By Rachel Kelly, CEI Intern Historical Antecedent. Before ESSA, American students faced over a decade with the NCLB. In 2002, President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into action. Because American test scores had been falling behind the scores of other countries, the purpose of this Act was to make schools more accountable for their students’ performance. However, as time went on, the law was not updated and it started to have a negative impact. According t