Grounds: In 2002, the Bush Administration set forward a plan to improve school education. They were determined to fix the achievement gap between white students and students of color, while also aiming to support those who have been historically disadvantaged. So, they implemented the NCLB act. Today this law affects Elementary and Secondary Education by enforcing regulations that require all states to provide schools with a curriculum that will improve students understanding of math, reading, and science. To assess their knowledge and exposure to these subjects by teachers, the federal government requires that all students take an assessment test as a way to inform the government of their progress. According to David Hursh, in his article titled Exacerbating inequality: the failed promise of the NCLB Act, last updated September 2007, he stated that “The NCLB requires that 95% of students in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school be assessed through standardized tests aligned with challenging academic standards in math, reading, and science”. http://www.wou.edu/~girodm/foundations/Hursh.pdf By 2014, all students in all states are expected to be proficient in all subjects regardless of their mental, physical, and cultural impairments.
The NCLB law expects that all students are the same with regards to their ability to comprehend information and their skills to take a test. They assume that students are able to be competent in areas such as math, science, and reading. However, not everyone is good at math and some children may be stronger in one area than the other. The “one size fits all” mindset does not fix the achievement gap, or support the historically disadvantaged. On the www.edweek.org website, last updated July 2011,...
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...e, my 6th grade teacher taught us how to learn fractions by using pancakes! Withouth that I would have never have understood the concept.
Conclusion
Transitional Expression: To summarize
The NCLB act is doing nothing for our school education in the United states. It affects children in grades k-6th in a negativity by assuming they all learn the same, which unfortuantly puts teachers in a predicament where they must teach these students regardless of their learning rate. This limits student education and does not allow them to learn in the classroom. Rather they learn how to learn strategically. In the book, Bell Curve: Intellegence and Class Structure, written by Charles Murray, the word intelligence describes something real and that it varies from person to person is as universal and ancient as any understanding about the state of a being human.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001’s main purpose was to enhance the education system and hold schools accountable in its attempt to bring equality in the fight against poverty for poor and minority groups. Once this Act was signed into law the American public expected an overhaul of the education system with only good outcomes. The public assumed our children would be receiving the best education available and the economic issues that plagued schools would no longer be a problem. In the beginning of its implementation No Child Left Behind was expected to bring America up to standards with other nations, this was something that America has struggled to do for many years. Our children were now being put first according to Act and the public and many political figures were ecstatic over the possibilities.
93). Therefore, accountability became the central focus to improve education in America. Schools and teachers would now be judged or held accountable by their performance, and schools that failed to meet certain standards would be closed; this was a basic principle in the business sector (Ravitch, 2011, p. 8). Furthermore, NCLB mandated that every school must be 100 percent proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014; consequently schools that failed to perform would suffer punitive consequences. However, by 2007, the evidence was becoming clear that the mandates of the new law were not increasing student achievement in learning. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federal testing program reported that only one-third of students met the federal standard for proficiency (Ravitch, 2011, p. 103). Ravitch argued that 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics was unattainable by the projected year. Not only did the law allow for each
The policy “No Child Left Behind (NCLB)” is a policy where Federal legislation has mandated that children be tested, and where there is compliance with standards. Simply means, that all children must meet standards. The standards are defined by the states, and all children will be subject to testing, starting from as early as third grade. The students will be tested annually, in order to ensure that they are getting the type of education that they are entitled to, as determined by their performance on standardized tests.
This required each state to develop a set of standards that each child would need to know in math and reading. The NCLB also required almost all of the students to be tested annually throughout elementary and middle school grades (Webb, Metha, Jordan 2013). The act also strived that all students would test at a proficient level by 2014. The impact of this decision was that the government would be more involved than ever before in how a school taught, what the school taught, and the requirements of outcomes. The downside impact of this was that states changed the proficiency levels over the years and there has been inconsistent data given when reported. In a report with control groups it is shown that there were changes before and after implementation of the NCLB (Ladd 2010). With that information one could conclude that the act was successful and should be further pursued along with
Horsey’s cartoon captures an exaggerated view of what most public school classrooms look like today. With these exaggerations, Horsey is successful in demonstrating the apparent contrast in the ways the arts are treated in comparison to how standardized tests are treated. The machines on some children’s heads shows what schools want students to think about, tests and what they need to do to pass. This illustrates the issues of the current No Child Left Behind laws and epitomizes the way schools and students think.
