The "No Child Left Behind" Act

The problem with the NCLB Act is that it rewards test scores rather than complete learning. For that reason, most educators consider this nationwide effort to improve education results coast to coast as far less than a success, even if "failure" may be too strong a word.

"No Child Left Behind, the biggest social engineering project of our time, put 50 million school children and their 3 million teachers under the gun. The law passed mainly because many people were convinced that low-income, minority students learn less than middle-class, White children because their teachers don't try hard enough" (Jehlen 30). The author explains that test scores have been rising in the seen years since the law went into effect, but, sadly, this is not proof that this Act is a success. The reason? Teaches are spending too much time prepping their students to get test scores up. As this particular article explains, overall learning was not improved because attention was focused on specific tests. This is according to Harvard University Professor Daniel Koretz. Koretz went to a school district where scores began to rise because new tests were being administered. He proved NCLB's fallacious premise this way: "Koretz gave students the old test, the one that no longer carried high stakes so teachers didn't prep students to take it. Their scores plummeted. His conclusion: Four years of rising scores did not reflect real achievement, just teaching to a new test" (Jehlen 31).

Koretz' argument is given added credence at a recent NBR broadcast concerning the NCLB Act and its failure to impact all children: "No Child Left Behind law is a failure...All children learn differently. Some children are visual learners, some children can hear something and learn, some children need to watch a movie and learn. I don't think that these tests serve all different types of learners - yet" (Montagne para. 25)

One concern deals not only with funding but the rationale for concentrating on tests that may still fail minority and ESL students. "Some criticize the statute because it discourages higher quality teachers from teaching at lower-performing schools. Teachers will want to teach in schools that offer them both a steady job and a degree of autonomy over what and how they teach. Under NCLB, sanctioned schools are burdened with restructuring, which can include changing staff and faculty" (Sanders 590). So, in effect the teacher is not truly being an effective teacher because it is impossible to offer a wider range of individual efforts on the part of the student. The idea of achieving higher scores in a test is to concentrate on that test and not a wider curriculum of learning opportunities. Ethically, this is short-changing teacher AND student. In the NEQA Principle of Ethics, the very first principle clearly states that "The educator shall not unreasonably restrain the student from independent action in pursuit of learning" (NEA "Cod of Ethics" para. 5). But, what if this "independent action" interferes with guiding the ENTIRE class to do well on a specific test? That, in effect, restrains the student who wants to go off, perhaps on a tangent, to learn.

There is a truly difficult and eventually legal problem which is, in part, ethical and in part liability-actionable. Teachers are forced to divert from their normal lesson plans to make sure test scores improve annually. If they do not, the school can be sanctioned and teachers and administrators held liable. Here is a clear warning to even the most dedicated teacher: "Like NCLB, educational malpractice is an area of law that contemplates the extent of a teacher's or school's responsibility for a student's educational performance. Educational malpractice actions are brought against educators and schools for professional misconduct, not unlike medical or legal malpractice actions" (Flynn 167). So, in fact, it becomes a fear of punishment that forces teachers and school administrators to force students to become responsive and raise test scores- or else!

This NCLB Act is in some cases dangerous to the education profession, it seems. It is one thing to dismiss poor teachers because they cannot get any sort of response from their students. It is quite something else to punish good teachers by (`a) forcing them to a curriculum that focuses on prepping for a standardize test (memory vs. learning) and (b) making the teachers liable and accused of not doing their jobs when the cumulative test scores do not meet expectations. The sad fact for the individual teacher is that his performance is truly out of his hands and in the hands of politicians who place too much emphasis on test scores which may have little or no clear indication of how well a teacher teaches or how well a student learns and retains what he or she has learned: "with respect to the district, while ethical theory can be interpreted to support its actions and decisions, often these considerations are overlooked in favor of decisions that react to economic, social and political pressures" (Rossmiller para 10).

Any ethical teacher, interested in the positive learning, rather than rote recital of memorized answers, has to be concerned that he or she is being judged by such memorized test scores. A child's future abilities and potential cannot and should not be monitored by national grading systems or by penalizing and punishing those schools where the majority of the student body are poor, minorities, perhaps ESL students. NCLB does not measure potential. It does not look at tomorrow, only at yesterday and how today compares with yesterday. That is totally unfair to teacher, administrator and student alike. There has to be a better way to instill the desire to learn than by nation-wide testing created and administered, more likely than not, by older middle class Caucasians.

References:

Flynn, Jessica: "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND GETS A TIP

FROM TORT THEORY: PROTECTING RESPONSIBLE SCHOOLS

AGAINST UNDESERVED SANCTIONS" San DiegoCA:

Thomas Jefferson Law Review v. 31, i. 1 Fall, 2008

Jehlen, Alain: "Is NCLB working? The 'scientifically-based

Answer" NEA Today, Jan-Feb, 2009 v. 27, i.4

Montagne, Rene (host): "Impact of No Child Left Behind Is

Debatable" All Things Considered, Morning Edition

NPR Public Radio transcript, Feb. 26, 2009

"NEA Code of Ethics of the Education Profession Principle I"

Rossmiller, Christine M.: "Teacher Preparation and Professional

Development: A Closer Look at Accountability"

eJournal of Education Policy (2004)

https://www4.nau.edu/cee/jep/journals.aspx?id=66

Sanders, Adam: "Left Behind: Low-Income Students

Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)" BaltimoreMD:

Journal of Law and Education Vol. 37, Iss. 4;