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The No Child Left Behind Act

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On January 8, 2002, George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law (also known as the NCLB). The No Child Left Behind Act was the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, a federal education bill addressing the nation’s schools. At his signing ceremony, Bush stated, “There’s no greater challenge than to make sure that every child—and all of us on this stage mean every child, not just a few children—every single child, regardless of where they live, how they’re raised, the income level of their family, every child receive a first-class education in America.” Although his pledge became the hope for improved education reform, effects have only been negative and contradictory to what they have promised. Introduced at a time of wide public concern about the state of education in America, the NCLB legislation set in place several requirements that reached into every public school and expanded the federal role in education, making their main goal to improve the education of minorities and disadvantaged students. They set the measures used to encourage academic improvement of individual students as well as schools as a whole, and made schools more accountable for student progress. Their tactic to doing this was by providing federal funds to schools with higher rates of students from lower income families. These measures range from testing to the quality of the teachers. NCLB law requirement stated that all schools must hold

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