For Bush, the "formation and refining of policy proposals" (Kingdon's second process stream in policymaking) came to fruition when he got elected, and began talking to legislators about making educators and schools accountable. Bush gave a little, and pushed a little, and the Congress make its own changes and revisions, and the policy began to take shape. The third part of Kingdon's process stream for Bush (politics) was getting the necessary votes; Bush had his handlers buttonhole certain conservative politicians, and united them with Democrats, to get enough votes to pass the NCLB.
Meantime, it was truly "organized anarchy" as the debate in the House and Senate lasted seven weeks, and some members of Congress rejected the idea of having the NAEP double check state statistics that show whether test scores have gone up or not. Civil rights groups attacked the bill, saying it would be unfair to minorities.
There was a lot of give and take, and much debate, according to the journal Education Next, published by the Hoover Institute (www.hoover.org),a conservative think-tank organization. "The Bush Administration's shrewd brand of alliance politics enabled it to..." put together a coalition of conservative Republicans, New Democrats, and the Democratic regulars, according to Andrew Rudalevige, author of the article in Education Next. The compromises reached by Democrats and Republicans - both parties wanted the public to see that they were trying hard to improve education, so this fact helped move the legislation along through the system - ended up being acceptable to the majority. In fact, the House of Representatives passed the bill 384-45, and the Senate passed the bill 91-8.
Question FIVE: What constraints did policymakers face? As mentioned in the above answer to question FOUR, there was a need for compromises because not all Republicans could go along with spending billions of dollars on education when it was clear that many schools were failing or at least not living up to standards. And not all Democrats wanted to hold schools and teachers accountable in the way the bill demanded; that is, if you don't increase test scores by a certain percentage during a certain time, federal money would be cut off. And many governors and mayors from states and cities with large numbers of urban poor, and with schools that were badly run down and had outdated equipment and textbooks, were worried that their schools could not meet the new strict requirements; they lobbied their Congressional legislators and senators to cut part of the legislation out. Policymakers, in short, faced a difficult task because while no one was against fixing education and making schools more effective, how to do that was not a simple issue to resolve.
Question SIX: What was the outcome of the policy process, and what did it mandate?
Back in 2002, when it was signed into law NCLB was called the most significant educational legislation in many years. Indeed, NCLB brought together, with much fanfare, educational leaders and key people in both political parties, seemingly united in a reachable goal to promote success in learning for all students. Under the law's most "visible stipulation," an article in Time magazine reports (Wallis, et al. 2007), states must test public school students "in reading and math every year from third through eighth grade," plus high schools must test their students in reading and math every year. Those test results for blacks, Hispanics, English-language learners and learning-disabled students, must be published and made available to the public, which is a bit embarrassing for schools that don't live up to the accountability standards.
Question SEVEN: Did the policy attain the intended goals and/or address the issue that motivated the process in the first place? Unfortunately (NCLB) has not been the panacea that it was touted to be in 2002. In fact, there are serious problems in many aspects of the legislation and how it affects students, teachers, and communities. This paper takes the position that there is need for a change in NCLB strategies; and to make those points several reviews of reliable publications will be reviewed and analyzed.
Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers asserts, "flaws in the law are undercutting its original promise" (www.aft.org),and federal guidance for states, "Has been unclear, untimely and unhelpful." Moreover, the AFT statement on their Web site indicates serious concerns about the "pervasive problem" of under funding; the cornerstone for NCLB is Title 1, and the authorization for Title 1 in 2006 was scheduled to be $22.75 billion (according to the legislation). But President George W. Bush...
(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
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