Article 1: Nclb—The Educational Accountability Paradigm In Historical Perspective: The Role of the Campus Environment

David Tyack observed that the 1960s might represent a major historical turning point in educational history (Tyack 1974, 270). Subsequent events have proven him correct. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) signaled the beginning of a sustained federal involvement in education through the use of federal funding and gradually expanding mandates for schools utilizing federal funds. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) represents a quantum leap in both Federal involvement and Federal mandates to schools. In the relatively short period of less than a decade NCLB has changed how teachers teach, what subjects are taught, and how teachers and principals are evaluated. The institutional, funding, governance and curricular changes that began with the War on Poverty programs in the 1960s laid a foundation and set the stage for the more dramatic and potentially lasting changes now impacting and altering American educational institutions in terms of curriculum and assessment practices for both students and educational professionals. A series of contingent historical and political events, from the publication of “A Nation at Risk” in 1983, to the development of the National Educational Goals Report, Building a Nation of Learners in 1993, to America 2000, and the passage of Goals 2000, Educate America Act signed by President Clinton in 1994 laid the foundation. The 1994 reauthorization contained standards-based reforms but they lacked the sanctions that came with NCLB. The historic reauthorization of ESEA as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 provided the structure to institutionalize and render permanent the changes in curriculum and accountability.