How Does NCLB Affect My Child’s School?

Test results:

What happens after testing? State standards tests generally serve at least two purposes: 1) They are used to determine Adequate Yearly Progress for each school. All the results for all students in a school are considered together, compared to results from the previous year, and the school is rated as making or not making AYP, both for the entire student body and for specific groups of students such as those in special education and those with limited English backgrounds. Thus the test results provide a snapshot of how the school as a whole is doing relative to the standards set by the state. More about AYP later.

2) Test results are often used to evaluate the progress and/or instructional needs of individual students, and may be used to make decisions about a student’s program or graduation status. NCLB does not dictate how or whether schools should use test results to make decisions for individual students. Local personnel and parents in the community therefore have considerable say as to how tests are used when it comes to individual students. Some schools rely on these test results to set graduation or grade promotion standards. Others may use test results simply as “red flags” that some students may need additional evaluation and/or support, or use the test scores to determine which students will be referred for summer school or other remedial (or even gifted) programs.

3) Some school systems might use state standards tests as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of teaching. This might mean that the overall test results will be used to determine if teachers need additional training in the most effective methods of teaching reading, for example, or to evaluate the effectiveness of special training or new curriculum. But some schools districts might also use state test results to determine which teachers receive “merit pay” (salary bonuses) or which schools are singled out for extra resources or special programs (due to their apparent success or failure).

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