No Chold Left Behind Act (NCLBA)

When the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was enacted in 2002, the focus of the United States education system turned to the nation’s education levels lagging behind other developed countries. The Congress enacted NCLB with intentions to level the educational playing field and require that schools meet federal minimum standards on national exams with a goal of seeing increases in exam scores every year (Elementary and Secondary Education Act). These new minimum standards created an emphasis to help struggling students to succeed. The requirements of NCLB worked in such a way that when pushing for the reauthorization of NCLB during his 2007 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush stated, “We must increase funds for students who struggle and make sure these children get the special help they need” (President Bush…). Of course we should try to give all students the help that they need, but states tend to interpret struggling students as those who display low achievement levels and have trouble in academic situations.

Gifted students too tend to struggle in the current classroom setting. They are forced to sit in class and study a curriculum that they often already know (United States. Cong.), while waiting for more challenging work that presents them the opportunity to achieve their full potential. The standards put in place by the NCLB have lead to the struggles faced by gifted students; struggles caused not by a challenging and engaging curriculum, but lack thereof.

No Child Left Behind gives schools funding in return for increasing standardized exam scores by students. Gifted students tend to do very well on these standardized tests, presenting schools with little incentive to provide them with challen...

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