State Educational Reform by Diana Duarte

This call for excellence in schools has had many effects, such as the increase in graduation requirement, an increase in learning time, including other effects. States began requiring more years in core subjects, to obtain a high school diploma science and advanced math courses are required. "Social promotion" was eliminated, that is moving students through the grades so that they could stay with their own age groups independently of their performance. As reported by the US department of education academic credits earned in high school have increased as a result of those changes. Quality instruction time, rather than time spent in class is the key to quality schooling as thought by many teachers. In response, school days were lengthened to six and a half to seven hours, and the school year was lengthened to an average of 180 days of school per year. Unlike Japan and Germany, having about 240 days of school, no states have put into the idea of year-round education, though it has been thought of, lengthening the amount of schooling is extremely costly. Some people insist that the long ten week summer vacation is hardest on children in poor families. This is because camps and recreational activities, including enrichment programs are out of reach for them. A very important reason why people are concerned about year round education is disrupting established family life patterns and summer opportunities for teachers’ professional development, something I consider very important. There are also people proposing standards based education. As a result of the NCLB incentives, 49 states have adopted some sort of standard.
And here another report on it.
This state wide tests have been used as educational report cards that allow policymakers and the public to see how the schools in different districts are performing. And here is another view point of NCLB.