NCLB
A Great Idea Gone Astray
No one who cares about the future of our nation can dispute that education is important. And no one should dispute the fact that each child has as a birthright a good education that will allow each child to find a path through life that is meaningful and productive. But how to provide, implement, sustain, and assess such an educational system has proven to be extremely difficult. In part, of course, this difficulty arises from the fact that different individuals, communities, and generations have often very different ideas about what constitutes a sound education. Should public schools seek to educate citizens or train workers? Instill creativity or a work ethic? Urge conformity or individuality? And, even when schools and their stakeholders can determine exactly what it is that they are trying to do, how are they going to be able to assess whether or not they are effectively doing it?
The trend over nearly the last decade in response to this last question has been to require public schools to put their students through the paces of frequent standardized testing as a way of ensuring that schools and teachers are conveying the basics to each student. The federal law, implemented by George W. Bush, that coordinates the setting of standards for schools across the nation and that governs the testing process is No Child Left Behind. And in the years since its implementation, it has proven to be increasingly problematic. This paper examines some of the most serious of its pernicious, if unintentioned, effects.
No Child Left Behind, which is seeing its tenth anniversary this year, is the capstone to the concept of standards-based education, which is in essence simply the idea that there should...
(No Child Left behind Act Aims to Improve Success for All Students and Eliminate the Achievement Gap) Parents will also gain knowledge regarding how the quality of learning is happening in their child's class. They will get information regarding the progress of their child vis-a-vis other children. Parents have of late been given the privilege to ask for information regarding the level of skills of the teachers. It offers parents
III. Other Issues and Challenges The No Child Left Behind act is viewed by many if not most of today's teachers as having tunnel vision and that acknowledges little but standardized testing outcomes. Specifically reported by Dillon (2009) in the 2009 New York Times article entitled: "No Child Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap" that there has not been a narrowing of the gap between white and minority students in
These authors note that the obstacles for ELL students are particularly challenging, given that they include both educational and technical issues. These challenges include the following: Historically low ELL performance and very slow improvement. State tests show that ELL students' academic performance is far below that of other students, oftentimes 20 to 30 percentage points lower, and usually shows little improvement across many years. Measurement accuracy. Research shows that the language
There are over 4.4 million ELs enrolled in U.S. public schools, a number that has doubled during the last decade, making ELs roughly 10% of the total enrollment nationwide (Conrad 2005). The demographic increases demonstrate to government agencies that more needs to be done to support and ensure their integration and success in the educational process, and standardized testing in English is the least appropriate way to meet their
In principle, it is now believed that the traditional emphasis on passive learning through lectures and textbook methods of instruction are far less effective than active methods of academic instruction. Whereas modern educators have been pushing for public education systems to move away from passive learning methods, the NCLB creates the exact opposite incentive: to waste classroom modules memorizing information for the test and practicing test-taking instead of learning
Review and Comment Indications suggest that Obama will endorse a rewritten version of No Child Left Behind once requirements like teacher quality and academic standards are toughened up to focus more attention on failing schools. This will mean more, not less, federal involvement in the program. Overall, reaction to Obama's plans are negative. Most who were opposed to Bush's policy had hoped for a brand new start rather than a rehash
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now