Nclb Act Pros And Cons

In 2001, Former President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. This Law launched the national standards and testing movement of the United States (2004).

When a student has the ability to pursue classes that interest them, combined with teachers that enable the students to understand more and push themselves, the students will be more inclined to continue to go to school and find a topic that they are passionate about, that they would then hopefully be able to make a career out of. Students that are surrounded by negativity and a setting that distracts from the importance of learning and pressures the student is one that ultimately reduces the output of education that the politicians are so concerned with. Students can tell when they are being taught for a test. In NJ, all the way from the NJASK through PARCC testing through the SAT/ACT, it is obvious that there is an underlying issue in the education system. From 3rd Grade everything becomes a means to an end. What happens, though, if what a student is capable of and what they are good at is not on a test? Those students can be left behind or thought lesser of. Frustration sets in when a person becomes bored as well as when they are not properly understanding the material. Albert Einstein stated that “If you judge a fish based on how well it climbs a tree it will always feel stupid.” Standardized testing is good for creating a basis of knowledge and a starting point for the school system to make sure that each citizen can have a basic level of understanding, but there are many people that are not wired for standardized testing and traditional education. So many people have so many different skill sets, innate and developed. Those that can paint and have a vision like Picasso may not show this on their testing. This is the same as how those that are taking high level calculus and then the math section of the SAT. The questions are not the same. The thinking is meant to be misleading. This does not provide a fair

Another example of the NCLB Act failing in the area of funding is seen in a Mexican-American school, located Houston, Texas, which does not have a library, lab equipment, or an adequate number of textbooks. This is because they are not receiving funding, because the school is being penalized for failing to improve test scores to meet AYP. The school board and administration cannot meet the needs to improve the resources for learning, thus cannot improve the overall test scores at the school. However, the administration does spend $20,000 for commercial test-preparation books and other testing materials in an effort to meet the AYP (Ellis 228). With a focus solely on raising test scores and not the actual learning process, their school will continue in this cycle of low test scores and lacking resources.

While NCLB appears great in principle, it is failing in actuality. The main purpose of the Act was to close the achievement gap between White and minority students, especially Black and Latino students, by increasing educational equality. The differences in the achievement gap is to be measured yearly through the use of standardized testing. As each student is unique, the use of standardized tests to measure whether students reach 100% proficiency is unrealistic. Teachers, principals, and school boards are so worried about being “proficient” that teachers are now teaching for the test, not teaching a rounded curriculum. With schools afraid that they may possibly receive sanctions, schools are now cheating the system by finding ways to bolster their scores to improve state AYP rates. Paul D. Houston explains in his article “The 7 Deadly Sins of NCLB,” that the Act relies on fear and coercion (2007). Teachers, school boards, and states are so afraid of receiving a failing grade that they are willing to skew results in their favour. Not to mention that states are allowed to choose their own statistical method to analyze their scores. Due to many unforeseen variables, these differences make it almost impossible to imply causation that students are reaching proficiency due to the NCLB Act.

I agree with many of the concerns Diane Ravitch have about NCLB. The emphasis on test scores leading school districts to cheat caught my attention. I read an article in the New Yorker written by Rachel Aviv. The article was titled “Wrong Answer- In an era of high-stakes testing, a struggling school made a shocking choice. It talked about how a “star group of teachers” resorted to cheating in an effort to help their students be successful in a school that was in its 6th year of being a school in need of improvement. These are hardworking teachers who have taught all of the concepts well . It talked about how the teachers conspired to changed answers leading to higher test scores.

The NCLB Act has become the largest intervention by the federal government. This act promises to improve student learning and to close the achievement gap between the white students and students of color. The law is aimed at having standardized test to measure student performance and quality of teacher. The Standardized exams are fully focused on reading and mathematics. This law characterizes an unequalled extension of the federal role into the realm of local educational accountability. High school graduation rates are also a requirement as an indicator of performance at secondary level. In low performing schools they get punished by receiving less funds and students have the choice to move to high performing school. The quality of our

NCLB has received many criticisms since its implementation. Despite its goal of improving student performance by holding schools to high standards, NCLB fails to define what those standards are. It sets its goal as 100% proficiency, but mandates that each state develop its own achievement standards for students to meet. As a result, states developed unique assessments with notably different performance standards. They also changed their assessments over time, which makes trends unreliable . Though NCLB used standardized tests to measure overall school improvements, modern standardized testing systems are not designed to measure educator performance. They are designed to produce reliable measures of individual student achievements in a low stakes

