Rockland County In New York….

looks at how the No Child Left Behind Act is working in eight school districts. The school district is home to 42,000 public school students and around 22,000 private school students. From the class of 2005 26% went on to a two-year college while 68% went to a four-year college.

Things they liked about the NCLB bill were Accountability, Striving to close the achievement gap, Family connections, preparing children to achieve standards, professional development benefits, and finally addressing the overall quality of education.

Some challenges and negative things about this bill were, funding problems, performance of educators as it pertains to the “highly qualified teacher” rules of the bill, meeting year 2014 goals, overemphasis on testing, impact on curriculum, data problem, and English Language Learners just to name a few.

A couple of recommendations they give is setting aside federal money for after-school programs for low-performing schools, private schools need to give out same performance information, and base accountability only on grades 4 and 8.

I found this report to be a nice read and certainly something I would love to see more areas in the US do.