Chapter 11: “Leaving No Child Behind”: African American Education in Antebellum America

For more than a decade, accountability-based reform has been America’s frontline defense against the public’s perception of schools as failures in the academic preparation of today’s youth and as unwitting agents in the stratification of society along racial and economic lines. Educational accountability has become the “language of currency in educational policy” (McNeil, 2000, p. 1). In an effort to speak this “language of currency” at the local level, 49 states embraced standards and assessments linked to significant consequences for schools and their principals (McNeil, 2000; Ravitch, 2000). To hold schools more accountable for their academic performance at a national level, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). NCLB places federal pressure on schools to improve with a sharp focus on outcomes for subgroups of children by race, disability status, limited English proficient status, and socioeconomic status. The assumption and the hope of the Act is that accountability-based reform will improve student achievement and reduce the gap in achievement along racial and social lines (Ravitch, 2000). Reform will be exemplified by the articulation of high standards for student achievement and the administration of tests to determine the level of student proficiency in the standards.