The No Child Left Behind Act 2001

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

Since the No Child Left Behind Act, also known as NCLB, has come into effect, it has caused some concerns with teachers and parents alike on how well it is working for the students. There have been issues that have arisen that needed to be addressed and instead been overlooked when a child does not meet with the school’s standardized testing and is pushed onto the next grade level.

The NCLB Act has become the largest intervention by the federal government. This act promises to improve student learning and to close the achievement gap between the white students and students of color. The law is aimed at having standardized test to measure student performance and quality of teacher. The Standardized exams are fully focused on reading and mathematics. This law characterizes an unequalled extension of the federal role into the realm of local educational accountability. High school graduation rates are also a requirement as an indicator of performance at secondary level. In low performing schools they get punished by receiving less funds and students have the choice to move to high performing school. The quality of our

NCLB, the most recent version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was preceded by the Improving America’s Schools Act. Under that law, high-quality teaching and learning were not prevalent in all schools, and achievement gaps persisted, leading to agreement that a greater federal role for accountability was necessary—from which NCLB was born. NCLB authorized 45 programs in 10 different areas, but public debate tended to focus on the law’s testing, accountability, and teacher-quality requirements. NCLB required that students be tested in the subjects of English language arts (ELA) and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, and for states to use the results to assess how well schools were meeting “adequate yearly progress” goals for student proficiency in these subjects. Schools that consistently did not meet these goals overall, or for subgroups of students, were targeted for interventions, and eventually for sanctions.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was drafted and passed to inject a rigid standard-based education system in the United States. It was signed into law by President Bush, and represents a gross, unwarranted, and unsubstantiated encroachment of the federal government into education. According to the State of New Jersey Department of Education (2010), the No Child Left Behind Act "contains the most sweeping changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since it was enacted in 1965." One of the results of the act has been a grading system, whereby schools are evaluated according to their students' standardized test scores. The ideas behind the act were that No Child Left Behind would encourage stronger accountability for results-based education; offer increased flexibility and local control over how educational standards were being met; offer "expanded options for parents;" and emphasize empirically tested teaching practices (New Jersey Department of Education, 2010). The No Child Left Behind Act was proposed as a measure of reforming failing schools by encouraging compliance with educational standards established by the federal government. One of its most attractive provisions has been that No Child Left Behind "took particular aim at improving the educational lot of disadvantaged students," ("No Child Left Behind," 2004).

As stated by the U.S Department of Education the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is the most recent iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), the major federal law authorizing federal spending on programs to support K-12 schooling. The act requires states to implement statewide accountability systems covering all public schools and students (Clarke 2003). These systems must be based on challenging state A former teacher, President Johnson believed that equal access to education was vital to a child’s ability to lead a productive life. This piece of legislation constituted the most important educational component of the “War on Poverty” launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Through a special source of funding (Title I), the law allocated large resources to meet the needs of educationally deprived children, especially through compensatory programs for the poor. As Alyson Klein states, a writer for Education Week, the law’s original goal, which remains today, was to improve educational equity for students from lower income families by providing federal funds to school districts serving poor students. School districts serving lower income students often receive less state and local funding than those serving more affluent children. The purpose of the NCLB is to ensure that all children in the United States receive a high-quality education and to close the achievement gap that exists between children who

The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law January 8, 2002 , by George .W Bush. The Act is a re-authorization of the Secondary Education Act, The No Child Behind Act was put into effect in order to help close achievement gaps and improve education within the public school system using various techniques so that no child would be left behind. In order to achieve the goals of the act, procedures were to be followed by public school system, Bush suggested that schools test students in grades third through eight, in math and reading and publicly release the results. So therefore the regulations were set, but less progressing schools would experience penalties. These penalties included, using massive piece of school funding toward teaching development, as well as replacing staff if needed, making new curriculum, and any school that fail over six times within a row could experiences a shut down. The regulations and penalties that followed the No Child Left Behind Act, added pressures on students as well as teachers whom were forced to teach to the test and achieving difficult short term goals. Indeed, the idea behind the No Child Left Behind Act sort out to provide beneficial goals for students worldwide, however only left majority involved disappointed and distressed. Within the last ten years that the Act has been in effect it has caused teachers to simplify test materials in hopes of gaining higher test score in order to keep schools from shutting down. This

“We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail,” is a quote said by former president, George W. Bush, in his address to a joint session of Congress after the September eleventh attacks. The beginning of the twenty-first century marked a start of a revolution. A revolution of social change and global peace. The 2000’s is a decade of advanced technology, new and improved adjustments, and a decade of remembrance.

