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The oft-stated purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) to close achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students will likely go unfulfilled without significant rethinking and revision, argues Abernathy (political science, U. of Minnesota). He examines the current impacts of NCLB on public school leadership; criticizes its failure to take into account the determining factors of race, ethnicity, and inequality on achievement test scores; and considers how NCLB interacts with the school-choice approach. He then offers advice on reforming NCLB that calls for directly measuring leadership and quality within educational institutions rather than trying to extract such information from student test scores and creating reward incentives based on those assessments. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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“A powerful, detailed, and exceptionally balanced critique of NCLB. It offers some hope for how we might overcome its faults. No legislator or educational expert should be allowed to get away with not reading it—whether to agree or disagree. It’s a must learning experience.”—Deborah Meier, Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor, Steinhardt School of Education, New York University, and author of In Schools We Trust“A concise, highly readable, and balanced account of NCLB, with insightful and realistic suggestions for reform. Teachers, professors, policymakers, and parents—this is the one book about NCLB you ought to read.”—James E. Ryan, William L. Matheson and Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor, University of Virginia School of LawThis far-reaching new study looks at the successes and failures of one of the most ambitious and controversial educational initiatives since desegregation—the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.NCLB’s opponents criticize it as underfunded and unworkable, while supporters see it as a radical but necessary educational reform that evens the score between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Yet the most basic and important question remains unasked: “Can we ever really know if a child’s education is good?”Ultimately, Scott Franklin Abernathy argues, policymakers must begin from this question, rather than assuming that any test can accurately measure the elusive thing we call “good” education.
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