Education reforms under the
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), introduced by the Bush administration, have been hotly debated in the United States. Since the 1990s, standard-based education reforms have been developed in many states aiming principally to close the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students. However, an assertive technique of policy implementation by using sanctions and rewards under NCLB has caused considerable confusion in the practical field of education. It is important to consider the kinds of education policy problems that have faced school districts governing actual school education, and how these bodies have reacted to the standard-based education policy requirements mandated by the federal government to secure the achievements of minority students.
This paper examines how school districts have formed the framework of standard-based education, and how they have reacted to and interacted with the federal government under NCLB, taking the Seattle School District in Washington state as a case study. Furthermore, this discussion considers the characteristics and problems of standard-based education policies from the viewpoint of minority education policy.
At the state level, the Washington State Legislature passed the
Education Reform Act in 1993, and performance standards for students, an accountability system, and the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) test were developed to evaluate schools. However, the state had to amend the levels of accountability in accordance with NCLB in 2003.
At the school district level, the Seattle School District also amended its academic goals in line with NCLB. Focusing on the results of the WASL test for the years 2003 to 2005, although the Seattle School District met the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets in the "all students" category, certain sub-groups of students fell short of the goals. It is important that the achievements of black and white students tend to show considerable differences, particularly in mathematics. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract)
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