Top Students Said to Stagnate Under NCLB

While the nation’s poorest-performing students have made academic progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the brightest students appear to be languishing for lack of attention, according to a report released today by a Washington think tank.

“People have been complaining ever since NCLB passed that focusing resources on the bottom students would come at the expense of high-achieving students,” said Tom Loveless, one of the authors of the report. “There hasn’t been any Robin Hood effect, but the high achievers haven’t been gaining, either.”

Titled “High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB,” the report from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation draws on national test-score data and results from a nationwide survey of 900 public school teachers in grades 3-12 to paint a portrait of a generation of high achievers left to fend for themselves as schools and teachers shift their time and resources toward educational strategies aimed more at bringing the bottom up than on raising...