With
a lot of support from both sides of the political spectrum president George W.
Bush introduced No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to the American public in 2002. The
idea of standardized testing, at first, sounded good. In 2002 Bush said “now it
is up to you, the local citizens of our great land, to stand up and demand no
child, not one single child in America, is left behind,” (Bush, 2002: retrieved
from Guggenheim,
D., Kimball, B., Chilcott, L., Strickland, B., Canada, G., Rhee, M.,
Weingarten, R., 2011)
during a speech in front of school aged children, teachers, and parents. This
idea was received with resounding applause and at the surface looked to be a
step headed in the right direction. However, the implementation of NCLB at the
local and state levels has been anything but a step in the right direction.
Because of testing requirements and pressures felt by teachers from school
administrators, some children have been left behind…the smart ones.
NCLB
was instituted for one basic reason; to have every student in the public school
system proficient in reading and math by 2014 (Great Schools
Online, 2011). This
means that one hundred percent of students had to be able to complete math
exams and reading tests at their grade level. The tests would be administered
annually for grades three through eight and at least once for grades ten
through twelve. Any schools that do not meet these testing goals would face
sanctions from federal and state funding. The focus NCLB was “designed
to introduce national standards to a system in which students in some
demographic groups were more likely to succeed and others likely to be left
behind,” (Great Schools online, 2011). Because of this focus and of the
requirements set by the Department of Education it was inevitable that instead
of raising the bar for all the students, the focus of the learning would be on
getting the students who were just below standards up to just passing, and the
other students, who were already at those set standards, were left behind
during the school: a type of “dummied down” of the smart kids.
Trying to judge how well a school is
doing is a difficult problem. Relying on tests (the fill in the bubble kind) to
give all the information needed about how a child learns, what their skill set
is, or any type of learning disabilities they may have is no way to determine
who well a school or a teacher is doing.
In research done by Gail L. Sunderman and Jimmy Kim in 2005 they found
that states lacked in the resources necessary to collect an adequate amount of
data (Sunderman & Kim, 2005) and that the sanctions enforced by NCLB would
force teachers with great credentials to transfer out of schools identified for
improvement making it more difficult to retain qualified teachers in struggling
schools (Sunderman & Kim, 2005). And when the tests are completed and the
information is gathered by the governing body Sunderman wrote in a later text
that little is known about what types of accountability systems will improve
the opportunities to learn for students that perform at low levels and that the
current accountability system does not provide information needed to know how
to advance a student’s leaning ability (Sunderman, 2007). The tests only show that
students are below standard, not how they got to this point or what needs to be
done to fix the problem.
By holding teachers accountable for
the test scores of their students some teachers have been forced to ditch
engaging learning or to create lesson plans that will stick with the child
throughout their life, and to supplement those creative thinking exercises with
test taking procedures, how to decipher questions on a test and how to
eliminate incorrect answers. President Bush stated in the same speech as before
that “I understand taking tests aren’t fun; too bad [laughter from audience].
We need to know in America. We need to know whether or not children have got
basic education,” (Bush,
2002: retrieved from Guggenheim, D., Kimball, B., Chilcott, L.,
Strickland, B., Canada, G., Rhee, M., Weingarten, R., 2011). By the time
children are in the ninth grade they will have taken at least twelve times
(once in each grade after third for reading and math and twice for science).
The children of America will become great test takers but not necessarily smarter.
One of the key parts of the NCLB law
is that parents can decide to move their child out of a school that is failing
to meet standards and place them in a school that is meeting the standards with
the cost of transportation provided. The law states that:
·
Your child may be eligible to move to a
better school or could receive free tutoring and,
·
Your school could qualify for grants to
use toward attracting top notch teachers or other school programs (Great Schools Online,
2011)
What is not mentioned so often about these programs
is that in order to receive the benefits of free tutoring they must be asked
for by the parent. But some parents have reported that they were not notified
by the school that transferring was an option (Great Schools Online, 2011). In 2004 Jimmy Kim and Gail Sunderman
researched the number of students who took advantage of the transfer program.
The results found that of the 739,725 students who were eligible for a transfer
only 9,267 requested a transfer (1.25%) and of those students who requested the
transfer only 2933 students were granted the request (31.65%), (Sunderman &
Kim, 2004). This means that of the almost 740,000 students available for a
transfer under the NCLB law that states students can get transfers if the
school they are attending does not meet standards only .04% were granted and
given the opportunity to learn at a school that meet standards and in the
2005-2006 school year only about 1.6% of students eligible to transfer from
low-performing schools did so (Great
Schools Online, 2011). There was not a significant difference in the test
scores from schools that were transferring out students to the schools that
were taking in students, creating a scenario where students were moving from
one failing school to another failing school with slightly higher test scores
(Sunderman & Kim, 2004).
Those
that haven't met "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) for two consecutive
school years are identified as "in need of improvement." Every
student in the school will be given the option to transfer to a
better-performing school in the district, with free transportation included.
However, NLCB requires that priority in providing school choice be given to
low-achieving children from low-income families (Great Schools Online, 2011).
So students who have the hardest time learning will be given priority if the
opportunity to attend a better school comes along, while those students and
parents who make an effort to help their child achieve the goals set by No
Child Left Behind, may be forced to stay in a substandard school if there is no
more availability at the acceptable school. But this just is not the case; in
fact the opposite has happened. Parents who value their child’s education have
been the squeaky wheels getting the oil. When a child who is performing well
finds themselves in a failing school the parent of that child will make a
request to transfer them to a school that is meeting the standards with the
hope that the classes will be placed at their child’s level, providing a
challenge for them, rather than letting that child who has met the standard sit
in a class and wait for the others to catch up.
