What Is Wrong with No Child Left Behind? Essay

Also, the amount of teachers qualified was a concern. The ratio of student to teacher in the classroom was an issue. Many classrooms were overcrowded which makes it hard for teachers to focus on students individually if assistance was needed. Teachers in turn were not able to receive assistance from teacher aides. Strength of all individuals is culture. The ethnic background of the children was taken into consideration. Federal funding was used to provide more training to teachers in relation to cultural competency and technical skills. The teachers will take into consideration a child’s culture and their ability to learn and retain information. In addition, the use of technology provided a full range of technical skills to analyze data to improve quality of decision-making skills and classroom experience (United, 2010).

With the NCLB’s focused emphasis on English and math standards, other educational areas such as the arts and sciences have been overlooked. The No Child Left Behind Act also focuses on bringing the lower scores up and not helping in raising the scores of those students who are already at higher levels leaving these higher achieving students behind in a push for equality. Although test scores have risen and the achievement gap between minority and white students has decreased, the No Child Left Behind Act has damaged the United States educational system by not addressing the needs of all students, forcing curricula to exclude arts, civics, foreign language and sciences, and emphasizing testing and not learning. It is time for a change.

“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).

"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

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.

The No Child left Behind Act was intended to close the achievement gap in elementary and secondary schools by allowing each and every student the opportunity to have the best education possible. This law was signed by George W. Bush in 2001 who described it as a law that will, “Ensure that all children have a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education”(Neill 2). The No Child Left Behind Act was only intended to help the students, but it is clear, not only to teachers, parents, and professionals, that it is time for a reauthorized law; One that each and every student can benefit from. The achievement gap in America’s school systems still exists. For the sake of America’s future, the school system must make a change now or the future of this country will suffer.

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

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

The No Child Left Behind Act is designed to raise the achievement levels of subgroups of students such as African Americans, Latinos, low-income students, and special education students to a state-determined level of proficiency. However, since its introduction in 2001, it has received a lot of criticism. Some argue the ulterior motives of the Act while others commend its innovation and timing. With the Bush administration coming to an end, it is difficult to determine what will happen to the Act or how effective it will continue to be. Hopefully future lawmakers will be able to evaluate the pros and cons of the Act and the impact it will have on our youth.

In the article "3 Big Ways No Child Left Behind Failed" it gives 3 reasons why the NCLB act has not worked. The NCLB act has not worked because of the high stakes testing, adequate yearly progress (AYP), and every student proficient by 2014. High-stake testing is because of the NCLB act, making students from third to eighth grade having to take a test every year in math, reading, and writing. The NCLB act was to be taking seriously otherwise, the schools would be punished. If the schools did not do well on this exam, known as keystones they would get less funding, or would have to close their schools. This not only affects the teachers but the students as well. The students with learning disabilities will have a harder time taking the exam and if they could not score proficient on the keystones they would end of in special classes and would not be

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

President Bush quoted, “Clearly, our children are our future…Too many of our neediest children are being left behind” (www.ed.gov). The “No Child Left Behind” Act expands the federal government’s role in elementary and secondary education. The NCLB emphasizes accountability and abiding by policies set by the federal government. This law sets strict requirements and deadlines for states to expand the scope and frequency of student testing, restore their accountability system and guarantee that every classroom is staffed by a teacher qualified to teach in his or her subject area. Furthermore, the NCLB requires states to improve the quality of their schools from year to year. The NCLB pushes state governments

Democrats and Republicans should challenge the No Child Left Behind Act. Even though the No Child Left Behind Act has good intentions to help children, there are many hazardous strategies involved. The No Child Left Behind Act may do more harm than good. The strategies in the No Child Left Behind Act do not contain research evidence to support the law. The No Child Left Behind Act guidelines that were published in December, 2002 by the United States Department of Education, insist that parents of students in poorly performing schools be allowed to transfer them to a different school, even if it causes overcrowding somewhere else.

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 what follows I first provide a history and explanation of the NCLB act. As well as the thinking behind this piece of legislation. Then, I show how the NCLB’s rules and standardized testing are destructive to teaching. Finally, I argue how the act is leading to the overall downfall of our educational system.