American Public Education Essay

NCLB reduces effective instruction as well as student learning by causing states to lower achievement goals and teacher motivation. Assertively, I support my argument that students who are disadvantaged or disabled do not reach the same proficiency as other students due to the simple fact that everyone learns differently, has different areas of strengths and weaknesses, and are essentially learning curriculum for a mandated state test that solely measures how well subgroups of children test on generic material based on each

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 was put into place to provide extra money for children who do not have money while trading their knowledge using their test scores. The NCLB Act says that students are to be given yearly tests along with yearly report cards to track how well they are doing in school, in doing so, school is not about fun and socializing but now it is all business. These tests not only do not help the students learn but puts a load of stress on their shoulders, alongside that the tests have no purpose other than grading how well a students is able to retain information.

In 2001, Former President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. This Law launched the national standards and testing movement of the United States (2004).

When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law in 2002, the legislation had one goal-- to improve educational equity for all students in the United States by implementing standards for student achievement and school district and teacher performance. Before the No Child Left Behind Act, the program of study for most schools was developed and implemented by individual states and local communities’ school boards. Proponents of the NCLB believed that lax oversight and lack of measurable standards by state and local communities was leading to the failure of the education system and required federal government intervention to correct. At the time, the Act seemed to be what the American educational system

     Many educators find the purpose of the NCLB Act to be very confusing and disingenuous. According to Monty Neill, who works for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization which evaluates tests and exams for their impartiality, “NCLB is a fundamentally punitive law that uses flawed standardized tests to label schools as failures and punish them with counterproductive sanctions” (Neill, 1). Teachers will be of no use to educate their students according to the curriculum, if the only focus that both the teachers and students have is only to pass the imperative standardized test, just so their school district can acquire more

Since the No Child Left Behind Act, also known as NCLB, has come into effect, it has caused some concerns with teachers and parents alike on how well it is working for the students. There have been issues that have arisen that needed to be addressed and instead been overlooked when a child does not meet with the school’s standardized testing and is pushed onto the next grade level.

The law was meant to increase student achievement and to hold states, schools, teachers and students more accountable. How exactly is NCLB changing schools? In, 2005-2006, states were required to test grades 3-8 in reading and math. Shortly after, they added in an annual science test in K-12. A lot of tedious testing grew in schools and is still continuing to grow today. Along with tests came certain standards for each state, as well as consequences for those who failed to meet them. Report Cards were being sent home with the school’s data along with the students’ performance. Teachers were even given higher standards to meet. There was a change in

The NCLB Act has become the largest intervention by the federal government. This act promises to improve student learning and to close the achievement gap between the white students and students of color. The law is aimed at having standardized test to measure student performance and quality of teacher. The Standardized exams are fully focused on reading and mathematics. This law characterizes an unequalled extension of the federal role into the realm of local educational accountability. High school graduation rates are also a requirement as an indicator of performance at secondary level. In low performing schools they get punished by receiving less funds and students have the choice to move to high performing school. The quality of our

While NCLB appears great in principle, it is failing in actuality. The main purpose of the Act was to close the achievement gap between White and minority students, especially Black and Latino students, by increasing educational equality. The differences in the achievement gap is to be measured yearly through the use of standardized testing. As each student is unique, the use of standardized tests to measure whether students reach 100% proficiency is unrealistic. Teachers, principals, and school boards are so worried about being “proficient” that teachers are now teaching for the test, not teaching a rounded curriculum. With schools afraid that they may possibly receive sanctions, schools are now cheating the system by finding ways to bolster their scores to improve state AYP rates. Paul D. Houston explains in his article “The 7 Deadly Sins of NCLB,” that the Act relies on fear and coercion (2007). Teachers, school boards, and states are so afraid of receiving a failing grade that they are willing to skew results in their favour. Not to mention that states are allowed to choose their own statistical method to analyze their scores. Due to many unforeseen variables, these differences make it almost impossible to imply causation that students are reaching proficiency due to the NCLB Act.

According to Klein (2015), NCLB was the result of a coordinated effort between civil rights and business groups, both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, and the Bush Administration, which tried to advance American competitiveness and close the achievement gap between poor and minority children and their more privileged counterparts. Subsequent to 2002, NCLB has made a huge impact on teaching, learning, and school improvement. It has also become progressively debatable with teachers and the general public.

The NCLB Act was created from initiatives originally introduced in the Elementary and Secondary School Act. The Elementary and Secondary School Act designed by then Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel and was passed on April 9, 1965. This was less than three months after the bill was first introduced. President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the 'War on Poverty' this being the most important educational component of the war. (Schugurensky, 2002) Through special funding this act allowed underprivileged and impoverished children a chance to receive education that met up to national standards.

Jamal Abedi begins his article discussing what the NCLB Act is and why it was established in our country. Basically, the NCLB Act was the most recent version of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965; it affects the states that use federal funding and hold those states accountable for student achievement (Abedi, 2004, p. 4). After explaining the NCLB Act and its purpose, Abedi creates a numbered list of the flaws of NCLB. The flaws include, “Inconsistency in LEP classification across and within states….Sparse LEP population….Lack of LEP subgroup stability….Measurement quality of AYP instruments for LEP students….LEP baseline scores….LEP cutoff points” (Abedi, 2004, p. 4-5), which he gives a short paragraph about the flaw then continues to explicate later in

Another major problem of NCLB is the people who create the tests. State senators across the country make different tests and decide what should be in the learning curriculum. To become a state senator you do not need a degree, and the senators that do have degrees are typically degrees of business or law. Why did senators make the tests and not teachers? Many of the state senators writing the tests do not have the educational background needed to write tests. And because every state senate makes a different test for every state, students who move out of state are supposed to be able to pass a test that they have not learned about.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was produced to make 100% of students’ proficient by 2014. While the idea sounds perfect on paper, it is not the case when it is put into action. NCLB was replaced in 2015 and replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act. Many students did not use the resource effectively due to the fact that not all children have the same views and desires toward fulfilling their education career. This in turn makes it hard for the teachers to follow the education guidelines while also ensuring that the students who know the material don’t get bored with the class.

The No Child Left Behind act was signed and put into place by President George W. Bush in 2002. The act was passed in order to replace the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), put into place by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, as part of his Great Society Program. The ESEA helped to cover the cost of educating disadvantaged students, while expanding the federal role in education. (Education Week 2015) The idea of the NCLB act, much like ESEA, was to help reform the educational system in both elementary and secondary school systems. The NCLB act was very ambitious, and brings up issues on improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged, training high-quality teachers, language instruction for limited English proficient students, 21st-century schools, and enforcing technology. (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) One of the biggest factors of this bill was the idea of closing the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Bush felt that this could be done by using standardized tests to measure how students were doing, and to see how well the teachers are doing. These tests were then used to identify which school systems were not performing