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 demands of tests negatively influence accurate measurement of ELL performance. For the ELL student, tests measure both achievement and language ability.
Instability of the ELL student subgroup. The goal of redesignating high-performing ELL students as language-proficient students causes high achievers among ELL students to exit the subgroup. The consequence is downward pressure on ELL test scores, worsened by the addition of new ELL students, who are typically low achievers.
Factors outside of a school's control. Research shows substantial nonschool effects on student learning even within ELL subgroups. Schools are therefore unable to control all the factors related to student achievement.
Given these constraints, it would seem that schools that are able to achieve the performance standards required by the NCLB in the established timeframe are going to be the exception rather than the rule, and at least some authorities suggest that the true purpose of the legislation is to create a situation where students, teachers, and schools alike are going to fail because the standards are impossible to achieve. For example, as Kesson and Ross (2004) suggest, "Current federal educational policy, embodied in the No Child Left Behind Act, sets impossible standards for a reason. Public access to institutions of learning helps promote the levels of critical civic activism witnessed during the 1960s and 1970s that challenged the power of the state and the corporations that it primarily serves" (p. xiv). These authors even go so far as to suggest that the same corporate forces that are driving the privatization of the nation's prison and jail system are at work in Congress: "The current reform environment creates conditions in which public schools can only fail, thus providing 'statistical evidence' for an alleged need to turn education over to private companies in the name of 'freedom of choice'" (Kesson & Ross, 2004, p. xiv). Indeed, these researchers maintain that the NCLB represent the tip of a conspiratorial iceberg with the privatization of the nation's public schools as its ultimate goal: "In combination with the growing corporate monopolization of the media, these reforms are part of a longer-range plan to consolidate private power's control over the total information system, thus eliminating avenues for the articulation of honest inquiry and dissent" (Kesson & Ross, 2004, p. xiv).
Other educational authorities have tended to agree with this overall assessment of the NCLB as well, if not on the level of a conspiracy, at least on the level of high-governmental meddling that has resulted in less-than-desirable coverage of the true impact of the NCLB on the nation's schools in general and ELL students in particular. For instance, as Mayers (2006) observed recently, "Despite the grim reality of the implementation of the No Child Left Behind act: the general public appears to be largely misinformed. This is due, in part, to what appear to be deliberate efforts on the part of the Bush administration" (p. 449). In this regard, Arce and her associates (2005) emphasize that, "The Bush family has taken a particular interest in education by directly and indirectly supporting the implementation of the NCLB legislation. This president, who is publicly propagandizing against public institutions (especially education and social security), sponsors legislation that directly profits his family, but punishes poor children and public school educators. NCLB is the pinnacle of investment schemes" (p. 56). According to Ascher (2006), the impetus behind this "NCLB as investment scheme" is nothing less than the co-opting of nation's schools by the powerful elitist-headed conglomerates that are running the country today:
The federal out-of-school tutoring program features free-market strategies promoted by the Bush Administration: parental choice, money following individual students, and the privatization of educational delivery. Created in response to low standardized-test scores, the requirement for supplemental educational services also reflects NCLB's lack of...
(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
No Child Left Behind Act (Public Law 107-110, 115), is a Congressional Act signed into law by George W. Bush in January 2002. The Bill was a bi-partisan initiative, supported by Senator Edward Kennedy, and authorized a number of federal programs designed to improve standards for educational accountability across all States, districts, and increase the focus on reading. Much of the NCLB focus is based on the view that American
No Child Left Behind Act Impact of the "No Child Left Behind Act" in California Schools The Federal "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" which President Bush signed into law in January 2002, has been an issue of debate across the country for the last two years. Its impact on public education has varied from state to state. According to the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," every state must
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
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 Key political, or legal issues, changes in K-12 assessment goals A Statute of instructive practice within the K-12 cluster involves instruction, curriculum and assessment among students. In this case, alignment ensures that the three capacities coordinated with the same goal and strengthened instead of working at cross-purposes. An appraisal will also measure the success of what the students are being taught on whether their
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
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