No Child Left Behind may help students get ahead Test scores found to have improved since controversial law was passed Wednesday, June 25, 2008 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff With the president who penned the law soon to be replaced, the federal No Child Left Behind Act is facing renewed scrutiny over whether the controversial legislation has improved the nation's public schools. A state-by-state study released yesterday indicates that, at least when it comes to test scores, student achievement has improved since the law was enacted, including in New Jersey. The report by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington think tank, puts New Jersey among a majority of states that have seen test scores rise, at least slightly, since 2002 when President Bush signed the law that ramped up school testing and the stakes on schools that don't show improvement. Still, the authors of the report stressed they could not draw a direct line between the federal law and state-by-state results. For instance, New Jersey in that interval also heeded its own court-ordered push to improve urban districts under the Abbott v. Burke rulings. The authors said plenty of questions remain about whether the gains come at the expense of narrower curriculums in many schools. "These are positive results for the country," said John Jennings, executive director of the Center on Education Policy. "But that doesn't mean we should stop asking the questions of whether we are improving for the right reasons." The report is the latest in the center's ongoing work to track how individual states have progressed under the federal law. Last year, the same group reported that schools spent less time on subjects, like social studies and arts, not subject to annual testing as required by the federal law. The law stresses reading and math, and yesterday's study showed clear gains in those subjects. In New Jersey, roughly three quarters of students in 2007 passed state reading tests, and fared marginally better in math. New Jersey was among 21 states that were found to have made "moderate-to-large" gains in elementary-school math since 2002, and 22 states showed a significant rise in middle school scores. New Jersey was even one of 12 states that showed a similar level of improvement in high school math. Like the rest of the nation, New Jersey did not show the same kind of improvements in reading. Nationally, there were only slight gains, if at all, in all three grade levels. (The CEP report erroneously listed a big drop in eighth grade reading scores in New Jersey last year, when, in fact, the passing rate dropped by less than a percentage point.) The report praised New Jersey for narrowing the so-called achievement gap between races and economic classes in virtually every grade level. State officials said they were not surprised by the report's overall findings, but agreed No Child Left Behind is only one of the many factors driving the gains. "New Jersey had clearly defined standards prior to No Child Left Behind, and a testing program linked to those standards prior to No Child Left Behind," said Richard Vespucci, a state Department of Education spokesman. "But what No Child Left Behind has done for all the education community is underscore the importance of student performance and of meeting the requirements of the law," he said. John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com, or 973-392-1548. © 2008 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.