No Child Left Behind Act - Assignment Example

No Child Left Behind Act Introduction The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed by congress in 2001 witha bipartisan support and was a major shift in the country’s education policy (Kaufman & Blewett, 2012). This is because NCLB brought about new conditions for the public school federal funding. The Act enumerates standards for all public schools and ties the education funds to the academic results. The Act made the public education community to shift towards accountability and this reverberated throughout the community becoming a status quo (Kaufman & Blewett, 2012). It also Act requires assessments that are standards-based for all students thus being compulsory for the public schools to make annual reports for the students’ yearly progress as well as reports must be reliable and statistically valid. This is part of a process leading to a substantial academic progress, which is continuous for all the students (Kaufman & Blewett, 2012). The "No Child Left Behind" title originates from the Act’s goal of helping all children to reach their academic potential. The Act also aids all children to self-actualize into brilliant effective adults regardless of their backgrounds or how disadvantaged they may be. This is because underprivileged children are the mostly discriminated due to their economic circumstances, ethnicity and disability. The yearly progress and grade-to-grade advancement mandated by NCLB provides the disabled students with better educational achievements than the minimal actions that are calculated reasonably with an aim of providing educational benefit (Kaufman & Blewett, 2012). Some scholars conducted studies even before the Act’s enactment or implementation to ascertain its effectiveness as well as chances of failure. To date, this Act has had both positive and negative consequences in the public education sector. Some scholars have conducted studies to determine the Act’s benefits and failures. Some have even gone ahead to give possible recommendations for making the Act better so that it can provide students with the adequate education it was meant to provide in the first place. The Act’s positive outcomes and benefits The study conducted by Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson (2008), showed that the NCLB renders some beneficial elements for improving the outcome of learning in schools. One benefit of the NCLB is that, it influences both teachers and administrators positively. Hence, both teachers and administrators are now able to evaluate critically gaps in performance between a group of students (Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson, 2008). The NCLB gives many families new education options. This federal law is very important as it enables parents have the option of choosing different public schools and benefit from free tutoring incase the child goes to a school needing some improvements. Moreover, parents have the option of transferring their children to different schools in case the public schools attended by their children are unsafe. The statute further supports the independent charter schools in their growth. They do this through funding some children programs in private schools and protecting the home schooling parents. In addition, the Act ensures that states as well as respective school districts avail the required information so that parents are able to make informed decisions when it comes to making educational choices (Aske, Connolly & Corman, 2013). A study conducted by Dee & Jacob (2009) presented evidence showing that the NCLB has actually influenced the achievement of students. The evidence is based on data obtained from analyzing the state-level data on the test scores of all students. The researchers identified NCLB’s impact by comparing test-score changes in the states with the school-accountability policies even before the implementation of the NCLB and those, which did not have. Results indicated that the NCLB had a significant increase in the fourth graders’ math performance as well as improvements in the top and lower percentiles. There also exists evidence showing that the eighth graders improved in their math achievements especially in the traditional low-achievers and the lower percentiles (Dee & Jacob, 2009). In addition, a group of researchers, Grissom, Nickolson-Crotty & Harrington (2014), presented the results of a study they conducted. The results showed that there were surprising positive trends in the rate of job satisfaction, commitment and the work environment in general. The challenges, failures and negative consequences brought about by the Act Bush’s administration claimed NCLB was its proudest achievement when it came to domestic policies. However, the Act directly contradicted the principles of ownership society whereby the administration was promoting it concurrently in the Social Security reforms and other areas (Uzzell, 2005). Furthermore, the enactment of the NCLB was for challenging districts and schools to make sure that all students meet the proficiency state standards within a few years and to make sure that all teachers were qualified. Due to the few students and their geographic isolation, researchers predicted the Act’s requirements to be especially problematic for the rural districts and rural schools (Reeves, 2003). Ten years after President Bush signed the Act, making it the land’s educational law, the reviews of the decade demonstrate that the Act is a big failure. The Act has neither increased the low-income students’ academic performance nor reduced their achievement gaps. The standardized exams measure this (Guisbond, Neill & Schaeffer, 2012). Guisbond, Neill & Schaeffer (2012) argue that the NCLB ten-year report card has no cause