No Child Left Behind | A government attempt to fix American Education | Erica Cowan |
Abstract Despite the vast majority of Americans that are educated though public school systems very successfully, many student of minority or low-income backgrounds have been “left behind.” The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), was the Bush administration’s attempt to help ensure that every public school student had a right to a solid education. A main goal was to have every school achieve higher scores on standardized testing each year and eventually by 2014 every student should score proficiently on their tests. Funding for NCLB was supposed to cover all the added costs that the schools would occur, but the funding ran out and schools are
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Every year since 2002, the goal has been to increase the AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). With the plan that was set, by 2014 every student should be able to pass every exam. If schools cannot meet the specified AYP, it becomes identified as a school needing improvement. If no improvement occurs the school will be subject to a complete takeover. There are very specific categories of progress that need to be reported. Every sub group needs to have improvement in its AYP. “‘The result is that the lowest-performing subgroup will ultimately determine the proficiency of a school, district or state,’ says Rich Cardullo, one of the authors of a paper published in the September 26th issue of Science magazine, which analyzes testing data from California's elementary schools” (“All students proficient on state tests by 2014,” 2008). All teachers are required to become “highly qualified.” Every teacher must have at least a bachelor’s degree, full state certification, and have demonstrated knowledge in the core subject they are instructing. To demonstrate knowledge, new teachers must take and pass their state’s certification exam or they must meet a “High, Objective, Uniform Standard of Evaluation” or HOUSE. There is also an Alternative Certification Program where teachers can teach while they are still being trained and certified (“Are you ‘highly qualified’ according to NCLB?” 2010). Parents should have more options when sending their children to school. If a
The No Child Left Behind Act was based on the Elementary & Secondary Education Act of 1965. The act was established based on the promise of Thomas Jefferson to create a free public education system in Virginia (Hammond, Kohn, Meier, Sizer & Wood, 2004). The act is now reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act was to make sure that children were given a fair, quality education. The act set out to close the achievement gaps in education, which were caused by children living in poverty, living with disabilities, children who were of different ethnic backgrounds and English learners. The proposed methods of the act targeted all children and provided an equal opportunity to meet
second largest and oldest city in Georgia with a population of about 200,000. The school district
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
In 2004, coinciding with the conclusion of President George W. Bush’s first term in office, United States Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, released an essay depicting the successes of his administration. Paige’s department spearheaded the initiative sparked by the No Child Left Behind Act, a set of policies enacted to reform education and provide students with an improved degree of learning more suited to the evolving job market. Paige brings light to the findings of his administration, presenting what he considers to be evidence explicitly showing the successful nature of these programs. Through numerous faults with his argumentation and reasoning, however, Paige’s opinion on the outcome of said policies is highly debatable. To judge
The American public educational system is filled with an assortment of problems. Most students are graduating with less knowledge and capability than similar students in other industrialized countries. Classroom disruptions are surprisingly common, and in some classrooms, nearly continuous. The public education system is having difficulty adjusting to the no child left behind act. The No Child Left Behind(NCLB) is a landmark in education reform designed to improve student achievement and change the culture of American’s schools.
“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 Act is a renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is an aid program for disadvantaged students. Although it does sound as if the Act is helping children all across the country, Alexandra Robbins thoroughly explains otherwise in her book, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. Within pages eighty five through eighty nine, Robbins thoroughly shows her negativity to the Act and why it’s hurting children rather than helping them. She uses hard facts, such as the emphasis on tests, altered curricula, and the corrupt college admission process to prove her point.
It has been over a decade since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was enacted on January 2, 2002. The long title of NCLB says it is “An act to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.” Although NCLB was created with this in mind, research shows that it has actually managed to widen the educational achievement gap between minorities and their white counterparts. In this paper, my central research question is “What are three factors that have led to the failure of the No Child Left Behind Act among the Hispanic and African American student population?”
* Teacher Qualifications: By the end of the 2005-06 school year, every teacher in core content areas working in a public school had to be "highly qualified" in each subject he or she taught. Under the law, "highly qualified" generally meant that a teacher was certified and demonstrably proficient in his or her subject matter. Beginning with the 2002-03 school year, all new teachers hired with federal Title I money had to be "highly qualified." By the end of the 2005-06 school year, all school paraprofessionals hired with Title I money must have completed
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)
For this reason, the NCLB act provides a safe harbor provision. This provision states that as long as schools are showing progress, they will not be considered failing. Failing would be if there was no academic progress by any group of students in which
Throughout American history, Americans have worked hard to ensure a better life for their children. Many immigrants came to the United States for this reason. These immigrants risked everything they had for the betterment of their children. Unfortunately, America has not always done the best for its children. In the 2000’s many children were obese and had shorter life expectancies than their parents. There were also schools throughout the United States, which had students who could not read or write that well. In the year 2000 the United States took a test along with several other countries which was The PISA test. On this test, The United States scored lower than several other countries. The United States were appalled that the test
The No Child Left Behind Act should tremendously be re-examined and amended because the focus on the standardized tests decrease the quality of other subjects not on the tests, the tests are not an efficient tool to make certain that a student is receiving an excellent education and the tests create unnecessary stress for the students, teachers and administrators. The purpose of No Child Left Behind is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a top-grade education. This is a great proposal to strive towards but, legislation plans on achieving this proposal by making schools responsible for their students’ proficiency and to measure their proficiency with the use of standardized tests. After the students take the
In January 2002, President George Bush’s education reform act titled No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became the law of the land. The intent of the law was to close the achievement gap between low performing students and high performing students. In most cases, students who were not meeting educational targets were from economically disadvantaged families, minority groups, or English Language Learners (ELL). These characteristics describe the Sanger Unified School District in California’s Central Valley, where 82 percent of the district’s students were poor (Smith, 2012). Like many school districts challenged to find ways to meet the criterion of NCLB, Sanger Unified implemented the
The United States of America is among the countries in the world that highly focus on the education of its citizens. The country’s government allots sufficient funding for its education, thus the country is considered the number one nation that spends on per student than any other nation in in the world. With the high price of education and the high cost of funding, the country aims to ensure that all public schools in all states achieve quality education. The “No Child Left Behind” Act is America’s law that expanded the role of the federal government in education reform, particularly focused on improving the education of marginalized American students. At the core of this act are various measures in increasing student achievement. It also puts emphasis on the accountability of states and schools for student achievement and progress. The law ushered important changes in the education of Americans in various aspects including annual testing, academic progress, report cards, teacher qualifications, curriculum, and funding. It continues to set a benchmark for the achievement of desired level of quality of education in all states in America. Through the years, the “No Child Left Behind” Act is faced with controversies and debates by various educators, policy makers, groups and individuals in America (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, No Child Left Behind, edweek.org).