The impact of high‐stakes accountability policies on Native American learners: evidence from research

Abstract

This article examines research on the impacts of high‐stakes accountability policies in the USA – in particular, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 – on Native American learners. NCLB's goals are laudable: close the achievement gap by making schools accountable for learning among all student groups, and by ensuring that all students are taught by highly qualified teachers. In practice, the policy has proven to be one of the most problematic education reforms in US history, prompting schools labeled “underperforming” to teach to the test, remove low‐performing students from the testing pool, curtail “low‐stakes” subjects, and artificially manipulate test scores and drop‐out rates. This article begins with a demographic, cultural, linguistic, and educational profile of Native American communities and an explanation of tribal sovereignty. The next sections provide an orientation to NCLB and an examination of empirical research on its impacts on Native American and other minoritized students. The final sections offer examples of promising practices from which to model alternate policies, and recommendations for “authentic accountability” and education policy reform.

Keywords:

• education policy
• Native American/Indigenous education
• high‐stakes testing
• accountability regimes
• No Child Left Behind

Notes