This week’s episode kicks off our first series on education policy. To get started, we’ll be looking at No Child Left Behind, the Bush era educational policy that changed the way our students learn, our teachers taught, and the measure of success for schools and districts. There are a lot of different thoughts on what it is and what it did, but we’ll get past the rumors on this controversial educational policy and get down to the facts.

Due to the size of this topic, we’ve broken it into 2 parts:

Part I covers:

1. What is No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

2. The History of this Educational Policy

3. Implementation of the Policy in K-12 Public Schools.

Part 2 will cover:

1. The Pros and Cons of NCLB

2. Criticisms of NCLB

3. The Impacts of NCLB

4. The legacy of NCLB and how it Continues to Impact Educational Policy

References for this episode:

a. No child left behind. ED.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml

b. Lee, A. M. I. (2021, May 4). What is no child left behind (NCLB)? Understood. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://www.understood.org/en/articles/no-child-left-behind-nclb-what-you-need-to-know

c. H.R.1 – no child left behind act of 2001 – congress. Congress.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/1

d. No child left behind act. Ballotpedia. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://ballotpedia.org/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act

“No Child Left Behind Bush speech”- Courtesy of Government Archives