The effectiveness of the nation's schools is a concern at all levels of government. It is generally held that all students in elementary and secondary education should have access to quality public schools, providing all students with an opportunity to meet rigorous academic standards. Examining whether students are being held to well-defined academic standards and achievement at desired levels has become one of the primary foci of federal education policy in elementary and secondary schools. Federal policies aiming to improve the effectiveness of schools have historically focused largely on inputs, such as supporting teacher professional development, class-size reduction, and compensatory programs or services for disadvantaged students. Over the last two decades, however, interest in developing federal policies that focus on student outcomes has increased. Most recently, the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; P.L. 107-110 ), which amended and reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), marked a dramatic expansion of the federal government's role in supporting standards-based instruction and test-based accountability, thereby increasing the federal government's involvement in decisions that directly affect teaching and learning. The 112 th Congress may act to reauthorize the ESEA. In approaching this task, Congress may grapple with several substantial issues related to the current accountability requirements included in the ESEA and how, or if, those requirements should be altered. For example, the following issues may receive attention: exploring ways to enhance consistency across state standards and assessments while ensuring sufficient flexibility for states with respect to these decisions, modifying consequences for failure to meet academic targets, incorporating outcomes-based accountability in teacher evaluations and compensation systems, and examining the role of the federal government in improving public elementary and secondary education. The first part of this report examines the federal government's evolving role in supporting state and local accountability for elementary and secondary education and discusses how this role may continue to evolve or change during reauthorization. The discussion begins with the emergence of this role from the standards-based reform movement that gained traction in the 1980s and the resulting changes made to the ESEA during the 1994 reauthorization. This is followed by a detailed examination of the accountability requirements included in the NCLB. The discussion also examines the authority of the Secretary of Education (hereafter referred to as the Secretary) to make changes to the ESEA that some may view as effectively reauthorizing at least a portion of the ESEA. The second part of the report focuses on broad NCLB implementation issues that have arisen and how the federal role in elementary and secondary education may evolve or change in response during ESEA reauthorization. Historically, education has been the domain of state and local governments. Since the initial enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965 (P.L. 89-10), federal education policy has focused on equity. For example, since its inception the ESEA has focused on serving disadvantaged students and on meeting their academic needs to close the achievement gap that exists between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers. Other federal education policies that were enacted after ESEA, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title IX, have also focused on providing equity. That is, federal education efforts in recent decades have been geared at pushing states and LEAs to provide equal educational opportunities for all students. The role of the federal government with respect to elementary and secondary education, however, began to change substantially in the early 1990s, as a focus on standards and assessments for all students was added to the traditional focus on equity. This section examines the evolution of this changing role beginning with the standards-based reform movement through the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA; P.L. 103-382 ), which reauthorized the ESEA in 1994. Subsequent sections of the report provide an in-depth analysis of the requirements of the NCLB and associated issues. During the 1980s, waves of education reform swept across the nation. The first wave included activities that were mostly characterized as "top-down" reforms, meaning that they were imposed on schools primarily from the state level. These included, among other activities, increased requirements for high school graduation, attempts to lengthen the school day or year, increased testing of students' basic skills, and establishment of higher standards for entry or continuation in teaching. Generally, this initial wave of reform is considered to have had little positive effect on student achievement. Prompted in part by the limited success of the initial wave of the 1980s reforms, policymakers pursued other approaches to reform. The second wave of reform focused on empowerment, variation, and "bottom-up" decision making where policymakers sought to achieve the conditions necessary for educational success in individual schools. Some of these efforts focused on schools as the unit of change, calling for such action as greater school-site autonomy, increased competition among schools, and a greater role for parents in making educational decisions for their children. In several states (e.g., Kentucky), a third approach that melded elements of top-down and bottom-up strategies was initiated. This course of action was premised on the need for system-wide reform, addressing the needs and problems at all levels of the system in a coherent and integrated fashion. At the heart of this reform was the premise that relevant reform action should be guided by educational goals and standards at each level of educational governance—particularly, state and local—and that reform action should occur simultaneously at these levels. According to the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), "[m]ore state activity aimed at improving public education took place in the 1980s than ever before." This observation was based on the number of education-related bills that were introduced at the state level, increased state aid for education, and the number of state-level education-related task forces and commissions. This increase in state activity may be attributable, in part, to improved state policymaking capacities and growing state tax bases, as well as the publication of A Nation At Risk , which decried the condition of education in the nation. Not only were many states actively engaged in the standards-based reform movement, an event held in 1989 that brought together President George H. W. Bush and state governors, including then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, would mark a turning point in the federal government's involvement in the standards-based reform movement. At the first national education summit conference in the country's history, President Bush and the nation's governors endorsed the establishment of National Education Goals that would provide a framework for restructuring the federal role in elementary and secondary education. In the following year, they announced six goals. These policymakers agreed that setting goals would be an empty gesture unless progress toward the goals was measured and reported to the nation. To that end, they concluded that there should be standards defining what students need to know in each subject area, standards for performance in those subjects, and assessments to measure student performance. They also created the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) to monitor national and state progress toward the goals. The groundwork laid at the first national education summit coalesced in the enactment of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act ( P.L. 103-227 ) in 1994. Goals 2000 represented a new, structured federal role in the education reform movement that was occurring at the state and local levels. The first three titles of P.L. 103-227 codified eight National Education Goals to be achieved by 2000 (Title I), created a National Education Goals Panel to monitor progress toward the goals (Title II), and authorized a standards-based reform state grant program (Title III). Title I of Goals 2000 enacted into law the six goals originally adopted by President Bush and the governors in 1990 and added two additional goals (the fourth and eighth goals listed below). These goals provided that by the year 2000, 1. all children will start school ready to learn; 2. the high school graduation rate will be at least 90%; 3. students will master a challenging curriculum at grades 4, 8, and 12; 4. teachers will have access to professional development opportunities; 5. U.S. students will be the first in the world in science and math achievement; 6. all adults will be literate; 7. schools will be free of drugs, violence, and firearms; and 8. every school will promote parental involvement in education. Three kinds of education standards were addressed initially by Goals 2000—curriculum content standards, student performance standards, and Opportunity-to-Learn standards. To provide national oversight and direction of the standards effort, Title II authorized the establishment of two entities—NEGP (which was created prior to the enactment of Goals 2000) and the National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC). While NESIC was never established, NEGP was charged with reporting annually on state and local progress toward the National Education Goals, reporting on promising or effective measures taken to achieve the goals, and assisting in the creation of a national consensus around the reforms needed to achieve the goals. Title III authorized a formula grant program to support state standards-based reform by financing the development of state reform plans addressing such elements as teaching, learning, assessments, parental and community support for reform, and education management. Goals 2000 required that a state plan include processes for developing content and performance standards, developing state assessments, aligning curricula and assessments with state content and performance standards, and providing teachers with information about the state standards. Also authorized by Title III were two waiver authorities. The first permitted the Secretary to waive various regulations of several major U.S. Department of Education (ED) programs for periods not to exceed four years, if requested by individual states or LEAs. To receive a waiver, states or LEAs had to be receiving systemic reform funds or be undertaking comparable reform activities.