Did Schools Start Getting Rated on the PSAT After No Child Left Behind 2001? A Teacher Explains
Last month, during 10th grade parent-teacher conferences, I sat across from Maria, whose son Jake is in my English class. My desk was cluttered with half-graded argumentative essays, a chipped coffee mug that said “World’s Okayest Spelling Bee Coach,” and a crayon drawing of a three-eyed cat taped to the side of my computer, a gift from a freshman last semester. Maria leaned forward, pulled out a crumpled note from her purse, and asked the question I’ve gotten at least five times this fall: “I saw in our PTA group that schools started getting rated on the PSAT right after No Child Left Behind passed in 2001. Is that true? Because Jake has bad test anxiety, and if his score actually hurts the school’s rating, everyone’s been saying that’s why we have all these practice tests every month.”
I was student teaching in 2002, just a year after NCLB passed, so I saw the early days of that policy up close. I remember my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Henderson, staying after school three nights a week to fill out stacks of new compliance forms, complaining that we’d soon spend more time prepping for tests than actually teaching kids to love reading. What NCLB did do, correctly, was create a requirement for all states to test kids in reading and math every year from 3rd to 8th grade, and once more in high school. It tied school funding, public ratings, and even potential restructuring to those test scores, so for the first time, schools had a huge incentive to hit score targets. That part of the PTA rumor is right: NCLB launched the era of rating schools based on standardized test scores. But the test we used back then was a custom-made state test, developed specifically for our state’s accountability rules. No one but the state department of education looked at those scores. Kids didn’t put them on college apps, colleges didn’t care. The PSAT back then was something only 11th graders gunning for National Merit scholarships signed up to take. Most kids didn’t bother. We never did whole-school practice tests. So no, schools were not rated on the PSAT right after NCLB passed in 2001.
How did we get to where we are now, then? The College Board, which owns the PSAT and SAT, saw an opening after NCLB. States were spending millions of dollars every year developing, administering, and scoring their own custom tests. The College Board started offering the PSAT and SAT at a steep discount to states, pitching it as a two-for-one solution: it meets the federal requirement for an accountability test that schools get rated on, and it doubles as a college entrance exam that kids already need to take. It sounded like a budget win for cash-strapped state legislatures. Starting in the early 2010s, more and more states swapped out their custom state test for the PSAT or SAT as their official high school accountability test. By 2015, when NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act, that trend had already stuck. ESSA kept the requirement that states rate schools based on test scores, so states just kept using the PSAT for that purpose.
So the short answer is that NCLB laid the groundwork for schools to be rated on the PSAT, but the change didn’t happen until more than a decade after 2001. That gap is why there’s so much confusion.
Maria nodded, and said that tracks—she couldn’t figure out why the extra test prep had only started at her kid’s school in the last few years if the policy dated back to 2001. Our state switched to using 10th grade PSAT for school accountability in 2016, so it’s only been a regular part of school life here for less than a decade.
I gave Maria three specific, actionable things she could do that I share with every parent who asks this question. First, pull out your phone and Google “[your state] high school school accountability test” — it takes two minutes to confirm whether your state actually uses PSAT scores to rate schools. A lot of smaller states still use their own custom test, so all that panic some parents feel is for nothing. Second, if your kid has test anxiety like Jake, send a written request to your school counselor for extra breaks or a separate testing room at least a month before the official test. Districts have to offer those accommodations for the official accountability PSAT in most states, they just don’t advertise it. You usually don’t need a formal neuropsychological evaluation, a note from your pediatrician confirming the anxiety is enough. Third, sit down with your kid and tell them straight: if they’re not trying for a National Merit scholarship, the score they get on this school-required PSAT does not get sent to any colleges. It only goes to the state to rate the school. That’s the part most kids don’t know, and it takes an enormous amount of pressure off. I told Maria that if Jake is really stressed, he can even take his time and not rush to finish every question — it won’t hurt his college chances at all. That’s not something I’m supposed to say as a teacher, but it’s true.
After Maria left the conference, I wrote a quick note in Jake’s file to remind the counselor about his accommodation request. Last week, I saw Jake in the hallway between classes, slinging his soccer bag over one shoulder, and he stopped to say the PSAT wasn’t that bad. He said he took extra time on the reading section, didn’t panic, and it was fine.
I still get this question every conference season. Parent groups are full of half-remembered policy changes that get twisted into panic-inducing rumors. It’s still frustrating to see so much class time taken up by PSAT practice, when that time could be spent on projects, field trips, or extra help for kids struggling with reading. I don’t see that changing any time soon, as long as school funding and public ratings are tied to a single test score. But for parents, just sorting out what’s actually true, and what actually matters for your kid, takes a lot of the noise out of it. It doesn’t fix the whole system, but it takes the pressure off your kid, which is what matters most right now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Did Schools Start Getting Rated on the PSAT After No Child Left Behind 2001