The No Child Left Behind Act: Impact on the Assessment of Special Education Students

Not only do students lose opportunity in learning from these areas, but the law is also underfunded which the defeats the purpose as well as contradicting itself in the sense that students won’t be achieving the goals set by this law. By 2011, more than 50% of schools were labeled “failing”, and lawmakers saw the need for a change, but weren’t able to produce a bill. That year, the Obama administration offered states a reprieve from many of the law’s mandates through a series of

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

If the schools didn’t make AYP for three years in a row, they had to provide free tutoring and supplemental educational service. Everyone involved felt that the NCLB had unsolved issues. (Randolph & Wilson-Younger, 2012). There are teachers that argue that the testing is not fair with the children that are under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Children with individualized education plans are being forced to take standardized test on their grade level and the teachers argue that the tests might be way above where these children are academically. This also includes the children who have English as their second language because they are struggling when they are taking the standardized tests. Additionally, Choi, (Aug. 2012) describes how many schools struggle to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the Act called No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Pressures on the schools to meet the AYP can affect how each school does their testing and teaching policies. While states have been silent, the question has been whether states have a responsibility to intervene.

"Making Sure That Schools Measure Up." Education Week, vol. 36, no. 16, 4 Jan. 2017, pp. 18-20. EBSCOhost. PDF. In this periodical article, Alyson Klein, reporter for Education Week, reflects on Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), an update to the K-12 education law, in the one year since it was passed in 2016. Klein discusses how the ESSA was designed to improve shortcomings of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the previous version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Klein also examines concerns over greater flexibility given to states and districts regarding issues such as standardized test, school choice, marginalized students. The Obama administration wrote how the accountability portion of the law would work, allowing states to pick their own goals, both a long term goal and short term goals. These goals must address students’ proficiency on tests, English-language proficiency, and graduation

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 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

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is a requirement that all schools must abide by. AYP is the measure by which schools, districts, and states are held accountable for student performance under Title I of the NCLB Act. (Education Week, 2011) However, a loophole gave provisions to school districts the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency, even for subgroups that do not meet State Minimum Achievement standards through a process called “safe harbor”. (Wikipedia, n.d.) According to the law, it states that all schools must implement adequate resources to maintain AYP before interference becomes necessary. However, flexibility to define this yearly progress is allowed when following legislative guidelines.

Another example of the NCLB Act failing in the area of funding is seen in a Mexican-American school, located Houston, Texas, which does not have a library, lab equipment, or an adequate number of textbooks. This is because they are not receiving funding, because the school is being penalized for failing to improve test scores to meet AYP. The school board and administration cannot meet the needs to improve the resources for learning, thus cannot improve the overall test scores at the school. However, the administration does spend $20,000 for commercial test-preparation books and other testing materials in an effort to meet the AYP (Ellis 228). With a focus solely on raising test scores and not the actual learning process, their school will continue in this cycle of low test scores and lacking resources.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (IDEA), is a federal special education law and was signed into law in June 1997. The IDEA pledges that each child with a disability as well as students who need special education services has the right to a free proper public education, with the least restrictive environment. Below are the six components that are included in the IDEA. They include;

Prior to 1975, no federal requirements existed for students with disabilities to attend school, or requirements for schools to attempt to teach students with disabilities (Salvia, Yesseldyke, & Bolt, p. 25, 2013). However, upon the enactment of several federal laws, such as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB), students with disabilities received access to free, appropriate public education which in turn required students with disabilities to participate in statewide assessments. According to Public Law 94-142 (now included in IDEA), it requires an individual education program (IEP) for students with disabilities. The IEP contains items such as present levels of

Jamal Abedi begins his article discussing what the NCLB Act is and why it was established in our country. Basically, the NCLB Act was the most recent version of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965; it affects the states that use federal funding and hold those states accountable for student achievement (Abedi, 2004, p. 4). After explaining the NCLB Act and its purpose, Abedi creates a numbered list of the flaws of NCLB. The flaws include, “Inconsistency in LEP classification across and within states….Sparse LEP population….Lack of LEP subgroup stability….Measurement quality of AYP instruments for LEP students….LEP baseline scores….LEP cutoff points” (Abedi, 2004, p. 4-5), which he gives a short paragraph about the flaw then continues to explicate later in

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, there has been

The No Child Left Behind Act was put into place to make equilibrium of education amongst all students. When in context, its provision seems to work against the goals of students with disabilities. On January 8, 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President George Bush. No Child Left Behind legislation was established to improve the educational achievement of all students, including those with disabilities (Keys & others, 2008; Turnbull, Huerta, & Stowe, 2009). President George Bush said “Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantage children to rigorous standards” (Wrightslaw, 2002). I say it is discrimination to require anything less. It is the soft “bigotry” of low expectations. I am one of some that believe

In 1965 the United States government passed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. ESEA was originally designed to provide funding for schools so that poor students could receive an adequate education. The act underwent minor revisions and adjustments between 1965 and 2001 but mainly stayed within the bounds of its original intent. The 2001 reauthorization of ESEA introduced the NCLB standardized testing program. NCLB demands that students take standardized tests each year and achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores. The individual student AYP scores are lumped together and produce an aggregate school ranking. If any given school does not meet at least minimum AYP scoring requirements there are severe penalties up to and including a complete takeover of the school.

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