| The purpose of this policy analysis was to evaluate the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). This analysis briefly reviewed how the U.S. public school education system developed for children from economically advantaged families and three traditionally economically disadvantaged families: American Indians, African Americans, and developmentally disabled Americans. This analysis found that this law fails to achieve its stated goals due to its unintended effects of pressuring teachers to "teach to the test" and the unintended effect of giving states the ability to lower their proficiency standards, thus ensuring that all of their public school students pass the federally mandated standardized testing in an effort to keep federal public school funding at a certain level. Lastly, this analysis discusses areas for future research, its cross cultural implications, areas of focus for future research, and the implications this policy analysis has on the profession of social work. |
