The Most Misunderstood Piece of Education Legislation

With Margaret Spellings

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was a landmark education reform bill passed in 2001 with broad bipartisan support (384-45 in the House and 91-9 in the Senate). Spearheaded by President George W. Bush with the unlikely bedfellow of Senator Ted Kennedy, NCLB sought to close student achievement gaps by introducing measurable goals and holding schools accountable for student performance. Its most prominent features included mandatory standardized testing, school performance reports, and sanctions for schools that failed to make adequate yearly progress. 

As the years went on, many liberals and education advocates began to criticize NCLB. They argued that its emphasis on high-stakes testing led to "teaching to the test" at the expense of a more holistic education, placed undue stress on students and teachers, and failed to consider the myriad of external factors that can impact a student's academic performance. Additionally, some believed that the strict sanctions penalized under-resourced schools instead of providing them with the necessary support to improve. Over time, these mounting critiques from liberals, combined with concerns from other quarters, led to calls for revising or replacing the act. The ghost of NCLB's controversies haunts our education debates to this very day, casting shadows on every significant policy discourse.

That backlash, and the underlying misconceptions of the bill, is the subject of a recent conversation I had with former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. We dive into the history of NCLB, why it still matters, and what a bipartisan consensus on federal education policy could look like in 2023.