for celebration regardless of the position one takes in judging it. The progress gauges reveal big problems as the achievement gaps stagnated and the scholars’ earlier predictions of a countrywide public school failure might actually come true (Guisbond, Neill & Schaeffer, 2012). Over the years, the curriculum narrowed, cheating is rampant and the help for schools in need is minimal. In addition, the NCLB contributed greatly to the school-to-prison Pipeline growth. The policymakers focused narrowly on the punitive and testing accountability, which made them ignore the significantly growing consequences of poverty to education (Guisbond, Neill & Schaeffer, 2012). Sanders’ study (2008) predicted negative consequences that the Act’s provisions being enforced could bring out. He argued that the statute was a disaster waiting to happen as the Act could fail to address the real educational issues faced by the low-income students. Years later, after the Acts implementation, some scholars agree with Sanders’s argument as recent studies have shown that the Act decreases the chances of low-income students ever attaining any academic proficiency (Sanders’, 2008). The implementation of the Act attempted to ensure that, all children had equal, fair and significant opportunities of obtaining education of high quality. This was a big failure. Instead, the consequences brought out by the statute deny a quite large population of students an access to the adequate education promised (Colker, 2013). The implementation of the Act, through the system of punishments and rewards, inhibits educational opportunities for the students it was meant to serve (the students from low-income homes). The NCLB needs to communicate to the administrators the preparation programs. The creation of learning environments and the promotion of social justice and equity is a big problem for the principals. Moreover, it seems that the NCLB appears not to be suitable at all for the disabled students (Colker, 2013). According to Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson (2008), they showed that teaching with the sole aim of testing, requiring students to memorize information and repeating instructions is not a good way for learning especially in a multicultural settings. For students to be successful, teachers ought to engage them in self-directed learning, solving problematic activities, cooperative learning, metacognition and reasoning. Furthermore, NCLB escalates problems whereby administrators and teachers not focusing on students but on test scores and helping the low-income students by isolating and segregating them. These sub-populations are diverse in terms of their socio-economic status and their linguistics and culture and thus should not be helped in a way that negatively affects the at risk sub-populations (Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson, 2008). The possible ways of improving the Act Epstein (2005) argues NCLB requires schools, school districts as well as states to develop policies together with workable plans and implement them to reach students’ families. The Districts must also provide professional development for the building of parents and educators’ capacities. This will enable them understand partnerships and public schools develop partnership programs that are goal-oriented (Epstein, 2005). The state departments concerned with education should disseminate partnership practices that are effective and review the districts’ plans. These requirements will redirect the leaders, from both the districts and the states, from compliance monitoring to help schools improve the partnership programs’ results and quality (Epstein, 2005). The rezoning of school districts might enable the different boards of education to recognize better academic outputs by the students. This will alleviate more schools from the public sections imposed by the NCLB (Sanders, 2008). The students will end up benefitting, as the low-income students will end up receiving adequate education that is more on par with other students that are wealthier. They will also have access to better school programs and better teachers. In addition to the students benefitting from the Act, the school districts will also benefit. Moreover, the NCLB structure should undergo modification to ensure that what prevents low-income students from gaining adequate education is sorted out. This will be possible by introduction of comprehensive programs that can facilitate education (Sanders, 2008). The study by Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson (2008) contributes to the discussions about improving NCLB. The principals’ concerns from the study showed that some reforms are required for the NCLB. Principals must understand the Act and embrace it and model leadership that will enable teachers be more student oriented. The teachers and school administrators must be aware of the importance of education that is culturally responsive and be consumed less by institutional regulations (Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson, 2008). In addition, the teachers and the school administrators need to take time and create high expectations for all students to ensure they are not segregated but enriched multi-culturally. There have been some reports about the significance of administrators and teachers appreciating cultural diversity and holding high expectations (Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson, 2008). A research conducted on Tucson, Arizona bilingual education program showed that, test scores rose after the administrators and teachers created learning environments, which broaden the students’ bi-literate and bilingual competencies (Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson, 2008). Furthermore, recruiting