A Look at the No Child Left Behind Act

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act was put into place 3 days after President George W Bush took office he described it as "the cornerstone of my Administration." ed.gov What happed in truth was that the NCLB act caused much controversy, expanded the amount of testing in class, and held schools to a series of penalties if they did not meet established goals. While the schools were supposed to improve gaps, truth shows that gains are minimal and in most cases are actually receding or staying the same at the very best. The NCLB act has proven to be a good idea but improperly implemented by people who did not have enough forethought for what consequences their actions would have. The biggest problem is that the original goals set for NCLB are not going to be met in time and the preordained outcomes are going to come into play unless there is change made in time.

In theory NCLB stands on 4 pillars these are Stronger Accountability for Results, More Freedom for States and Communities, Proven Education Methods and More Choices for Parents. (ed.gov) The plan for The NCLB Act is that it will strengthen Title I accountability by requiring States to implement statewide accountability systems covering all public schools. "These systems must be based on State standards in reading and mathematics, annual testing for all students in grades 3-8, and annual statewide progress objectives ensuring that all groups of students reach proficiency within 12 years. Assessment results and State progress objectives must be broken out by poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, and limited English proficiency to ensure that no group is left behind. School districts and schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward statewide proficiency goals will, over time, be subject to improvement, corrective action, and restructuring measures aimed at getting them back on course to meet State standards. Schools that meet or exceed AYP objectives or close achievement gaps will be eligible for State Academic Achievement Awards."(ed.gov)
When first implanted in 2002 civil rights groups praised NCLB for its emphasis on students who live in poverty, have disabilities, and are new English learners and students of color. They also praised "NCLB aims to raise achievement and close the achievement gap by setting annual test-score targets for subgroups of students, based on a goal of "100 percent proficiency" by 2014."( the nation)

"This noble agenda, however, has been nearly lost in the law's problematic details. The law has been protested by more than twenty states and dozens of school districts that have voted to resist specific provisions. One state and a national teachers association have brought lawsuits against the federal government based on the unfunded costs and dysfunctional side effects of the law. Critics claim that the law's focus on complicated tallies of multiple-choice-test scores has dumbed down the curriculum, fostered a "drill and kill" approach to teaching, mistakenly labeled successful schools as failing, driven teachers and middle-class students out of public schools and harmed special education students and English-language learners through inappropriate assessments and efforts to push out low-scoring students in order to boost scores. Indeed, recent analyses have found that rapid gains in education outcomes stimulated by reforms in the 1990s have stalled under NCLB, with math increases slowing and reading on the decline."( the nation)

"The current NCLB goal of bringing all children to a level of proficiency by 2014 has been projected to be unattainable. Holding students, teachers and administrators accountable for reaching an unattainable goal will lead to unintended negative consequences." (ernweb)