Parents
who are concerned about their child’s education are usually proactive when it
comes to finding information and retaining that information for future need.
The NCLB has a slew of requirements that the schools must tell to the parents
about the teachers, the standards that are expected, current standing in the
system, a comparison of how the school is doing with other schools in the
district, high school graduation rates, the qualifications of the teachers, how
many students did not get tested, and the names of the schools identified as
“in need of improvement,” (Great
Schools Online, 2011).
Rather than installing a system
where the standards are test taking and the focus becomes one of funding and
retaining students for that funding NCLB should be altered to focus on what
school can do for all aspects of a child’s life, not just how well they compare
to the standardized test scores of other nations. In an article written by Aman
Sharma there were seven functions of a school listed that should be more
closely looked at and encompassed into NCLB: Conservation and promotion of
culture, all-around development of the individual, development of higher values
of life, development of social responsibility, citizenship training,
adjustability in society, and vocational training.
William McKenzie wrote in Dallas
News online an outline of four ideas that could improve NCLB. They were to:
·
Allow states to show progress with their
students, even if not all are proficient.
·
Make sure the standards of each state prepare
kids to graduate from high school with the skills for either a good trade job
or college.
·
Give states more money to improve low-performing
campuses.
·
Extend the date that states must have their
students learning at grade level. (McKenzie, 2010)
Both
of these reforms (Sharma and McKenzie) suggested we adopt a policy where we can
institute a vocational training for students who may not meet standards for
reading but excel in mathematics and can work well in construction type jobs or
in a job where some skills are not needed. There should not be the expectation
that all students are going to be Harvard graduates but for those students that
do have the chance and the grades to achieve it, Harvard should not be a dream
held back by a system that is more encouraged to teach passing a test rather
than teach excellence in life, social development, and values.
The first of McKenzie’s suggested
reforms (allow states to show progress with their students) is one that offers
the most promise for success of No Child Left Behind. To allow states the
ability to provide graphs and charts and documented information that shows how
each individual child is progressing will give the teachers (current and
future) administrators and feds more accurate portrayals of how a teacher is
doing.
Making sure that kids are prepared
to enter the work force right out of high school should also be a goal for No
Child Left Behind. Not every student will have the ability to go to college.
Some will be more than happy working at the family business or picking up a
city job in the town they live in. Some people need to be the workforce. There
is no shame is working hard, but there can be shame in coming out of high
school without a basic understanding of how politics work, how money exchanges
hands, and how to interact with people from all walks of life.
Giving states more money to improve
sub standard schools will allow those schools to attract better teachers with
newer equipment and the best tools. There will also be a respect that comes
from the students attending the new school. Pulling funds from a school that is
already struggling to meet the very achievable standards does nothing but
hinder progress and create more hostile feelings towards and already volatile
system of measuring education.
. No Child Left Behind is a system
that, at its core, can have a lot of good outcomes attached with it. But
because of sanctions, poor teacher performance, poor school performance, the
inability of students to grasp ideas that are taught to them, and the need for
administrators to hold firm to their jobs, NCLB has become a broken system. Teaching
how to take tests and promoting the memorization of ideas and concepts is never
a sound way to learn. Students will not benefit in their lives because of how
well they did on the state sanctioned test. Instead they will have a harder
time adjusting to the realities of life outside of the “learn what you need to
know and answer this question” system that is standardized school system. NCLB will end up leaving a lot of children
behind. These children will be those who are interested in learning but become
bored with the attention a teacher is required to give one subject because some
students cannot grasp the ideas being presented. These children will be the
students who do not excel in math and English courses but are wizards when it
comes to wood working shop classes. These students who will be left behind will
be the students who do everything correct and still cannot understand the
simple workings of class politics. These forgotten children are going to be
held behind on purpose thanks to the standardization of school curriculum and
student life.
References
Great
Schools Online (2011). What the No Child Left Behind Law Means For Your Child. Retrieved December 8, 2011 from http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/quality- teaching/61-no-child-left-behind.gs?page=all
Dillion, S (2009). ‘No Child’ Law is
Not Closing Racial Gap. New York Times. Retrieved December
8, 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/education/29scores.html
Guggenheim,
D., Kimball, B., Chilcott, L., Strickland, B., Canada, G., Rhee, M.,
Weingarten, R., ... Paramount
Home Entertainment (Firm). (2011). Waiting for "Superman".
Hollywood, Calif: Paramount Home
Entertainment.
Kim, J.& Sunderman, G. (2004).
Does NCLB Provide Good Choices for Students in Low- Performing Schools? Retrieved December 12, 2011 from http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/does- nclb-provide-good-choices-for-students-in-low-performing-schools
LEDYARD
KING. (1 December). Education law's goals now seen as
unrealistic. Gannett News Service. Retrieved December 9, 2011, from ProQuest
Newsstand. (Document ID: 2525309841).
McKenzie, W. (2010). No Child Left
Behind: Mend, Don’t End. Retrieved December 12, 2011 from http://educationfrontblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/02/no-child-left-behind- mend-dont.html
Sharma, A. (2011). 7 Essential
Functions of a School as an Agency of Education. Retrieved December 10, 2011 from http://www.preservearticles.com/201102244172/7-essential- functions-of-a-school-as-an-agency-of-education.html
Sunderman, G. & Kim, J. (2005).
Teacher Quality: Equalizing Educational Opportunities and Outcomes. Retrieved December 12, 2011 from
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/nclb-title-i/teacher-quality- equalizing-educational-opportunities-and-outcomes
Sunderman,
G. (2007). Holding NCLB Accountable: Achieving Accountability, Equity, and School Reform. Retrieved December 11,
2011 from http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/nclb-title-i/holding-nclb- accountable-achieving-accountability-equity-and-school-reform