Since 1965 Congress has regularly provided funds to
certain school districts (called “Title I” districts) to
help disadvantaged children. In 2001, new legislation
was passed, called the “No Child Left Behind” Act (NCLB),
that extended the funding for Title I districts and
specified that some of it be set aside for the use
of parents seeking better educational options for their
children. With this federal law, parents now have a new
and powerful tool in their hands.
In general, NCLB is intended to help students meet high
academic standards through holding schools accountable
for their success. The law requires states to create
annual assessments linked to state standards that
measure children’s knowledge and abilities in reading
and math in Grades 3 though 8. Schools are then
evaluated according to how well their students do on
these tests, and even more importantly, how much
improvement their students show year by year. The basic
requirement is that every school, no matter its
circumstances, must improve its educational performance
every year. This steady yearly improvement (defined in
the law as “Adequate Yearly Progress” - AYP) is then
used to define each Title I school as either successful
or failing.
The law required that each state put a system in place
that would assess all students according to content and
achievement standards, issue school “report cards” that
showed how each school was doing in ensuring that all
students met these standards, and hold schools and
districts accountable for maintaining adequate yearly
progress. By the summer of 2003 all states had submitted
such plans and had them approved.
The Response to Failing Schools
Schools that persistently fail to show that their
students are making adequate yearly progress toward
state proficiency goals will be targeted for assistance
and can be subjected to corrective action or even,
ultimately, forced restructuring or closure. However,
well before that takes place, NCLB empowers parents to
take corrective action by moving their children to
different schools or seeing to it that they are provided
with after-school tutoring, all at district expense. The
specifics are as follows:
1. If a child is attending a school that fails to meet
state standards for at least 2 consecutive years,
parents may transfer the child to a better performing
public school, including a public charter school, within
their district.
2. Parents also have the choice to move their children
to a safer school within their district if they attend
persistently dangerous schools or are the victims of
violent crimes while in school.
3. Students who are in schools that fail to meet state
standards for at least 3 years are eligible to
receive supplemental educational services, including
tutoring, after-school services, and summer school.
Interested parents must ask the district for their list
of “approved providers” of these services. To be
approved, providers must meet certain standards of
reliability and stability and must provide services
within the school district or nearby, and parents may
review the services, qualifications, and demonstrated
effectiveness of each provider in order to select the
one that appears best suited to meet their children’s
needs.
4. The costs of transportation to a different school or
the costs of supplementary services are to be paid by
the district, so long as the total cost does not exceed
a certain proportion of their Title I allotment.
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While federal law specifies what must be done, the
details are the responsibility of the school districts,
and districts do not always have the capacity or the
funds needed to follow though on the federal mandates.
Further, although NCLB requires Title I districts to set
funds aside to benefit children in failing schools, use
of these funds is still quite restricted. First, not
every parent can get access—the funds can only be used
to help children who attend Title I schools that have
persistently failed to meet accountability or safety
guidelines. Second, while these funds can be used to
move a child to a different school within the district
or to provide after-school tutoring, these tutoring and
transportation funds are limited—as are spaces in the
schools that parents might want to move their children
into.
A Philadelphia parent who wanted to know more about her
family’s specific situation would have to contact the School District of Philadelphia
to find out if her child is
eligible for a change of schools, what other schools are
available, whether her child is eligible for
supplemental services, and how to arrange for those
services.
Further Information About Parent Rights Under NCLB
To be kept aware of information about NCLB
including updates on changes, events, and announcements,
subscribe to
The Achiever, a federal newsletter. Another very
useful source of information is the
No Child Left Behind Compliance Insider.
To look more deeply into the NCLB laws and regulations,
you might want to begin with a general overview of the
No Child Left Behind Act written for parents. The parts
of that law that deal with the rights of parents to
request additional services are described as the right
of “School Choice” which provides for a move from a
failing school to a better school, and the right to
supplemental services such as after-school tutoring.
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