As far as learning for standardized testing goes there is a federal act involved that plays a role in the educational system and controls how the educational system teaches and tests these students. This act is named, The No Child Left Behind Act. This act makes standardized assessments mandatory for all fifty states. This law serves a purpose to test students in reading and math for grades three through eight. In high school, students are required to test and they are expected to meet or exceed state standards in reading and math. (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) “The major focus of No Child Left Behind is to close student achievement gaps by providing all children with a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education” (Elementary and Secondary Education Act). But since the early 2000s, has this act kept it promise or has the responsibility of this act been not meeting these standards? When this law was first placed, it was said that this act would make it possible for students in the United States to become proficient in math and reading by the year 2014. (National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy) But, does this mean that every student in the U.S. will meet these expectations? The National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy does not believe so. “The No Child Left Behind Act sets an impossibly high bar—that every single student will be proficient in reading and math by 2014. We

There were a fair number of interesting topics in this Political Science 2 class session of the Fall 2016 semester. A few that stood out to me, personally, were the topics of laissez-faire economics, separate-but-equal issues, and the viewpoints of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. From the tenth edition of the course book We the People, Texas Ed. by Benjamin Ginsberg and Unit 2 of the lecture; a policy developed by the efforts of the late philosopher and economist, Adam Smith, laissez-faire economics essentially means that the government should play a basal role in government. Also from the same book and in Unit 1 of the lecture; the topic of “separate-but-equal” was discussed. This notion dictates that African-Americans be treated equally by being allowed to exercise fundamental rights as human beings, but still must use separate facilities. This mandate came from the case now known as Plessy vs. Ferguson in which an African-American challenged the Jim Crow laws that were set within the public transportation policy. And lastly, in the same fashion, from Unit 3 of the lecture; the act known as No Child Left Behind was also discussed in the class.

To begin with, the NCLB other known as the famous No Child Left Behind act is currently go on fourteen years in effect with more improvises frequently being made to better the act along with the country of the united states and the people within the educational field. There are some new educational ideas that was proposed to the act which include “increase accountability for students performance’s” this plan basically meant that the districts schools and even the states that actually improved their academic standard would be simply awarded and even also if that schools

Many educators have seen The No Child Left Behind Act as both a success and an inadequacy. Introduced in 2001, the Act’s intention was to reform education at that time. It was a step in the right direction, however, like most things, it didn’t solve the problem.  The Act pushed education to seek standardized testing as the only mean to evaluate a school’s quality of education. In fact, Robert Rothman, Scott F. Marion, and Helen Ladd believe that education needs reform. They confront their different positions on the issue in two articles. Ladd’s article is more admirable than Rothman’s and Marion’s. Ladd fulfills her purpose for writing the article in a better manner than Rothman and Marion because she communicates the issue in a formal, but

Imagine failing a test that alters the decisions made pertaining the future. Standardized tests are failing many schools that are serving disadvantaged children based on their knowledge on a test that is created in order to put upon higher standards for students. The No Child Left Behind Act is a law that had been signed by George W. Bush in pursuance to designate all public school students to perform standardized tests. The law had been signed in 2002 although, standardized testing had been popular and have been moving forward way before that time. Standardized testing has become very common in the United States. These tests had been set up in order to try to measure how much knowledge a student carries. Tests like STAR in California and

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed in 2001.This law mandates that all students are required to have access to the general education curriculum and participate in accountability testing. Specifically “all students with disabilities should have access to, participate in, and make progress in, the general curriculum,” (Ayres, K. M., Lowrey, K. A., Douglas, K. H., & Sievers, C., 2011). The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) of 2004 ensures students with disabilities have access to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE), meaningful, and in the least restrictive environment. There is a huge disconnect between implementing both laws because NCLB holds stakeholder’s accountable for teaching students with severe disabilities from the general curricula but on the other hand IDEA mandates students learn from an individualized curricula that support their post- secondary needs.

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).