Schools must provide Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports. These progress reports must include the progress of subgroups such as the ELL students. NCLB seeks to reduce the achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged children. Those schools that cannot reach a certain level of proficiency may have their staff members replaced and the school may reopen as a charter school.
ELL students have historically low performance and slow improvement. The students are usually 20 to 30 percentage points below other students and do not typically catch up. They perform substantially lower on English portions of tests compared to science and math portions of tests. ELL performance is even low when the test makers translate the subject from English into the student's native language. This may result from students having to spend time learning both the language and the subject.
The tests do not accurately measure the performance of ELL students. The ELL subgroup is consistently low in achievement because those in the group who improve at English leave the group, leaving behind only those struggling. Other factors affect students' academic achievement more than their language proficiency. Socioeconomic status and parental education levels have a larger impact on student achievement on standardized tests.
The results of the NCLB tests are less accurate due to the number of ELL students in the school system. Schools that have more of these students have lower test scores, which can negatively affect their funding and lead to other consequences. Legislators intended NCLB to make schools more accountable. However, schools with more ELL students may have lower test scores due to the population of ELL students, but in actuality, these schools are performing better than other schools.
NCLB might have a negative effect on the relationships between parents and other parents, since some may blame ELL students and their parents for the low test scores of the school, according to an article published by Jamal Abedi on the American Educational Research Association website. Some parents may make the situation worse by moving their children to different schools, taking high-performing students out of the school system. Those schools that have lower test scores receive less funding, which can make it even more difficult for the school to raise test scores.