When it first passed, the No Child Left Behind act of 2001 was widely respected as a bipartisan victory. When signing the bill President George Bush announced to the country “You’re seeing government at its best, we figured out how to put our parties aside and focus on what’s right for the American children”. Since being elected into office, Bush made it well known that education was going to be a primary goal was to improve education and pledged that his focus would be on “making sure every child is educated” and that “no child will be left behind—no one single child”. When Bush made this announcement surely there was no single person who disagreed with this sentiment. The No Child Left Behind bill is based on many admirable ideals. After all, who wouldn’t want an education system where children are being taught in the classrooms of well-prepared teachers and where all students are proficient? NCLB intends to raise proficiency by mandating that all subgroups reach a passing test score with a goal of “100 percent achievement” by the year 2014. One major breakthrough of NCLB is that it is flagging differences in student performance by race and class as well and asserting that all students must additionally be taught by qualified teachers. Surely helping high poverty areas and low scoring students would be a step in the right direction for education in America. It is clear that bringing the achievement gap into the spotlight was a great victory for the law. The goals of the bill were very admirable; unfortunately, they are being lost in the act’s problematic details. It is a common belief among the country’s school officials and citizens that all children can and should learn; however, a 100 percent success is simply an unattainabl...
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...r score. One Florida superintendent noted: “when low-performing child walks into a classroom, instead of being seen as a challenge, or an opportunity for improvement, for the first time since I’ve been in education, teachers are seeing [that child] as a liability”. States themselves are lowering their standards for passing the mandated standardized tests. The logic is simple: the lower the standards, the more students who will meet them. States with higher proficiency standards are actually more likely to be punished under the bill. Some states are defining their proficiency marks as far below the national benchmarks. NCLB has the opposite effects than it intended; the law is creating a race to the bottom for states rather than encouraging them to strive to increase actual learning.
The effects of the law hit hard by even directly affecting individual classrooms.
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.
Neill, Monty. "The No Child Left Behind Act Is Not Improving Education." Education: Opposing Viewpoints. New York: Greenhaven, 2005. 162-68. Print.
The NCLB Act will strengthen Title I accountability by requiring States to implement statewide accountability systems covering all public schools and students. These systems must be based on challenging State standards in reading and mathematics, annual testing for all students in grades 3-8, and annual statewide progress objectives ensuring that all groups of students reach proficiency within 12 years. Assessment results and State progress objectives must be broken out by poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, and limited English proficiency to ensure that no group is left behind.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is currently the educational policy in the United States. Prior to NCLB the educational policies in effect were “A Nation at Risk, in 1987 America 2000, and a few years later with Goals 2000” (Eisner, 2001, p.21). No Child Left Behind is a test based accountability system used in schools to measure their performance holding the districts, administrators and teachers liable and accountable for the outcomes. Supovitz (2009) States that No Child Left Behind was a major reform initiative intended to bring about widespread improvements in student performance and reduce inequities between ethnic groups and other traditionally under-served populations like economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial
The National Education Association in the beginning supported the No Child Left Behind Act but knew that it needed some revisions before it would be the effective in the school system. The NEA felt that the Act met the requirements of ensuring equality among the school population but they disagreed with the Act’s accountability and testing requirements. Democrats and Republicans both showed great support when the Act was initially proposed by President Bush, but as time went on they to began to question the outcomes. Democrats and Republicans began to debate on the provisions in the Act of state accountability. “The National Conference of State Legislatures called the bill’s testing provisions “seriously and perhaps irreparably flawed.” (Rudalevige, 2003). This was due to the law not having any set way to account for the testing that was supposed to be part of the Act; it left that process up to the individual states.
Since the No Child Left Behind Act has come into effect, it has caused some concerns with teachers and parents alike on how well it is working for the students. There have been issues to be addressed and instead been overlooked. Because in “Is No Child Left Behind Effective For All Students?” Parents Don’t Think So, a school who fails to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for four or more years is considered under corrective action and the state board must make serious changes to the school. Randolph and Wilson-Younger, (Oct. 22, 2012). Our government has offered states the chance to waive requirements but the states have to make specific reforms in exchange for flexibility. During the first round of waivers offered, 11 states applied. The states had to fill out applications. Each state must put in an application for a waiver and if a state receives a wavier it will last for two years and then they can reapply. These waivers are needed because the No Child Left Behind is broken. The laws can identify which schools that are in need of improvement based on their achievement targets. The law prescribes interventions but the interventions are not working as well as they could be. Lawmakers have proposed to move a bill to the Senate or House floor. However, the Republicans had p...
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
The NCLB Act was signed by former President George Bush in 2002, which was created to improve student and achievement gaps. In the article, “No Child Left behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy”, Patrick J. McGuinn exclaimed, “No Child Left behind is an attempt by the federal government to regulate educational policy in the 50 states” (Patrick McGuinn,2007, p. 370). It is also designed to make sure that all students can achieve high standards from all states which include students with disabilities. Before the NCLB was passed, students with disabilities were excluded from school assessments. Now that this act was ...
“Making the Grade,” which was published in the Salt Lake Tribune in September of this year, is an article arguing the negative sides of the No Child Left Behind Act. Through this article, a majority of the discussion regarded the budgeting involved with NCLB. This article calls No Child Left Behind a “one-size-fits-all formula for improving education in America” (Making the Grade). According to President Bush, the NCLB Act is “’the cornerstone’ of his administration” (Salt Lake Tribune). Like with any legislation, however, come both positive and negative sides.
In the article “What Does It Mean to Educate the Whole Child?” Nel Noddings attempts to provide a deeper insight on what it means to educate the whole child. According to the article, public schools in the United States are currently facing a huge pressure to provide students with thorough and efficient education. In this connection, a program known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has endeavored to ensure that efficient education is provided to all minority children, especially the many who are in the inner-cities. Notwithstanding this endeavor, individuals from some quarters have criticized NCLB by claiming that it is an unfunded mandate since it comes up with costly demands without providing necessary resources to meet them. In effect, among
The No Child Left Behind Act, a federal social program that tries to encourages after school programs should be eliminated and the extra funds given to schools to decide where it goes.
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.
The achievement gap is greatly evident and impacts the low-income, minority students the most. Although the federal government attempted to resolve this problem with No Child Left Behind, the social problem is still evident. As there is still much pressure on standardized tests and annual reports, reformation is needed. No Child Left Behind has proven to be inadequate and rather highlights the urgency for education reform. Although the act is called “No Child Left Behind,” an appropriate title would have been “Education Left Behind.” More than focusing on test scores, education should prepare students in how to contribute to
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) seeks to change this.