No Child Left Behind 1

Running head: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

No Child Left Behind: Every Child Counts

Oquella Gaines

Dr. Crosby

April 22, 2010

Alcorn State University

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No Child Left Behind

Presently, there are numerous of people who are not skilled in reading and mathematics

as they should be. Many people saw this as a concern. President Bush was one of those people,

therefore, to aid in coming up with a resolution to this problem, Bush signed the No Child Left

Behind (NCLB) Act. No Child Left Behind objectives are praiseworthy, but are they obtaining

the desired objectives. The NCLB act was geared towards all students to becoming adept in

reading and mathematics by 2014. The philosophy behind NCLB is that testing would be a cure-

all for deprived educational performance-hold schools responsible through testing and students

will do better (McGlynn, 2008, p.12). The reason of this paper is to discover the outcome of the

No Child Left Behind Act.

NCLB was drafted in 2001 and signed into law in January 2002. NCLB provided the

framework for President George W. Bush's bipartisan education reform plan intended to ensure

that every child in U.S. public schools has equal access to high-quality education and, in the

process, raise the achievement level of elementary and secondary school students (Odland,

2005).

According to the Office of the Secretary to the President feels NCLB Act includes some

components: (1) Accountability for Results, (2)Unprecedented State & Local Flexibility, (3)

Focusing Resources on Proven Educational Methods and (4) Expanded Choices for Parents &

Reduced Red Tape (Mareno, 2007). The achievement gap has not declined due to investment

amongst well-off and lower-income students or between minority students and non-minority

students. Nannette Asimov believe the amount of schools making "adequate yearly progress"

(AYP) thrusted from 6,488 to 5,113 since last year, according to state teachers who unrestricted
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school progress reports Thursday. That's a drop from 67 to 52 percent of the state's public

schools (McNeil, 2008).

The federal law requires that schools are anticipated to show rising adeptness each year

until 2014. Educators fret that as the benchmarks prolong to boost, additional schools will be

considered failing in the eyes of NCLB, in spite of the kind of development they are making.

More than a fourth of U.S. schools are failing according to the No Child Left Behind Act,

according to preliminary state-by-state figures reported to the United States Education

Department. At least 27 percent of the national entirety didn’t meet the federal requirement for

adequate progress in 2004-2005 (Mareno, 2007).

In 2005 Paulson stated, when President Bush signed the milestone No Child Left Behind

(NCLB) Act five years ago, he performed a three-state road show, touted its bipartisan roots, and

assured it would put United States schools "on a fresh path of reform, and a novel path of

results." In the five years since, opponents and fans of the bill lean toward agreeing about the

reform part, but say they're still anticipating results. Attainment levels are tiptoeing up toward

the 2014 limit when all public school kids are theoretical "proficient" at math and reading, and

the ethnic and financial achievement gaps have lessened somewhat in a few cases, but not at all

in others (p.45).

After five years with NCLB, it is time to evaluate the program. The levy evaluation

results offered in "The Proficiency Illusion" are eye-openers. Finn and Petrilli zeroed in on some

of the major concerns related to NCLB. They say that NCLB was inteded to provide a snapshot

of how our children are doing at school. To exemplify a main problem, they generated a

theoretical case of "Suzie" Smith, a 4th-grader from Detroit, MI. Finn and Petrilli said that when

Mr. and Mrs. Smith become aware of from their local school that Suzie is "proficient" in reading
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and good news and believe that their daughter is on track to be successful in later grades-maybe

even to go to college. What Suzie's parents didin't know is that Michigan sets its ability cut score

(the score needed to pass the test) among the lowest in the United States. Suzie might be

"proficient" in Michigan, but she still might have scored lower than almost all other fourth-

graders in America (McGlynn, 2008, para.2-3).

The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) (2005), NCLB is a very multifaceted

law with aspects as varied as content standards and school option. While many aspects of NCLB

have been authenticated in some settings, this law is the first of its kind on a nationwide scale.

This revision is a scientifically-based examination of the collision of NCLB on student

achievement and expansion. It is the primary in an annual series that will examine the effects of

the legislation as they surface over time. Results from the study of any one year give a single

view of the law as it is put into practice, while the series of studies spot trends as they happen.

This initial study compares student achievement and student growth in achievement

preceding to the completion of NCLB (school year 2001-2002) and following completion

(school year 2003-2004). It also scrutinize the impact of NCLB on the performance and growth

of students in several racial groups to explore the agreeance of equity implied in NCLB. The

study used the Growth Research Database from the Northwest Evaluation Association to provide

achievement information about hundreds of thousands of students in school districts across the

country (NWEA, 2005).

