No Child Left Behind Act: A Case Study

The education system is deeply flawed. It does not fight social injustice, but rather exacerbates the issue. The majority of people in the U.S are blind to the fact that there are still inequities within the education system, much less everyday life. A system based on standardized test scores inadvertently oppresses poor people. The Governments ' decision to judge a schools ' success by its test scores evidently created a faucet of running water for systematic oppression. The flowing water of oppression floods poor schools; drowning students with dreams, and giving no mercy. The only ones safe from the water are the privileged, who are oblivious to the fact that it exists.

The overarching difference between No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act is the shift of control to the states (Edutopia, 2016). While many of the accountability provisions may appear somewhat similar in regards to essential standards, proficiency assessments and improvements for failing schools, the autonomy has been granted to the states to determine exactly how those provisions should be carried out. Each state is responsible to create the best educational climate based on the demographics of their population and is responsible to hold their schools accountable for student performance. In other words, although there continues to be a federal framework, the states have

When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law in 2002, the legislation had one goal-- to improve educational equity for all students in the United States by implementing standards for student achievement and school district and teacher performance. Before the No Child Left Behind Act, the program of study for most schools was developed and implemented by individual states and local communities’ school boards. Proponents of the NCLB believed that lax oversight and lack of measurable standards by state and local communities was leading to the failure of the education system and required federal government intervention to correct. At the time, the Act seemed to be what the American educational system

Indirectly, or directly, one can argue, public schools are controlled by the federal and state governments. Several issues have emerged, because of the conflict between federal and state requirements for education. “Under the Tenth Amendment, any authority not given specifically to the federal government is reserved to the states. Thus, the federal government has no authority to regulate education directly; that belongs to the states” (Underwood, n. d., p. 2). To get around this, the federal government controls the schools through funds for complying with certain initiatives, procedures, and policies (Underwood, n. d.). Ironically, both the state and federal levels of government hold the district liable for implementing different agendas and legal obligations. The federal government, however, can ensure that no citizen is denied their rights or privileges, even in a private institution, because of the Bill of Rights and other amendments. Failure to comply by these amendments or statutes can lead to the loss of federal funding and legal reproductions for schools.

“Shrinking state and local education budgets matched with the added pressure of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which sets rigid standards in reading and math that schools must achieve in order to receive federal funding, have created a new challenge for districts” (Van Harken).

“Unintended Educational and Social Consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act” Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, no. 2, Winter 2009, pp. 311. EBSCOhost. In this peer-reviewed academic journal article, Liz Hollingworth, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Iowa, explores the history of school reform in the United States, and the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Hollingworth states that the great promise of NCLB is that schools will focus on the education of low-achieving students, reducing the gap in student academic achievement between White students and African-American, Hispanic, and Native American student populations. Hollingworth states that an unintended consequence of NCLB was that teachers and school administrators had to shift curriculum focus in an effort to raise test scores, but in some cases, they had to also abandoned thoughtful, research-based classroom practices in exchange for test preparation. NCLB also affected teachers, highly qualified teachers left high-poverty schools, with low performance rates especially those schools where teacher salaries are tied to student academic performance. Hollingworth concludes her article by stating “we need to be wary of policy innovations that amount to simply rearranging the deck chairs on the

Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal policy. Both Clinton and Bush administrations regulated freedom of choice within their educational policies. Clinton’s Goals 2000 increased standards for student scores within core subjects. Legislation targeting Title I, required States and school districts to “turn-around” low-performing schools, and in 1993, public charter schools increased to over 2, 000 (www.clinton5.nara.gov). Bush’s No Child Left Behind’s structure demanded high-stakes testing and created provision for privatization of public education, as well as “school choice .” No Child Left Behind not only increased the Clinton’s strong accountability disposition, but it also superimposed a new set of accountability rules that would adversely affect public schools (Porter, Linn, & Trimble, 2005). One significant requirement of NCLB is that each state must adopt challenging academic content standards and challenging student achievement standards. Additionally, states must establish Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals for each year from 2002 to 2014—that would culminate in the 2014 goal that all American students would be at or above the proficient student academic achievement standard (P.L. 107–110, 2001). When local educational agencies (LEA) failed to meet their state’s AYP goals, in addition to other criteria, they [LEA] faced the inevitability of losing their accredited status and eventually face school

