP exams were created. NAEP (the National Association of Education Progress) exams are administered by the Department of Education. Scores peaked in the 1960s, but when they hit rock bottom in the 1980s, a twenty year process began that led up to the idea that something needs to be done. That something became No Child Left Behind.

The idea of NCLB actually began with former President George H. W. Bush. He proposed the idea of national education reform, but at the time no one wanted strict standards from the national government, so neither political party supported the idea. Former President Bill Clinton then established the first accountability mandate, but it was not enforced upon the states. This mandate, called Goals 2000, gave money to schools to establish their own programs, but no one would punish schools if it was not followed through. Throughout the 1990s, federal education funding increased by 15%, but NAEP scores stayed relatively the same and achievement gaps began to widen.

In the first week of his presidency, President George W. Bush introduced NCLB, which was a reflection of the education reform he had passed in the state of Texas when he was its governor. NCLB was ultimately passed by the national government, and President Bush signed the bill into law on January 8, 2002. When the final NCLB bill was signed, many issues were left ambiguous on purpose so the Department of Education could go in and finalize them. By the time the final, rewritten NCLB bill was passed by both the Congress and the House of Representatives, it was November 2002 and t\it went into effect in January 2003. Thus, states only had three months to make major changes in the lives of their students, teachers, administrators, and families.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information from this page was obtained from NAEP Overview, Professor Melissa Comber's class lecture in Political Science 191 at Allegheny College on September 29, 2005, and from Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia.