PARCC
Before No Child Left Behind, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965 as a part of the "War on Poverty". In hopes of diminishing the achievement gap, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed to create equal opportunity and access to education through high standards and accountability. These standards and accountability techniques came in the form of standardized testing. For the first time, federal money was being sent into local schools and made the production of test-based evidence mandatory for all educators. Standards were being assessed on these state-created exams, and local schools were then accountable to perform on these exams. In 2002, Congress re-examined ESEA and reauthorized it as No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Social history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
The Education Act 1944 was an answer to surging social and educational demands created by the war and the widespread demands for social reform that approached utopianism. It was prepared by Conservative MP Rab Butler after wide consultation. The Act took effect in 1947 and created the modern split between primary education and secondary education at the age of eleven years. The newly-elected Labour government adopted the Tripartite System, consisting of grammar schools, secondary modern schools and secondary technical schools, rejecting the comprehensive school proposals favoured by many in the Labour Party as more equalitarian. Under the tripartite model, students who passed an exam were able to attend a prestigious grammar school. Those who did not pass the selection test attended secondary modern schools, or technical schools. The school leaving age was raised to fifteen years. The elite system of public schools was practically unchanged. The new law was widely praised by the Conservatives because it honoured religion and social hierarchy, and by Labour because it opened new opportunities for the working-class, and also by the general public; because it ended the fees they previously had to pay. The Education Act became a permanent part of the Post-war consensus supported by the three major political parties.