Did the No Child Left Behind Act and similar legislation prohibit schools from holding students back?
No.
No Child Left Behind, signed into law in 2002, and its successor, the Every Student Succeeds Act, contain no statutory language prohibiting schools from holding students back. Promotion and retention, though variably influenced by legislative incentives, are under state and local purview.
NCLB created sanctions to hold schools accountable for raising student performance which, though made more flexible by ESSA, remain rooted in minimum proficiency levels and standardized testing — metrics used in some states to determine promotion.
Data shows that retention rates peaked from 1999-2005 at 2.9 percent and declined to 1.5 percent in 2010, explained by some by the incentive to increase graduation rates.
However, in the pursuit of boosting testing results, retention can increase among some low-performing students, who may be excluded from standardized testing altogether.
This fact brief was originally written by Matthew Yim of Oklahoma Watch and is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Fact Briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact Briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network. Each brief is limited to 150 words or fewer and is not intended to provide an in-depth analysis, but rather to deliver concise, definitive answers grounded in verified information.
Sources:
- Congress.gov H.R.1 - No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
- Congress.gov EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT
- Manhattan Institute Test-Based Promotion Policies Have a Substantial Positive Effect on Students
- American Educational Research Association Study Finds Steep Decline in Students Repeating Grades
- National Academies Evidence on the Use of Test-Based Incentives
- Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education Evaluating 'No Child Left Behind'
- ALEPH (UCLA) Shape Up or Ship Out: The Effect of No Child Left Behind on Teachers’ Methods of Teaching
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