By Matthew Ladner, PhD and Dan Lips
For decades, federal policymakers have tried to implement education reforms to improve opportunities for disadvantaged students and ethnic-minority children. Since 2001, the focus of federal policy has been the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation--which increased federal funding for K-12 education programs and created new academic requirements for states and public schools that receive federal assistance.
NCLB established new requirements for states to set educational standards, test students annually on core subjects, and to implement reforms in public schools that fail to demonstrate adequate progress on state tests. The combination of testing and reform interventions was intended to provide better learning opportunities for students in danger of falling behind in low-performing schools.
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