Education Revolution: Why the No Child Left Behind Act Didn't Work

1710 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: No child left behind act explained

Education is the foundation of American society. It empowers the youth of America to become the successful leaders this country needs for the future. Education has been one of America’s top priorities since 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed. Now, education is controlled by the No Child Left Behind Act, which was launched in January 8, 2002. This act was passed with intentions from the government to provide Americans with a more superior education system. However, The No Child Left Behind Act carried many flaws which were left unseen to a vast majority of the public. This act limited American students by not allowing them to demonstrate their full academic potentials while proceeding in school. While the act was still fairly fresh, there was already evidence to prove that it had already gotten off to a bad beginning. For the crucial math and science courses, statistics showed minimal improvements which had begun around the time period in which the No Child Left Behind Act was passed. The act was also supported by a number of educators who voiced themselves by testifying against having the right to teach at their own free will. Teachers across America claimed that because of this new act, they felt a constant heaviness upon their shoulders from the state government to “Teach the test.” Back in 2001, before the No Child Left Behind Act was proposed, the United State’s rank in educational performance was 16th. After the act was put into action, that rank moved up to where we now stand at 17th in the nation. Statistics also showed that because of America’s dropping education level, many teachers began to get discouraged in their professions. Although, America has not ever been able to hold the title ... ... middle of paper ... ... Act Summary.” July 1994. Web. 02 November 2011. /documents_library/esea1965.htm.> This was a summary of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I got almost all of my information on this act from this site. 7.) Jeffery Simon. Personal interview. CNN Morning Joe. 01 November 2010. Where I got my statistics from about college and high school level students caused by the NCLB act from this interview along with all of my information regarding the revision of the No Child Left Behind Act 8.) Smith, Chelsea. “pros and Cons of the No Child Left Behind Act.” (2005) < http:// us liberals.about.com/od/education/I/NCLBProsandCons..html.> Chelsea Smith is a teacher who expressed her feeling toward the NCLB act and how it effected the way she had to teach her students to be unsuccessful in many areas of education.

Show More
Related

  • Manifest and Latent Functions of the The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

    875 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even with the negative and positive functions of No Child Left Behind, there are many areas that still need to ironed out. Under the Obama administration several states have received a waiver from No Child Left Behind, “with this waiver students will still be tested annually. But starting this fall, schools in those states will no longer face the same prescriptive actions spelled out under No Child Left Behind” (Feller & Hefling, 2012). Since 2007, the law has been up for review, but due to opponents of the law there has not been an agreement reached and the law continues to stress our schools and children out. We can only hope that when this law is reviewed and agreed upon that it really is in the best interest of our children and the nation as a whole.

    Read More

  • The Death And Life Of The Great American School System By Diane Ravitch

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    The implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act applied a market approach to school reform as a way of improving the school system. This new law promised an era of high standards, testing, and accountability in

    Read More

  • Standardized Testing Has a Negative Effect on American Youth

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    Neill, Monty. "The No Child Left Behind Act Is Not Improving Education." Education: Opposing Viewpoints. New York: Greenhaven, 2005. 162-68. Print.

    Read More

  • David Horsey: No Child Left Behind

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    No Child Left Behind is an Act that was passed in 2002 as a reauthorization of a previously passed law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Both of these were passed in order to ensure equal education in public schools. In theory this sounds like a fantastic way to make sure teachers weren’t slacking on their disadvantaged students. In practice, the method of checking in on the schools has received criticism by many. In Horsey’s political carton, the first aspect a viewer’s eye is drawn to is the large woman in black clothing. Without much thought, one can assume that the large woman is a callous teacher because of her hunched over posture, dark clothing, and unwieldy looking nose. These features are used to symbolize the government who is forcing today’s school system to be based around filling in bubbles on a Scantron.

    Read More

  • The Shortcomings of Standardized Testing

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    Birman, Beatrice F., et al. "State And Local Implementation Of The "No Child Left Behind Act." Volume VIII--Teacher Quality Under "NCLB": Final Report." US Department Of Education (2009): ERIC. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Debate Over the No Child Left Behind Act

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    The National Education Association in the beginning supported the No Child Left Behind Act but knew that it needed some revisions before it would be the effective in the school system. The NEA felt that the Act met the requirements of ensuring equality among the school population but they disagreed with the Act’s accountability and testing requirements. Democrats and Republicans both showed great support when the Act was initially proposed by President Bush, but as time went on they to began to question the outcomes. Democrats and Republicans began to debate on the provisions in the Act of state accountability. “The National Conference of State Legislatures called the bill’s testing provisions “seriously and perhaps irreparably flawed.” (Rudalevige, 2003). This was due to the law not having any set way to account for the testing that was supposed to be part of the Act; it left that process up to the individual states.

