Purpose of NCLB Act
1. Focus on Accountability for Student Performance: The School administrators are held responsible for the accomplishments of their pupils; and a ‘carrot and stick’ approach has been adopted for rewarding and sanctioning school administrators. Parents will be constantly intimated of their child’s progress. The annual state reading and math assessments from grade 3 to grade 8 will be used as the basic standard for school performance.
2. Emphasis on What Works: In an effort to adhere to modern teaching methods, the Federal government has promised to fund those schools which implement teaching methods that are up to date with latest research. It is hoped that such financial support will “improve schools and enhance teacher quality” (www.ed.gov/nclb).
3. Greater Flexibility and Lesser Bureaucracy: Under the NCLB Act, schools across counties and states will be allowed to be flexible in the way they function.
4. Greater Role for Parents: Parents will be encouraged to regularly monitor their child’s as well as the school’s performance and will be given the option to move their child to a better performing school.
While the above basic blueprint does not address all recurring problems in the federal education system, they do focus on some of the key areas that require reform. A straight-forward approach of linking funding to school results is unprecedented in the history of federal education system. Further to the above four-point action plan, the NCLB Act is intended to fulfill the following list of objectives:
- Improving academic outcomes of under-privileged pupils
- Improving the quality of teaching
- Making non-native students fluent in English language
- Encouraging parental participation and choice
- Making schools safe for children
- Increasing funding for Impact Aid
- Greater Emphasis on freedom and accountability
Introducing the NCLB agenda, the Education Department released a newsletter, in which it states that
“In America, no child should be left behind. Every child should be educated to his or her full potential. This proposal sets forth the Presidents proposed framework to accomplish that goal. This Administration will work with Congress to ensure that this happens quickly, and in a bipartisan manner. President Bush emphasized his deep belief in our public schools, but an even greater concern that “too many of our neediest children are being left behind,” despite the nearly $200 billion in Federal spending since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The President called for bipartisan solutions based on accountability, choice, and flexibility in Federal education programs”. (www.ed.gov/nclb)
In addition to the above, needy and deserving schools will be provided funding on an ad hoc basis. Within one year of its proposal, the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted in Congress. The Act, which essentially reauthorizes ESEA, combines the Eisenhower Professional Development Program and Class Size Reduction program into a consolidated Improving Teacher Quality State Grants program that “focuses on using practices grounded in scientifically based research to prepare, train, and recruit high-quality teachers” (www.ed.gov/nclb). This new initiative was expected to give counties, states and LEAs greater flexibility in choosing their approach to meeting requisite academic outcomes. Overall, the NCLB Act was expected to revamp the ailing federal education system and in the process benefit students, parents and teachers alike. But since its inception in 2001, the results have not been promising. The rest of the essay will discuss how the NCLB Act has fared in its short history.
Performance of NCLB
Right from the beginning, the NCLB program was beset with problems. Some political commentators and educationists have complained about the NCLB Act’s lack of focus on core issues ailing the American education system. For example, the United States is by far “the most unequal educational system in the industrialized world” (Darling-Hammond, 2008). This inequality cuts across racial, ethnic, economic and geographic lines, meaning that a child’s circumstances of birth will determine to a large extent his/her academic and career prospects. This is a shame for a nation that is the economic and military superpower in a uni-polar world. The NCLB does not address this problem head on; it also lacks a clear-cut plan for meeting “the intellectual demands of education in the twenty first century”. Critics of the NCLB Act also point out how it has neglected the issue of affirmative action, also referred to as educational debt to under-privileged students, which has accumulated over the last few centuries. Renowned political analyst Linda Darling-Hammond further explains the drawbacks of the Act:
“The noble agenda (of NCLB), however, has been nearly lost in the law’s problematic details. Dubbed No Child Left Untested, No School Board Left Standing and No Child’s Behind Left, among other nicknames, the law has been protested by more than twenty states and dozens of school districts that have voted to resist specific provisions. Critics claim that the law’s focus on complicated tallies of multiple-choice-test scores has dumbed down the curriculum, fostered a “drill and kill” approach to teaching, mistakenly labeled successful schools as failing, driven teachers and middle-class students out of public schools and harmed special education students and English-language learners through inappropriate assessments and efforts to push out low-scoring students in order to boost scores”. (Darling-Hammond, 2008)
Further, one state and a country-wide teachers’ association have brought lawsuits against the Bush Administration due to the malignant effects of the NCLB. In fact, some recent studies show that some of the significant gains made in public education during the Clinton Administration have been negated by the provisions of NCLB, resulting in poorer mathematical and reading ability among students. This unimpressive performance of the new law is attributable to the flawed assumption that schools are in need of a reward/punishment system; whereas in reality what they require is a radical change in approach. Other areas in which NCLB Act has had negative consequences are:
1. Misplaced emphasis on Tests rather than student participation
2. Disincentives for Improving Learning.
3. Shrinking the depth and range of the Curriculum.
4. No incentives provided for Schools undertaking constructive reforms.
5. Depriving funds for schools that need it the most.
Finally, nations with successful education systems pay attention to their “curriculums on critical thinking and problem solving, using exams that require students to conduct research and scientific investigations, solve complex real-world problems and defend their ideas orally and in writing”. These exercises are not intended to classify, rank or reprimand schools, or to deprive students of their pass-out certificates. The NCLB Act on the other hand seems to be at complete odds with such proven models of education. Nations in Western Europe and Scandinavia have shown robust educational institutions with impressive outcomes by “asking students to show what they know through real-world applications of knowledge and by encouraging serious intellectual activities that are being driven out of many US schools by the tests promoted by NCLB” (Darling-Hammond, 2008). Unless this reality is acknowledged by the Education Department, its legislative measures will continue to reflect underlying ignorance. In summary, it could be said that students will not be encouraged to learn in the absence of well-trained teaching staff. Neither will mere adopting of tests and punishments will induce a culture of accountability. If anything, implementing short-term punitive sanctions without sustained long-term investments will lead to the victimization of the most vulnerable pupils by a cruel system that is not designed to support their learning.
References:
Darling-Hammond, Linda, No Child Left Behind Act, Promises and Problems, retrieved on 6th September, 2008, from <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/darling-hammond/3>
No Child Left Behind Act, United States Department of Education, retrieved on 7th September, 2008, from <www.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA02/>