The No Child Left Behind Act is a bill that was signed into law in 2001 under then President George W. Bush. The bill addressed issues surrounding eduction, specifically K-12 education in the United States.
Senator Ted Kennedy, now deceased, was a co-author of the bill. It was a noted bill because not only did it propose and implement wide sweeping educational reforms, but was also a non-partisan bill that received much support on both sides of the congressional aisle.
President Bush’s staff proposed the bill shortly after he took office in January, 2001. It was passed by the house in May, 2001 and the senate in June, 2001.
The bill supported standards based education reform. This means gauging performance by standardized testing and creating standards to which every child in every school should be live up to. These goals are measurable through performance of both individual students and entire schools on standardized tests. The standards are set by each individual state for students in that state.
In 2007, Congress increased funding of No Child Left Behind, often abbreviated NCLB to $54.4 billion a year.
Proponents of the bill claim it increases teacher accountability. All students in their classrooms are expected to meet the standards. If some of their students don’t, a teacher faces punishment including and up to firing from his or her position. This makes a teacher work harder to make sure that every student learns the curriculum covered on the test.
Another advantage is the attention to minority populations such as disabled persons, and racial minorities. Every student regardless of their background is expected to perform well on the testing so teachers have an incentive to make sure students from minority populations don’t fall behind.
The No Child Left Behind Act set forth standards for all students and accountability for teachers.
What Is the No Child Left Behind Act?
How Standardized Tests Are Contributing To Problems on the Educational System
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Much of the American educational system is based upon using standardized tests as an overall measurement of student achievement. However, this method is extremely flawed for several reasons and represents one of the major problems with the education system in this country.
Students who are attending schools in lower income areas are taking the same tests as students who who attend classes in districts comprised of mostly high-income families. Although there is a type of standardized test called Opportunity To Learn that was supposed to lessen this prominent income gap, many schools did not set aside the necessary funding to ensure that their teachers knew how to adjust their curriculum to the new standards. This left students frustrated, and teachers unsure of what concepts most needed to be taught.
Thus, now there is a commonly seen trend of teachers who feel forced to “teach to the test”, focusing on only those specific concepts that will be seen on the standardized tests. This stifles the overall learning process, and does not allow for spontaneous changes based on individual student needs and goals. However, recent studies provided a strong indication that higher test scores do not always ensure a higher standard of learning. Some teachers spend the majority of their classroom time emphasizing preparation for standardized tests, which leads to students learning things by repetition, rather than learning through interactive discussion and activities to help them retain the information for a lifetime. This is not the fault of the teachers, but rather of a faulty educational system that is geared towards tightly defined objectives rather than the constant and fluid process of learning.
Although America’s current administration has pledged to mandate a complete reform of the educational system, such a goal requires extensive funding and time, so it will be a while before any true and lasting changes can be measured.
The Benefits and Drawbacks of the No Child Left Behind Act
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The No Child Left Behind act was introduced under the leadership of President George W. Bush, Jr. in 2002. Its intention was to ensure that overall education standards were improved by requiring teachers to adhere to federally mandated curriculum requirements. However, it has been adamantly protested by students, parents and teachers alike since its initial inception.
Many teachers unions dislike the program’s requirements because they feel that standardized test scores have not improved to show evidence of its success. Since the program is based on goal setting and high expectations which are measured through the administration of standardized tests, it would seem that examination of the nation’s scores on such tests would be a sound indicator of if the No Child Left Behind Act is doing what it was meant to do.
However, many children are bewildered by the complicated rules that some standardized tests can pose, leading their parents to argue that standardized tests are not the best way to measure knowledge level or comprehension.
In fact, some universities are now moving towards not requiring standardized test scores as part of the normal admissions process.
Other opponents of the No Child Left Behind Act feel that the emphasis on higher standards has worsened the already pervasive national teacher shortage.
However, the Act does measure educational progress by ethnicity, and some supporters feel that this helps to close the achievement gap between white students and those who are minorities. Additionally, the Act chooses to focus on students who often need extra support, such as those from low-income families, or students who are disabled.
Finally, parents are provided with a periodic detailed explanation of their child’s performance. This helps to indicate any potential areas of strengths and weaknesses, allowing parents to seek special tutoring or assistance in these areas as needed.
The Problems With U.S School Funding
A lot of people know that schools are underfunded, but they don’t know just why they are the way they are. The truth is that there are multiple reasons why schools get funding in the United States. It’s all about the test scores.
Each and every year, schools are asked to give their students standardized tests. These test are to assess their abilities in a variety of areas including math, science, and reading. Schools spend the year preparing their students for these tests just as someone who wants to attend business school should go through a gmat prep course. The standardized tests are considered an accurate gauge of a students progress. When these test scores are reviewed by the state, they determine which schools get funding and which will receive less funding. Schools with students working at grade level or higher are considered to be doing well, and are given more funding. Those that are not at grade level are considered as underperforming schools and so they are put on probation. They face the risk of losing funding altogether.
This is an admittedly controversial way to do things. There are a serious amount of differences between one school and the next. There are the issues of different economic backgrounds of the kids, the education of their families, and the overall involvement of their families. This means that there is skewed information to decide funding.
The problem also lies in that teachers are not given the opportunity to teach kids based on information they need to help them grow and keep them well rounded. They are forced to give them information that will help them on the test, which is not a true indication of knowledge. Now, of course there are exceptions to every school situation, but the bottom line is that the testing is a real issue.
