Did Schools Start Getting Rated on the PSAT After NCLB 2001? A Teacher Breaks It Down
The clock above my classroom door ticked past 4:30 last Tuesday when Maria, mom of my 10th grader Javi, leaned across my desk and pulled a crumpled screenshot printout from her bag. “I saw this post in our neighborhood parent group saying after that No Child Left Behind law in 2001, schools started getting rated based on kids’ PSAT scores,” she said, tapping the paper. “Javi’s nervous about taking it next month, and I’m just confused—does his score actually change how our school gets graded?”
Javi was waiting in the hallway outside, leaning against a row of lockers scrolling his phone, but I’d caught his foot tapping a fast, uneven rhythm when they walked in. I could already guess what he’d been told: mess up this one test, get our school marked as failing, and who knows what happens next.
I started teaching in 2002, just a few months after NCLB was signed into law, so I got a front row seat to all the changes that came with it. Back then, the whole point of the law was to tie school funding and ratings to annual standardized test scores, to make sure schools weren’t leaving low-performing students behind. What a lot of people don’t remember is that NCLB left it up to each state to choose which test they used for that accountability. Almost every state built their own custom test for grades 3 through 8, and high schools used a separate end-of-course exam. No one was using the PSAT for school ratings back then.
The PSAT was just what it said it was: a preliminary, practice run for the SAT. Scores were sent only to the student and their family, the only big prize was National Merit Scholarship qualification for high-scoring juniors, and districts never compiled school-wide scores to use for ratings. So immediately after NCLB passed in 2001, the answer to that question is no—schools didn’t start getting rated on the PSAT.
What’s true, though, is that NCLB planted the idea that test scores should be the main way we judge schools, and over the next 20 years, that led to shifts that did put the PSAT on the table for accountability. When NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, states still had to test students annually and publish school ratings based on those scores. A handful of states decided ditching their own custom tests and using the SAT or PSAT instead would save money and align testing with college admissions goals. Now, states like Colorado, Illinois, and Maine use the 10th grade PSAT as their official state test for accountability. In those places, school ratings do factor in average PSAT scores.
Maria leaned back and exhaled. “So it’s hit or miss depending on where you live?” I nodded. That’s the thing about education policy—most changes don’t happen overnight, even when a big new law gets passed. What starts as a broad rule from Washington gets picked apart and implemented differently in every state, every district, so rumors get stuck that don’t match what’s actually happening right now. In our district, in our state, we still use a separate state test for accountability, so PSAT scores don’t touch our school’s rating at all.
I told her the easiest thing any parent can do if they’re confused is send a one-sentence text to their kid’s guidance counselor: “Is the 10th grade PSAT used to calculate our school’s state accountability rating?” It takes 30 seconds, and you’ll get a straight answer instead of sorting through outdated rumors in a parent Facebook group. For my own class, I started adding a two-line note to my fall newsletter every year, right when PSAT registration goes up, that spells out whether the test counts for school ratings here, and links to the state’s public accountability page if anyone wants to dig deeper. It cuts down on 90% of these questions, and it takes way less time than answering individual emails later.
For kids who are already stressing, I tell parents to use this exact line if PSAT doesn’t count for your school’s rating: “Your score only matters for practice and scholarship money. One kid’s score can’t change how the school is rated, so you just have to do your best.” If it does count where you live, you can say: “The school’s rating is based on the average of everyone’s scores, so one person’s result won’t move the needle much. We just need you to try your best, that’s all.” That’s way clearer than “don’t stress” which never actually helps anyone.
By the time we finished talking, Javi’s foot tapping had slowed down outside, and he’d switched from his stress game of soccer to meme scrolling. Maria thanked me, folded up the printout and tucked it back in her bag, and went out to get him. I heard him ask what I said, and she told him the part about his score not affecting the school’s rating, and he grinned and slung his backpack over one shoulder. They walked out to the parking lot, and I went back to grading the stack of argumentative essays on my desk.
I finished my cold half-coffee an hour later, and locked up the classroom for the day. Testing rules shift so often, and no one expects parents or kids to keep up with every change that’s come out of a 22-year-old federal law. There’s still a lot that’s broken about tying school ratings to test scores in general, but that’s a bigger fight for another day. For now, the small win is untangling the rumors, so 15-year-olds don’t lose sleep over a practice test that doesn’t even count for what they’re worrying about. It’s not a fix for all the mess of education accountability, but it’s one less weight on a kid’s shoulders, and that’s enough for now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Did Schools Start Getting Rated on the PSAT After NCLB 2001