No Child Left Behind Act - Policy & Review

Posted on January 16, 2008 - Filed Under Computers and Technology, Legal and Law

The NCLB Act was presented in 2001 by President George W. Bush. This Act was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965(ED.gov, 2006). The Act was finally passed in February of 2002 causing sweeping reforms in education (Wright, 2005, p.4). The NCLB was President Bush’s idea of reforming education with four main points to be the focus points of his plan. This piece of legislation was meant to increase accountability for states, school districts, and schools; to give greater choices for parents and students, particularly those attending low performing schools; to give more flexibility in the spending of Federal educational dollars; and to place a greater emphasis on reading.

The NCLB has many great points, but also has many downfalls. For example, with the institution of this Act came greater accountability for student performance. This made schools, districts, and administrators much more aware of what teachers were teaching in the classrooms. The schools were required to show Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP in order to receive additional government funding as a reward.

Furthermore, as standardized testing has taken on increasing importance in the evaluation of students, teachers, and schools, so too has the preparation of students to take these tests. Clearly, the best way to prepare students for tests is to teach them the content; however, this leaves very little time to cover the regular curriculum. Moreover, schools need to ensure that special education students and students with limited English proficiency receive the appropriate accommodations permitted by the test. In addition, students need to receive instruction in appropriate test taking strategies that will help improve test performance and reduce test anxiety (Jewell, 2004).

Another benefit to this Act was it empowered parents to have a choice in their child’s education. If they felt their child was attending a low performing school they had the right to get a variance or voucher to send them to another school. This gives all children an equal chance at a good education. The downfall to this is parents who are unaware of how the system works do not take advantage of this. For example, one can end up with 80% of a school filled with children of migrant workers or low socio-economic disadvantage children because their parents are unaware of this program.

This Act was supposed to increase funds for school technology. The upside to this was children would be trained and taught with tools for the twenty-first century. The downside is this is one of the programs that is to be cut as of this February is this part of the NCLB (American School Board Journal, 2006, p.71). These were programs like the computer based program Read Naturally.
These are all of the many ways the NCLB can impact the classroom. The one that seems to have the most impact is the accountability. When teachers spend most of their time teaching to the test instead of teaching the core curriculum one has to ask,”What has school become?” Students no longer go to school to form friendships, to learn about what makes a plant grow, or how many days it will take for a seed to grow. They spend their days learning how to score well on the AIMS or the Terra Nova.

Resources
Jewell, M. E. (2004). New horizons for learning. Retrieved Mar. 29, 2006, from No Child Left Behind: Implications for Special Education Students and Students with Limited English Proficiency Web site: www.newhorizons.org/spneeds/improvement/jewell.htm.

Rebecca Schauffele: Teaching is my PASSION. I am fun-loving and really enjoy working with kids. Through my work, I hope to make a difference in the lives of youth and inspire them to dream big and work hard to reach their goals.

Tags: Policy, School

Comments

Leave a Reply

Attorney-site.info