NCLB HAS PRODUCED SUBSTANTIAL NATIONAL GAINS IN MATH SKILLS

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Landmark federal law responsible for gains in math among low-income and Hispanic students, but had no impact on reading achievement.


Just as the Obama administration has signaled that it has made reauthorizing the landmark No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal law a priority in 2010, an Education Next analysis by professors Thomas Dee and Brian Jacob shows that NCLB is responsible for marked gains in math skills, particularly among Latino and low-income students, but produced no improvements in reading achievement.

The impact NCLB has had on student achievement since its implementation in 2002 has always been difficult to gauge. Since the law applied to all public school students, there was no comparison group and it was impossible to determine which of countless factors contributed to student achievement.

However, authors Dee and Jacob conducted groundbreaking research, to be published in the summer issue of Education Next and available now online comparing test score changes in states that did not have NCLB-style accountability systems (both publicizing performance and attaching consequences to the performance) in place before 2002 to changes in those that already did when NCLB was implemented.

Dee’s and Jacob’s findings suggest that “the accountability provisions of NCLB generated large and statistically significant increases in the math achievement of 4th graders and that these gains were concentrated among Hispanic and low-income students.”

“Specifically, we find evidence that the accountability provisions of NCLB generated large and broad gains in the math achievement of 4th grad ers and somewhat smaller gains for 8th graders,” said the authors. “Our results suggest that NCLB accountability had no impact on read ing achievement for either group.”

The study relied on test-score data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” Data were available in 39 states for 4th-grade math, 38 states for 8th-grade math, 37 states for 4th-grade reading and 34 states for 8th-grade reading. The scholars found that NCLB raised the percentage of students who reached a basic level of proficiency by 10 percentage points in 4th grade math and by 6 percentage points in 8th grade math. The percentages reaching full proficiency in math increased by 6 percentage points in 4th grade, but no detectable gains were identified for the percentage reaching full proficiency in 8th grade math. Those identified as fully proficient in 4th grade reading increased by 2.5 percentage points, but no other significant reading impacts were identified. NCLB impacts on Hispanic math performance were even greater.

The research also found that NCLB increased achievement among higher-achieving students, casting doubt on concerns that the law has harmed this group.

The authors say that as lawmakers consider a redesign of NCLB, they may need to pay more specific attention to understanding what causes differing results by grade and subject.

“Understanding these differences, according to the analysis, will be critical as policymakers discuss the future design of NCLB,” Jacob said. “Our results, much like earlier evaluations of state-level school accountability policies, show that we need to look closely at what’s happening within our schools that can cause these changes in achievement.”