A recent study by the Center for Education Policy (CEP) shows that students are performing better on state math and reading tests since the enactment of the NCLB Act. The study addresses two questions: has student achievement increased and have achievement gaps narrowed since the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted in 2002. Per CEP's news release; "Student scores on state tests of reading and mathematics have risen since 2002, and achievement gaps between various groups of students have narrowed more often than they have widened, according to the most comprehensive and rigorous recent analysis of state test scores. These improvements have occurred during a period when the No Child Left Behind Act, state education reforms, and local school improvement efforts have focused on raising test scores and narrowing achievement gaps." To view the press release and access the report click on Has Student Achievement Improved Since 2002? State Test Score Trends Through 2006-07.

The Missouri Professors of Educational Administration were surveying the administrators in MO who were in buildings with the greatest increase in student performance. The question posed was, "How has NCLB impacted your work?". As they answered each spoke in the neutral or negative UNTIL the last in line, he said, "NCLB has provided the focus for my work and allows me to do what I have known that I was supposed to be doing all the time, making sure that each child learns". At that time all of the other administrators were thinking, "I wish that I would have said that". Everything depends upon the attitude and will of the educator as to whether NCLB is a motivator or detriment to their work.