No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)

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.

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

No Child Left Behind, one of the biggest social engineering projects of our time, put fifty million students and their three million teachers under pressure ("A Failing Grade for No Child"). On January 8, 2002, President George W Bush’s NCLB Act was signed into law. NCLB is an education reform bill created to narrow the racial achievement gap. Recently, NCLB has made its way back into the news, simply because it has been up for renewal for over four years now and nothing has happened. This is significant because NCLB dictates how students are educated. NCLB has already affected student learning for many years now, and if renewed, it will continue to do so. The NCLB Act has failed in its mission to improve our schools and narrow the racial achievement

First, what is the achievement gap? According to the achievement gap in education refers to systematic variances in the ability to learn between students from majority populations and students from minority populations. The most significant effort made by the federal government to improve the nation 's schools and student learning is the 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The ESEA was largely designed to address the achievement gap in multicultural education. However, improvement in the academic performances of poor and minority students has been slow over the last forty years.

NCLB was a one-size-fits-all despite its attempt to provide low-incomes student aid and to close achievement. Regardless of “race, income, zip code, disability, home language, and background,” N.D), NCLB was not working to meet every students and school achievement rates because of its excessive testing. This put a toll on both the schools and the students because if the school did not improve the performance of the students, the school is held accountable. Since NCLB is a categorical aid, it has a major impact on local school systems (Spring, 2012). This mean that the school that did poor on the test will not get the aid that they need properly.

Perhaps the most controversial law enacted by President George W. Bush is the No Child Left behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). This is a landmark educational reform designed to improve student achievement and drastically change the culture of American’s schools. In fact, President Bush describes the law as the “cornerstone of his administration.” Because children are our future, President Bush wanted to ensure our neediest children were not left behind. This paper will discuss pros, cons, and impact on students, teachers, and parents of NCLB. www.ed.gov

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is a United States Act of Congress that is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which included Title I, the government 's flagship aid program for disadvantaged students. No Child Left behind was enacted with the intent to become a government aid program for disadvantaged students, and eventually raise the general education standards for the United States. This act was created with the idea to “close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind” (ESEA) to put most simply. The act serves to only require certain basic skills, but does not have any national achievement standards, as it is decided on by each individual state. The bill was signed into effect by George W. Bush in January of 2002. Many people, opposers and supporters alike, argue that it is a "one-size-fits-all" approach to education and teaching that puts too much emphasis on testing and doesn 't fund schools properly, making it nearly impossible to achieve success. The law was initially designed to introduce national standards to a system in which students in some demographic groups were more likely to succeed and others likely to be left behind. But it allows states to determine how success is measured, which could be the source of its downfall.

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.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was authorized by and signed into law in 2002. NCLB was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. NCLB was meant to hold schools to higher standards, enforce accountability, and close achievement gaps that had existed in education since ESEA was enacted. Nevertheless, the rigorous standards and goals set forth under NCLB were never attained. ESEA Flexibility could be attained from the U.S. Department of Education starting in 2012. The accountability plans states were allowed to develop under their ESEA Flexibility replaced Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP that was established under No Child Left Behind.

Control of the public education system has been left to the State for most of the country’s history, it was not until the 1950’s that the federal government played a role in categorical programs, but the national government refrained from involvement in academics until the 90’s. Three days after taking up his position in office, George Bush announced his plan for the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB) which was a consolidated reform of the 1962 Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA (McGuinn, p. 1). ESEA focused on providing resources for the underprivileged students, whereas the NCLB act focuses on all students in public schools. On January 8, 2002, the No Child Left Behind act was enacted. The

The primary goal of NCLB was to create a unified set of standards that would provide an equal measuring stick for each and every student, regardless of their ethnicity or educational classification. This structure, in theory, should clearly define the content and level of comprehension expected for each child. High stakes assessments would be the gauge to determine adequate levels of

The No Child Left Behind Act was the biggest educational step taken by president Bush and his administration. Its main goal included the increase of achievement in education and completely eliminate the gap between different racial and ethnic groups. Its strategies had a major focus on uplifting test scores in schools, hiring “highly qualified teachers” and deliver choices in education. Unluckily, the excessive demands of the law have not succeeded in achieving the goals that were set, and have caused multiple opposing consequences. These unintended consequences affect students negatively which are who the law is most intended in helping. These consequences include a high focus on the low‐level skills which are reflected on high stakes tests; bad assessment of students who have English as a second language and students with special needs; and compelling incentives to eliminate students who score very low from school, so the test scores are achieved to their full potential and their goal (Darling‐Hammond, 2007).

Under the most current statewide mandates of the No Child Left behind Act (NCLBA) (Bush, 2001) educators in the public school system must raise the bar for teaching. This means teaching classroom lessons to effectively educate all styles of learning and bringing students to proficient levels of being educated. Schools are expected to meet these challenges by hiring qualified teachers who are well trained and educated to instruct daily assignments for students. In March of 2010, the Obama Administration sent to Congress a reform amendment of the public schools, NCLBA, to help close some achievement gaps. President Obama has called on Congress to fix the laws to benefit and prepare all students for college or career readiness.

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed by Congress in 2001 with overwhelming bipartisan support. On Jan. 8, 2002, the Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The initiation of this policy in the education sector marked the most recent expansion of the federal role in education especially to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The NCLB policy was developed out of the concern that the American education system was historically disadvantaged over time, and the federal government needed to play a greater role in increasing its responsibilities in the education sector for purposes of making the American education sector internationally competitive.

Tasks within this zone are endeavors that a child cannot yet accomplish on his/her own but could with the assistance of competent adults (Slavin, 2012). NCLB pays a great deal of attention to test scores and hence mandated that all teachers must be highly qualified by the end of the 2006 school year. Highly qualified meant that a teacher must meet the license and certification requirements of the state in which they teach. Slavin wrote that a teacher must also hold at least a bachelor’s degree and must pass state testing criteria and also demonstrate competency in the subject area in order to continue teaching (Slavin, 2012). Now if a teacher did not meet any of these qualifications by the end of the 2005/2006 school year, they would not be allowed to teach again until these mandatory requirements were met. It also mandated that all students in a school must be proficient by the 2013/2014 school year. Each state would determine its own standards of proficiency for the students in its state. If at any point a school repeatedly produces students who are not proficient in their studies, the students at said school would have additional assistance programs available to them, such as the ability to attend one of at least two other schools in the district.