Chapter 2: No Child Left Behind as School Reform: Intended and Unintended Consequences

In this chapter, we consider No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) as a school reform. We bring to bear on our consideration House and McQuillan’s (1998) prescription that to be sustained, any reform must take into account political, technological, and cultural factors. They argued that reform neglecting any of the three would likely fail. We analyze NCLB in terms of these three factors. Then we present the perspectives of superintendents and principals and convey how they have bought into the egalitarian values promoted by NCLB but have had to struggle to implement it in the face of its inadequacies, internal contradictions, and unintended consequences. We end with the consideration that the next step should be providing more support for leaders to sustain school reforms that do not adequately address all the necessary factors.