    Read More

  • No Child Left Behind

    964 Words  | 2 Pages

    As students in a Structure & Philosophy class, one of the main components has been to introduce and familiarize us with the No Child Left Behind Act. President Bush passed this legislation on January 8, 2002. The NCLB Act was designed to ensure each and every student the right to a fair education, to give parents more options in their child’s education, and to guarantee all teachers are highly qualified. By highly qualified, the act means teachers must have at least a bachelor’s degree, have full state certification or licensure, and have demonstrated competence in their subject areas (US Dept. of Education).

    Read More

  • No Child Left Behind

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Elementary and Secondary School Act has been amended on seven different occasions, but the most current is No Child Left B (NCLB). This act is a direct result of the 1994 amendment to the ESEA Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA), which is a result of the Clinton Administration and Goals 2000. Goals 2000, an act signed into law on March 31, 1994, set in place eight goals concerning school readiness, school completion, student academic achievement, leadership in math and science, adult literacy, safe and drug-free schools, encouraging teacher professional development, and parental participation (Paris, 1994). After Clinton signed Goals 2000, the IASA was implemented and signed on October 20, 1994, the new amendment to the ESEA that allotted $11 billion for most federally funded K-12 programs and enacts what is considered to be the most important changes made since the original act was passed in 1965 (Education Week, 1994). NCLB is the 2001 U.S. Act in accordance with which educational standards in primary and secondary education should be improved for students with disabilities to achieve successful individua...

    Read More

  • Essay On The Achievement Gap In Education

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    The achievement gap is greatly evident and impacts the low-income, minority students the most. Although the federal government attempted to resolve this problem with No Child Left Behind, the social problem is still evident. As there is still much pressure on standardized tests and annual reports, reformation is needed. No Child Left Behind has proven to be inadequate and rather highlights the urgency for education reform. Although the act is called “No Child Left Behind,” an appropriate title would have been “Education Left Behind.” More than focusing on test scores, education should prepare students in how to contribute to

    Read More

  • No Child Left Behind Act

    372 Words  | 1 Pages

    The NCLB Act is not effective because of the current situation of state governments calling certain schools “failures” because of their low exam scores, thereby reducing funding to the school. If the federal government is funding the NCLB Act for after school programs, it would seem that it was funding a non-effective program. I have broken down the consequences as follows.

    Read More

  • Public Education Flaws

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 2001, the federal government enacted its greatest reform to public education. William Hayes, the author of No Child Left Behind: Past, Present, and Future,

    Read More

  • Solutions to Problems with the No Child Left Behind Act

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) deals with student achievement standards by holding schools accountable for the achievement of their students (Implementation 11). The NCLBA uses standardized tests to chart the success of students. If students are not meeting standards, the school is required to offer tutoring, which is funded by the state with Title I, the education mandate passed in which granted all public schools access to federal grants, money (No Subject 7). The Act itself is not the problem; the problem is that the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standard which is a big part of the NCLBA is not being met. The AYP standard is not being met because schools are not changing their methods quickly enough. It was said in the NCLBA that schools nationwide were to have 100% proficiency of the AYP standard within 12 years (Implementation 9). Since the passing of the NCLBA in 2001, most public schools, nationwide have not improved at all.

    Read More

  • Overcoming Partisan Politics: A Plea for Communication and Compromise

    1837 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Now we have a chance to fix the law by refocusing on the proper federal role: equal opportunity. To do that we must change the way we think about accountability… has hinged entirely upon standardized test scores,” (Garciá & Otho, 2015, p.3-4). This excerpt from the Washington Post article ‘No Child Left Behind’ has failed offers up the exact problems that education today faces due to this act and others like it. By not communicating with educators, lawmakers set a high demand that is impossible to reach, due to a number of factors, namely the motivation of the child. To base the measure of a child’s success solely upon such a wanton score is futile and completely misses the most important part of learning. Rather than encouraging a child’s interest and bringing it into pre-existing curriculum the teacher is forced to run practice after practice in preparation for standardized test, in the hope that the state does not cut funding for the school. Bring into the mix a federal government whose demands are ever escalating to save face on the world stage, and its surprising that

    Read More

  • Critique of No Child Left Behind

    2843 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...The failed promise of the no child left behind act. Race, Ethnicity and Education,10(3), 295-308. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/62050783?accountid=14789

    Read More

  • Teacher Effectiveness Evaluations

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    The state’s new evaluation system was in response to administrators who produced, “superficial and capricious teacher evaluation systems that often don't even directly address the quality of instruction, much less measure students' learning” (Toch, 2008). Too often, the “good-ol-boy” attitude would insure mediocre educators would remain employed. Realizing this was often more the rule then the exception, the governor created educational mandates to focus, “on supporting and training effective teachers to drive student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013). Initially, they expected the school districts and the teachers would have issues and experience growing pains, but in the end the goal was, “to improve teacher performance, year by year, with a corresponding rise in student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013).

    Read More

More about Education Revolution: Why the No Child Left Behind Act Didn't Work

Open Document