No Child Left Behind Act

                After my discussion with Liz, I thought I would explore more of my views regarding the No Child Left Behind Act. Most people in the educational field are aware of some of the provisions of New Child Left Behind legislation.  This law was signed by President Bush on Jan. 23, 2001 as a comprehensive reform to education. This law had major components:  “stronger accountability for results, expanded flexibility and local control, more options for parents and emphasis on teaching methods that proven to work” (http://2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/factsheet.html).

                As a requirement of Learning and Teaching, we reviewed the provisions of NCLS and reviewed content standards books for our discipline.  We learned that teachers need to incorporate these standards daily into their lesson plans.  We learned that school districts are judged as excellent, effective, in academic watch, or in academic emergency based on the performance of their students on these state-mandated tests. We were also presented information about parents’ rights to transfer their children to better-performing schools if their home school was failing.  We also learned how the federal government supports charter schools.

                As a student, I know an excellent administrator who was fired because of the lack of progress of his students on achievement tests. I know of teachers who were re-assigned because of the low performance of their students. I know that some schools became over crowded due to parents transferring their students out of failing schools. All these actions were taken as a result of NCLB.

                In my opinion, there are many questions surrounding the effectiveness of NCLB.  Since 2005 have students’ test scores improved?  Are teachers more effective because of NCLB, or have they become more effective at teaching to the test? Are special education students and non-English speaking children receiving a better education due to NCLB?

                Overall, students seem to be performing better on state-mandated achievement tests, in reality we cannot valid this information. As we cannot compare students performance nationally as each state has its’ own tests and each one sets its’ own cut-off score.  One cannot even compare the performance of students state to state using National Assessment Educational Progress.

                From my classroom observations, I believe that teachers are teaching to the test. They are required to follow the content standards and prepare their lesson plans based on these standards. Teachers are concerned for their well-being, if their students fail these tests. I have seen limited English proficient students leaving the classroom for special tutoring for these tests. 

                I believe that some provisions of NCLB have improved the education of our nation’s students however, I am not certain that blaming teachers for the failure of their disadvantaged students on federally mandated tests is the answer.  Some of our nation’s best teachers work in high poverty, minority schools.