Every school day, approximately 7,000 students leave school without a regular diploma. Only about a third of the students who enter ninth grade each fall graduate four years later prepared for college or the contemporary workplace. Another third leave high school with a diploma but without the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in college or the contemporary workplace. And another third will not graduate from high school within four years, if at all.
For minority and low income students, the situation is even worse. High school students living in low-income families drop out of school at six times the rate of their peers from high-income families. Just over half of minority students graduate on time from high school with a regular diploma, compared to 78 percent of white students. Only 16 percent of Latino students and 23 percent of African-American students graduate prepared for college, compared to 40 percent of white students. Despite these startling outcomes for students, federal education policy does little to address these problems.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 is the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was originally signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. NCLB was passed with bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law because consensus had been reached that the nation needed to close the achievement gaps that existed between students of differing racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, and that schools should be held accountable for the success of all students. The principles of NCLB have helped to focus the nation’s attention on the unacceptable achievement gap and the imperative of improving outcomes for all students, especially those most disadvantaged. Because the needs of high schools are barely addressed in the current version of NCLB, federal policy does not effectively support improving achievement in our nation’s high schools and little federal funding ever reaches high schools.
The reauthorization of NCLB offers the opportunity to take the critical first steps toward creating an appropriate and adequate federal role in supporting middle and high school reform across the country.
The following Alliance for Excellent Education proposals for the reauthorization provide the cornerstones necessary to build a solid foundation for an effective federal role in advancing state and local work to achieve real secondary school improvement.
Included in the recommendations are:
- Leverage higher standards and better assessments aligned to college and work readiness;
- Ensure meaningful accountability for high schools, including graduation rates;
- Support state and local systems of high school improvement;
- Target new funding for turning around low-performing high schools;
- Invest in data systems and the professional development to use them;
- Help students build literacy skills beyond the third grade;
- Support innovation and research in secondary schools; and
- Create support for turning around low-performing middle schools.
More information on these recommendations are available in the Alliance for Excellent Education’s Agenda for the Reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.
ALLIANCE CALLS FOR NCLB REAUTHORIZATION
- Statement from the Alliance for Excellent Education: Congress Must Reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) Now (2008) With 7,000 students dropping out every school day, it is unacceptable to put off high school reform any longer. The Alliance calls on Congress to reauthorize NCLB, including specific recommendations to move the nation from the rhetoric of ‘no child left behind’ to a reality of ‘every child a graduate.
- Alliance for Excellent Education’s Agenda for the Reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (2008) This document outlines the Alliance’s priorities for a NCLB reauthorization and, for each recommendation, describes Congressional action to date.
- On February 14, over 20 civil rights and education organizations, including the Alliance for Excellent Education, urged Congress to immediately reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act. Reminding Congress that the current law and its shortcomings will remain in place for years to come if no action is taken, the organizations outlined some of the positive changes to current law that are being considered and should be included in reauthorization.
- House version
- Senate version
- In Need of Improvement: NCLB and High Schools (updated November 2007) This brief describes the design and implementation flaws of the current No Child Left Behind Act and how they undermine the educational and equity promises of NCLB at the high school level.
_______________________________________________________________________________
LEGISLATIVE DEVELOPMENTS
View comments submitted by the Alliance to the Department of Education in response to an April 23, 2008, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding proposed regulations on graduation rate accountability.
The Alliance for Excellent Education and a group of more than twenty education, civil rights, and advocacy organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education with their suggestions on how to better calculate and report graduation rates, and how to hold schools and districts accountable for graduating all students.
House Reauthorization: In August 2007, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) and Ranking Member Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) released a Discussion Draft of the No Child Left Behind Act. On September 10, 2007 the House Committee on Education and Labor held a hearing on the Discussion Draft.
- Read the press statement: “Bob Wise, President of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Issues Statement on Miller-Mckeon NCLB Reauthorization Draft”
- Read Gov. Wise’s prepared testimony for the September 10, 2007 hearing.
- Watch the full webcast of the House Committee on Education and Labor hearing.
- Read the press statement: Bob Wise, President of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Testifies Before House Committee on Education and Labor, September 10, 2007
- On April 23, 2007, Gov. Wise’s testified at the House Committee on Education and Labor hearing, “NCLB: Preventing Dropouts and Enhancing School Safety.” Read his prepared testimony.
Senate Reauthorization:
- On April 24, 2007, Gov. Wise’s testified at the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing, “NCLB Reauthorization: Modernizing Middle and High Schools for the 21st Century”. Read his prepared testimony.
_______________________________________________________________________________
OTHER LEGISLATION
Several Members of Congress have introduced legislation to address the systemic needs of the high school crisis.
- Key Pieces of Secondary School Legislation Pending Before Congress: This two-page document summarizes the nine pieces of secondary school legislation pending before Congress supported by the Alliance for Excellent Education, including sponsor and cosponsor information.
- Legislative Update: Learn more about each piece of legislation:
The Graduation Promise Act The METRICS Act
The Striving Readers Act S. 2014
The Every Student Counts Act Success in the Middle Act
The GRADUATES Act
_______________________________________________________________________________
MORE INFORMATION ON NCLB
-
In the News: Alliance comments on No Child Left Behind: Read news articles about NCLB including commentary from Alliance leadership and staff.
-
Straight A’s Articles: Read articles about NCLB in the Alliance’s flagship newsletter, Straight A’s.