No Child Left Behind: ABA Opportunity or Guilt by Association?

Abstract

The roots of today’s No Child Left Behind are at least as old as the Great Depression of the 1930’s. During those challenging times, when nearly one quarter of the work force were without employment, the government developed a Social Security system. That system was to assure that all citizens could count on a minimum of financial support to pay for the necessities of life. Unfortunately, Social Security did not solve all the problems of achieving universal health, education, and welfare. In the 1950’s the nation was shocked by the exposing of the plight of rural citizens in the documentaries “Harvest of Shame” (showing the conditions of migrant farm workers and their families) and “Appalachian Spring” (showing the conditions of coal miners and their families). It was clear that much remained to be done to raise the standard of living for many of our citizens to an acceptable level. These events prompted the government to develop a war on poverty in the 1960’s that added health and education initiatives to the welfare support of the Social Security system. Notable among these initiatives was the attempt through Head Start to assure that all disadvantaged children received the health screenings and early experiences that prepared them for learning. The initial results were quite promising showing that Head Start participants were better prepared than their non-participant peers. However, after six months of schooling the difference had disappeared. This result prompted the government to sponsor Project Follow Through during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s to determine best practices for maintaining the gains of Head Start through the third grade by which time it was assumed that the positive impact could be sustained without additional assistance. The results of Project Follow Through (Stebbins, St. Pierre, Proper, Anderson, & Cerva, 1977) were promising with two or three models showing substantial gains for their students bringing them to or near the median performance levels of the general population of students. This largest ever educational research and development effort established evidence-base practices that allowed virtually all students to make substantial learning gains each year. It didn’t matter how intellectually skilled they were to begin with, students all made roughly the same substantial gains each year with the only difference being where they started. Thus, there are effective curricula and instructional practices for all students regardless of initial skill levels.