The purpose of this paper is to address the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 10, 2015. The paper will also address the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002. The paper will talk about some of the key components of ESSA in comparison with NCLB and identify some possible strengths and weaknesses in ESSA’s new approach.

In this passage of No Child Left Behind, Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the principal federal law affecting education from kindergarten through high school. In amending ESEA, the new law represents a sweeping overhaul of federal efforts to support elementary and secondary education in the United States. This new law focuses on policy and distribution of funds to public schools. Most federal funds under NCLB are distributed to school districts whose populations that are representative of lower economic levels and culturally diverse populations, which consists of African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, and Latinos. Proponents of the No Child Left Behind Act claim that its mission is to diminishing the achievement gap by holding school districts and states accountable, encouraging the use of more flexible educational approaches, and supporting parent’s rights to school choice

Federal involvement in education began in 1954 with the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which initiated federal funding to schools in the United States. NDEA marked the beginning of a long line of education policy bills over the course of more than forty years. No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, was not a novelty piece of legislation; its ancestry dated back to 1965 with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—a more descriptive mandate for the usage of federal funds and the requirements of schools in the United States (Anderson 3). Through Title 1 provisions, ESEA intended to alleviate the inequality in public schools by providing federal funding for schools in areas with high percentages of children

Initiated in 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 intended to prevent the academic failures of educational institutions and individual students, as well as bridge achievement gaps between students. This act supports the basic standards of education reform across America; desiring to improve the learning outcomes of America 's youth. This act was supposed to help the kids with their math, reading and math skills, but it just adds more pressure to the students especially for the children with learning disabilities (LD). The state has the students take the keystone exams which used to be called the PSSA`s.

This article in the Times newspaper, points out problems and flaws with the 2002 U.S. No Child Left Behind educational legislation, which was designed to improve education in the U.S. Topics that are discussed include, teachers complaints that No Child Left Behind policy sets impossible standards and forces teachers to teach based on the test material, and how the bill originally came to life by the proposal of former U.S. president George W. Bush. The other topic

According to the Nation’s Report Card, only forty percent of 4th graders and thirty-three percent of 8th graders are performing at or above levels of proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test in 2015. These numbers are unchanged from 2013, showing that no progress is being made. The United States education system needs to drastically be reformed so that our test scores and work output is comparable to that of higher-achieving nations such as China and Japan. One policy currently in place that is making it difficult for teachers to teach the way they would like is the No Child Left behind Act. The act was originally made so that schools are held accountable for their students’ progress, parents get more choices of which school their children will attend and so that there is more flexibility for how funds can be distributed by the schools. The No Child Left Behind Act needs to be reformed because it encourages teachers to teach to the tests, gives money to schools already succeeding, and forces teachers to focus mainly on students struggling rather than average or excelling students.

The role of the federal government in setting education policy increased significantly with the passage by Congress of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law that revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. "Federal policy has played a major role in supporting standards-based reform since the passage of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994. That law required states to establish challenging content and performance standards, implement assessments…hold school systems accountable…" (Goertz, 2005, pg. 73)

What are the roles of federal and state government when it comes to American education? The roles of education have evolved from historic liabilities to current liabilities. There are many laws and cases that have had an impact on American education that still has a strong influence on education today such as the debate between church and state, racial desegregation, and education finances. Other impacts as relevant are testing standards and special education programs that have arisen from influences of federal concerns. The purpose of this paper is to examine the historical and current roles that the federal and state government has on education. Other factors to include are individual cases