NWEA also affirmed that the conclusion of the study designated that NCLB may have a

optimistic force on student success, but they also indicate that this impact presently falls far short

of meeting the goal that all students be acknowledged as proficient. The most disturbing finding

in the study concerns the expansion of students in diverse ethnic groups. In comparison of
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Hispanic and Anglo students under NCLB, students with dissimilar ethnicities who had the same

original test score grew differently, with the Hispanic students growing clearly less. This was

pragmatic time after time across grades and subject areas. Comparable findings were seen when

comparing development of African-American students and Native-American students to growth

of Anglo students. This result begins to lift equity concerns that need to be addressed as NCLB

moves onward.

According to Manna (2006), as everybody in the expansion and implementation of

NCLB realizes, the law is challenging, complex, and symbolize a brave federal attempt to

pressure K-12 education in the United States. Similar, federal accommodations may not propose

law enforcement but a consciousness that some changes may assist the law’s implementation.

Success will greatly depend on public officials in Washington and state capitals being able to

persuade each other and the law’s skeptics that NCLN is a viable framework for improving

education in the United States.

No Child Left Behind dispute that because states set their own objectives and evaluations,

states may make tests undemanding, and schools are taking actions so that attainment appears

elevated than it actually is. To maintain this is the breakdown of students to execute on the

National Assessment of Educational Progress as well as they do on state-designed assessments.

Several educators and parents have spoken a uneasiness with the standardization of growth, in

that it weakens individual human potential. The National Education Association (NEA) position

is that, while it ropes the goals of NCLB, the association feels that the move toward opposition

and punishments fall short to drive us towards those goals.

Public school selection completion also has not gone well, partly because of insufficient

capability and a prototype of bureaucratic confrontation. Rural districts and urban districts with a
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mass of underachieving schools have a small number of or no high-quality alternatives for

students who want to transport. Most states successfully did away with the choice to relocate

from a unsafe school by declaring that there are no hazardous schools in the state. While some

districts are going to immense lengths to give students a number of options, others delicately or

not-so-delicately dishearten parents from looking for transfer options.

Researchers have exposed districts that did not notify parents, gave parents a little

window of time to choose among their options, or only offered them schools that were

performing as inadequately as or poorer than the school their child was trying to flee. They also

established examples of slight discouragement or obfuscation in letters to parents that are

uncertain about the school's rank and the options existing. Colorado Independence Institute

examiner Pam Benigno includes the following from such a letter sent by an unnamed district: "I

think that the elevated marks made during the 2001-2002 school year show that (child name was

not included) is a triumphant school and poignant to a new school to get a valued education just

isn't essential.

Another district letter said: "All schools in District (name not included) are dedicated to

superiority through incessant progress (name not included) Elementary is no exemption. Our

school has been recognized for school improvement by the Federal Title I plan. “We are thrilled

by this chance to center on mounting student success on the CSAP assessments."

As extended as those who have the smallest amount to increase from yielding transfers

and tutoring the districts manage information and options, it is likely that this education covering

pastime will carry on. A number of districts will do what they can to chip away at the law,

aggravate the determination of parents, and eventually avoid students from gaining admission to

protected and successful schools.

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While much of the NCLB highlights responsibility to the state or federal government, the

selection provision is all that makes schools liable to parents. The NCLB requires districts,

states, and schools to subject annual report cards on scholastic attainment, teacher credentials,

and school Adequate Yearly Progress standing. This information is ineffective unless parents can

act on it. If there is inadequate ability or will to offer families with excellence options, then

Congress should widen the pool of providers. The federal government habitually uses

confidential providers to deliver services beneath Medicare, the food stamp agenda, welfare and

social services, senior education, and other education programs such as the individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (DEA). There is no motive why it should not use them to further

student accomplishment.

As any person who reads the every day newspaper can confirm, No Child Left Behind

has not been without resistance. States have protested of insufficient suppleness and leadership

from the department, some even going so far as to surpass resolutions condemning the act or

asking for waivers. The word unfunded authorization has been throwed around in spite of the

fact that the act is both funded and charitable. So far, no state has declined to partake, although a

few inaccessible districts have pulled out; it seems that the money is too high-quality to pass up.

The Utah House of Representatives altered its powerfully worded decree against No Child Left

Behind to permit the state to persist on receiving federal funding.

