| Public school educators are required to implement and to meet the goals of the federal education reform, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This comprehensive legislation provides a prescriptive format that educators must follow and all children are to improve regardless of ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, disabilities, home environment or parental support. Reeves (2003) suggest that the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), particularly, but not limited to, the accountability and assessment provisions requiring all students to meet the academic performance standards established by each state by 2013--2014, will present challenges to districts, schools and educators.; Kane, Staiger and Geppert (2002) imply that NCLB is "seriously flawed" and that the problems embedded in the federal education reform are daunting. They further suggest that while the federal policy was designed to correct problems in public education, it creates myriad other problems.; As schools across the nation implement the new law, the purpose of this study is to examine the understanding of NCLB and its implications as perceived by educators and to determine: (1) if there are any significant differences between classroom teachers and building level administrators in their professed understanding and their perceived implications of NCLB; and (2) to examine differences between educators' of Title I and non-Title I schools understanding and perceived implications of the law. |