NCLB also made it so the schools had to increase there scores. This put a lot of pressure on the kids and schools. The schools had to preform well of they would be shut down. Kids were also put in extra classes to get there scores up. This also put a lot of anxiety on the kids they had to try extra hard. They were put in classes according to there test scores, and if they didn’t reach there scores they couldn’t participate in some of the things kids who passes could. Because the NCLB act made schools increase there scores every year schools set their bars really low. One analogy is We start with the 100-meter hurdles. In this event, all the hurdles are the same height, equally difficult to clear. No Child Left Behind establishes hurdles for schools to clear. Every year, schools must raise the percentage of students passing state tests. Some states though found loop a loop hole in this by setting the first bars really low(John Merrow). This made the kids not have to work for getting good scores and made then not even
The NCLB Act is not effective because of the current situation of state governments calling certain schools “failures” because of their low exam scores, thereby reducing funding to the school. If the federal government is funding the NCLB Act for after school programs, it would seem that it was funding a non-effective program. I have broken down the consequences as follows.
One of the major misuses is that tests are required in lower elementary schools. Tests are carried out at a younger and younger age for certain purposes without concerning children’s joy of learning. According to washingtonpost, Similar to many other states, Arizona starts to test students at second grade, which is lower than what the NCLB legislation required. Worse yet, it is easy for people to find districts that hold test on young children at first grade, even at kindergarten. The misuse of test is brutal to young children. Also, in his study, Jacobson asserts that 36 states now hold standard of what knowledge children should acquire before they attend kindergartens (as cited in Johnson, 2008, p.22-1,2). In other
Regardless of socioeconomic status, every child should have a right to a quality education. In 2002, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which was intended to improve the academic achievement of all students. NCLB was President George W. Bush 's education reform bill, which was intended to help schools improve teacher and principal quality. However, throughout the nation, the less fortunate children are still deprived of a decent education. To the federal government, the right to education is not recognized as a fundamental right. State governments have been in control of the right to education, they are involved with choosing the curriculum and teaching methods. In addition, the state is responsible for public education
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) deals with student achievement standards by holding schools accountable for the achievement of their students (Implementation 11). The NCLBA uses standardized tests to chart the success of students. If students are not meeting standards, the school is required to offer tutoring, which is funded by the state with Title I, the education mandate passed in which granted all public schools access to federal grants, money (No Subject 7). The Act itself is not the problem; the problem is that the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standard which is a big part of the NCLBA is not being met. The AYP standard is not being met because schools are not changing their methods quickly enough. It was said in the NCLBA that schools nationwide were to have 100% proficiency of the AYP standard within 12 years (Implementation 9). Since the passing of the NCLBA in 2001, most public schools, nationwide have not improved at all.
I enjoyed doing labs and writing in my all black composition notebook. Also, I fell in love with Biology class in 6th grade. Mrs. McMahon was my teacher and she was fun, assertive, and kind. What amazed about this teacher was the fact that she had no children. She said she did not enjoy kids, but she owned a golden retriever.
In elementary school, there were a lot of things that I was so unfamiliar with that I never really realized how great learning could actually be. At that point in time, the world seemed to me seemed so figured out and all I knew was my family, friends and the town that I live in. One thing that always excited me was when our class went to the computer lab. Back then we used very slow computers and monitors that were so thick I mistakenly thought it was the computer instead of the actual desktop. You’d never actually see me being very productive in the lab however.
The No Child Left Behind Act was set into place with the goal to improve student performance in school, and close the achievement gap between students; as Stecher, Vernez, and Steinburg state, “When congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), it established an ambitious goal for the nation’s states, districts, and schools: All children will be proficient in reading and mathematics by the 2013-2014 school year” (1). While the No Child Left Behind Act was implemented with good intentions, the act itself is one of the main reasons the United States is falling behind in educational rankings. One of the most common complaints of parents surrounding the No Child Left Behind Act is the weakest link factor: the weakest student sets the pace in the classroom. The weakest student...
As Rodney Paige, former Secretary of Education, said, “We have an educational emergency in the United States of America” (Hursh, 2007). The American ideal of egalitarianism essentially states that individuals should have an equal opportunity to pursue their dreams, and an important part of being able to achieve this is attaining a quality education. Students of differing racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and ability levels should all have the same opportunities in receiving a high-quality education. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is seeking to change this. The NCLB is the current authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (Houston, 2007), which was passed during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Every five years the ESEA is renewed. It is currently due for renewal in 2014.
Problems of education connect to funding, teacher quality and the status of the teaching profession, student academic performance and standardized testing, racial imbalances, and equal educational opportunity. The lack of parental involvement seems to be a problem for education also. Parental involvement in their child's education makes them feel good about themselves. They usually have higher grades; higher test scores on standardized tests, classroom assessments and at arrive at school all the time. It is important to have quality teachers that care about the students and that encourage parents on how important it is to be involved with their child’s education. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law took effect in 2002; it has had a broad impact on U.S. public school classrooms.