and retaining ethnically diverse teachers may improve leadership programs in schools. In the study, the Adams School District employed few colored administrators and teachers. This finding is parallels to the trend witnesses nationwide. The school districts must find ways of employing and retaining diverse faculties. This is possible through funding programs that support the faculty when they decide to rise from paraprofessionals to teachers. When the curriculum used by the state proves to be inadequate multi-culturally, the principals who act as the instructional leaders should help teachers by providing them with the enrichment they require. This will ensure that the curriculum is multicultural (Gardiner, Canfield-Davis & Anderson, 2008). The school districts must reverse the centralizing practice. This is very critical as the segregation of diverse students into programs or schools must end. The district policies and boundaries should instead ensure that all students should attend diverse integrated schools. The segregation of students represents losses to both the minority and the Caucasians, not forgetting their families. This is because all the groups will end up suffering from the missed learning opportunities and communicating with people from different cultures with different beliefs and values. This is a necessity in the current global economy (Stockard, 2011). The authors of the NCLB tried giving the Act a gravitas level by referring to it as a scientifically based research (SBR) to manage educational practice. According to the law, SBR is a research involving the applying of systematic, rigorous and objective procedures in order to obtain valid and reliable knowledge that is relevant to the educational programs. Many scholars, from the start, argued that the existing research concerning the turnaround strategies and the high-stakes testing should have made the authors to structure the law differently. Unfortunately, the pleas did not change their minds (Grissom, Nickolson-Crotty & Harrington, 2014). Conclusion The No Child Left Behind Act was an attempt to ensure equal access to adequate education by the low-income students. However, researches and studies conducted have shown that it is impossible for the law to achieve both equity and efficiency. The policymakers’ desire for achieving these goals is desirable. It is important for the stakeholders involved (the parents, education officials and policymakers) to confront this issue in order to strike a balance. The balance can only be reached by the acknowledgment of the trade-off and by understanding the consequences of the results, both in the long and short term. The data accumulated in the last decade bring out different results. One result is that the NCLB has damaged the quality of educational and equal access severely, with the limiting and narrowing effects affecting the poor the most. Another result is that the NCLB failed in its work of increasing the average academic performance significantly and narrowing the achievement gaps. In addition, the reforms, (e.g. the waivers by the Obama Administration and the reauthorization bill) have failed in addressing most of the NCLB’s fundamental flaws. In some cases, the NCLB has intensified the flaws. These proposals will be responsible for extending the long failed decade for the U.S. schools. It is however not late to have a look at the lessons from the last decade and construct a new federal law that will provide the needed equity and improve all public schools. References Aske, D. R., Connolly, L. S., & Corman, R. R. (2013). Accessibility or accountability? The rhetoric and reality of No Child Left Behind. Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research, 14(3), 107-118. Colker, R. (2013). Politics trump science: The collision between No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Journal of Law and Education, 42(4), 585- 631. Dee, T., & Jacob, B. (2009). The impact of No Child Left Behind on student achievement. National Bureau of Economic. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w15531.pdf Epstein, J. L. (2005). Attainable goals? The spirit and letter of the No Child Left Behind Act on parental involvement. Sociology of Education, 78, 179-182. Gardiner, M. E., Canfield-Davis, K., & Anderson, K. L. (2008). “Urban school principals and the No Child Left Behind Act.” The Urban Review, 41, 141-160. Grissom, J. A., Nickolson-Crotty, S., & Harrington, J. R. (2014). Estimating the effects of No Child Left Behind on teachers’ work environments and job attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1-20. Guisbond, L., Neill, M., & Schaeffer, B. (2012). NCLBs lost decade for educational progress: What can we learn from this policy failure. Retrieved from http://fairtest.org/sites/default/files/NCLB_Report_Final_Layout.pdf Kaufman, A. K., & Blewett, E. (2012). When good enough is no longer good enough: How the high stakes nature of the No Child Left Behind Act supplanted the Rowley definition of a free appropriate public education. Journal of Law and Education, 41(1), 5-23. Reeves, C. (2003). Implementing the No Child Left Behind act: Implications for rural schools and districts. Retrieved from http://www.sc3ta.org/kb_files/NCLB_RuralPolicyBrief.pdf Sanders, A. (2008). Left behind: Low income students under the No Child Left Behind Act. Journal of Law and Education, 37(4), 589-596. Stockard, J. (2011). Merging the accountability and scientific research requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act: Using cohort control groups. Quality and Quantity, 47, 2225- 2257. Uzzell, L. A. (2005). No Child Left Behind. The dangers of centralized education policy. Retrieved from http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa544.pdf Read More