Regardless of substantial yearly increases, Democrats and their union associates

disapprove of the level of funding. They maintain that the NCLB is underfunded because

Congress has not met the funding limits recognized in the bill. In response, the administration

exposed that states have $5.75 billion in unspent federal ESEA funds in the depository. A

quantity of of the funds have pined there for more than three and a half years. Representative
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John Boehner, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, queried

whether the big yearly increases in spending were more than states and districts could expend,

likening the circumstances to "pumping gas into a swamped engine."

The condition has made for odd bedfellows, with Kennedy and Utah's Republican

legislature lambasting the law and President Bush and the Education Trust, a left-leaning pro-

accountability group, protecting it. Dueling studies by think tanks, affiliate organizations, and

state agencies hold up one side or the other. Based on dissimilar and sometimes

methodologically inspired assumptions, each study "confirms" that the NCLB is passably or

insufficiently funded. Some of the studies have padded their approximations by including costs

not necessary by the NCLB in their expenditure totals. According to the Heritage Foundation,

Accountability Works added up only the costs of goods and services necessary by the law and

contrasted the total to the quantity appropriated by Congress. It originated that the act has been

overfunded and states have more than sufficient money to convene the necessities of the NCLB.

Close to the end of February 2004, the escalating disparagement of the NCLB led the

Bush Administration itself to put forth some therapy. Testing requirements for students with

restricted information of English were comfortable. In addition, Education Secretary Rod Paige

announced that he was preparing more changes, including a novel understanding of the teacher

excellence requirements. He also allowed the most sternly immobilized students to be tested

unconnectedly from other students, thus altering the way disabled students are delighted under

the law. These moves seem to foretell even additional prospect changes.

The oratory, maybe unavoidably, is likely to get louder and more unforgiving as the

election approaches. Like it or not, when politicians generate education strategy, education

policy is predisposed by politics. Partisan backbiting, one size fits all policies, particular
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attention authority, simplistic explanations, and political convenience are all part and package of

federal participation in education. Even well-meaning politicians are worried about public

awareness and self-preservation. Politics essentially increases the debate even when a thoughtful

discussion would be more helpful. Vagueness muddles the communication, particularly when

explanations need more time than a noise free bite allows. When the spectators have neither the

time nor perhaps the want to truly appreciate the issue, it is easier to attach to the writing. A

considerate debate about funding or litheness may not be likely in an election year.

However, the conversation cannot be put off for an indefinite period. All policies have

qualities and inadequacy. Even good policies have costs, and even bad policies profit some

people. The query is, on equilibrium, whether the benefits overshadow the costs. Almost four

decades and billions of dollars later, there is modest experiential proof to show that the ESEA

has worked. Will the changes in the NCLB do well in growing student success, particularly for

minority and low-income students? Will the consequences validate the defeat of state and local

power or the financial cost to taxpayers?

In conclusion, No Child Left Behind was brought into act by George Bush. His intended purpose

was for schools to excel. However, in my opinion schools fell back with results on state

assessments and or evaluations. No Child Left Behind has taken a toll on the academic society

because teachers are teaching the test and nothing else. Congress wanted to raise achievement

and it has yet to been proven as 100% effective. I believe that No Child Left Behind needs to be

redesigned. Someone must take a closer look for the children to fully succeed. No Child Left

Behind is a determined law and forces states to move more rapidly and further to advance the

achievement of every student. Perhaps the combination of NCLB’s tight timelines and high
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expectations and obtainable state education agendas will show successful where past reform

labors have descended diminutive.

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References

Kahlemberg, R. D. (2008). What to do with no child left behind. Education Week,

28, (8), 34-40.

Manna, C. (2008). Making for a change with schools and students with nclb. The Journal of

Educational Research, 23, (2), 123-134.

Mareno, L. (2007). Bush’s no child goals not met by quarter of schools. Retrieved November 21,

2008, from http://www.nmclb.update.

McGlynn, A. P. (November 2008). New report: The proficiency illusion challenges nclb. The

Education Digest, 74, (3), 11-14.

McNeil, M. 2008 September 24). States cite capacity gap in aid for schools on nclb. Education

Week 28, (5), 40. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from H.W. Wilson.

Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). (2005). The impact of the no child left behind

act on student achievement and growth: 2005 Edition. Retrieved November 21,

2008, from http://www.nwea.org/assets/research/national/NCLBImpact_2005_Brief.pdf

Paulson, N. (October 2008). NCLB. The Education Digest, 23, (4), 243-249. Retrieved

November 21, 2008, from H.W. Wilson.