After the No-Child-Left-Behind (NCLB) bill was introduced by the Bush administration in 2001, the use of standardized tests skyrocketed because all schools in the country were required to assess students using these tests to evaluate the student, teacher and school’s performance. A standardized test is any examination that is administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner (Popham 8). The use of these tests have not improved education in the United States because teachers teach to the test, which means that they only focus on what is going to be on the exam and do not spend time on other material; tests like the SAT which evaluate the student solely on the outcome of the test and upon the score the student is placed where “appropriate”; and that one assessment is not enough to evaluate students, teachers, principals

The NCLB Act has obligated the government to find a way to keep track of progress, which, in their minds, is administering high-stakes tests. High-stakes testing is scrutinized all the time, since some believe it is the only indicator of tracking students and teachers. They seemed to have been ridiculed by many and favored by few; nonetheless there are significant disparities in the public’s and government’s opinion. According to Dunne (2000), “Tests aren't just tests anymore -- at least not high-stakes tests, which are being used in some states to determine which students stay back a grade, which high school seniors receive diplomas, which teachers get bonuses, and more.”

The Federal Government is effected by the NCLB Act because it is representing a more important role in education than ever before. The education department must approve of the testing programs and accountability plans used in the NCLB Act to ensure that schools reach adequate yearly progress (Jennings & Rentner, 2006). The Federal government does not pay for the NCLB Act but they monitor its progress to see if it is worth sticking to.

     Many educators find the purpose of the NCLB Act to be very confusing and disingenuous. According to Monty Neill, who works for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization which evaluates tests and exams for their impartiality, “NCLB is a fundamentally punitive law that uses flawed standardized tests to label schools as failures and punish them with counterproductive sanctions” (Neill, 1). Teachers will be of no use to educate their students according to the curriculum, if the only focus that both the teachers and students have is only to pass the imperative standardized test, just so their school district can acquire more

Opponents of NCLB, which includes all major teachers' unions, allege that the act hasn't been effective in improving education in public education, especially high schools, as evidenced by mixed results in standardized tests. Opponents also claim that standardized testing, which is the heart of NCLB accountability, is deeply flawed and biased for many reasons. That stricter teacher qualifications have exacerbated the nationwide teacher shortage, not provided a stronger teaching force. The NCLB law has set a 2014 deadline for states to make public school students proficient in math and reading, but each state decides how to meet that goal. are from achieving proficiency.

NCLB required almost ten state standardized tests be given to students during their twelve years of education. States were mandated to test students on math and English every year in the third through eighth grades. One more test in both subjects was required in high school. It also mandated at least one science test in elementary, middle and high school. ESSA differs in terms of how, when, and possibly what tests are given. The same number of tests are required, but these tests can be broken into smaller portions. States are now encourage to find new methods of testing (that are scientifically based).

The No Child Left Behind act promises many great things for education. It is an effort to “close the achievement gap” for students falling behind in public school systems. (The No Child, 2002) This act also promises and gives parents more of a choice about their child’s education. For example, if the parent feels that their child is in a school that is failing they are able to have their child transferred to another school. Idealistically these goals are wonderful for our educational system, and this gives the tax payers the reassurance that they are getting their money’s worth from education, but what are the consequences in forcing our students to take “high-stakes tests.”

The more the schools or states keep adding more tests doesn't mean that all the students scores will be better. Secondly a way to reduce the testing could be to reduce the overlapping tests. Carvalho a superintendent at the 4th largest school district in the country has also reduced his students from 300 to 10 tests because of how much they overlapped each other. Some schools have started doing this to reduce the amount of overlapping tests they have.The U.S. takes 9 big tests a year but some states have better scores than the U.S. with fewer tests. If other countries can do better with fewer tests, so could the U.S. if we got the better quality tests and get rid of the overlapping ones. If America got rid of their overlapping tests they could make America's economy great again. Another way to may the economy of America better again would be to close the education gap. Based on NCLB the wealthyness of a person could explain their test results. The tests could not account for the poverty that the students may have. For example if a child were not to have a bed to sleep in that day they would be less concern about the test and more about where to sleep. The poverty of a student is not accounted for from the tests and that can decide the students