Education - NCLB Problems Reconsidering

Education - NCLB Problems RECONSIDERING the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CONCEPT Background and History of the No Child Left Behind Act: Education reform in the United States is not a new idea. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and during the administration of George H.

Bush, the first President Bush promised, among other things, that by the turn of the century, all American school-aged children would have the benefit of comprehensive quality educational programming and improved nutritional and healthcare access to facilitate their learning in school. President G.H.

Bush went so far as to promise that improved focus on American education would go so far by then as to also provide the training necessary for the parents of preschoolers to fulfill their role at home as their children's "first teacher." In January of 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law a reauthorization and revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002. Much like his father before him, George W.

Bush made very specific promises in outlining his expectations for the success of the NCLB legislation, guaranteeing that under the NCLB programs, all American schoolchildren would achieve acceptable levels of proficiency in reading and mathematics, the two most important academic subjects, by the year 2014 (USDOE 2001). Needless to say, the ambitions of the first President Bush were, in retrospect, not very realistic, as evidenced by the justification for enacting the NCLB Act presented by the second President Bush throughout 2001.

The president detailed the degree to which deficiencies in American public education were undermining the country's competitive edge in business, medical science, and especially the technology sector in comparison to poorer nations with significantly better educational success rates.

At that time, the president suggested that implementation of the NCLB was also, very specifically, intended as a means of addressing the disparity in academic performance and high school graduation rates of black American schoolchildren in relation to their white counterparts, in addition to making similar comparisons with respect to other demographic descriptors such as family income level (USDOE 2001).

The NCLB Act pertains to all school-age children, but my particular interest is its effectiveness in improving academic performance and relevant skills among high school students, primarily because that represents my area of vocational interest. As an educator, I remain open-minded to any plausible and practical suggestions for improving learning, but I must admit to tremendous skepticism on the prospect of achieving that goal through the NCLB concept for numerous reasons that came to light in my research of the topic in connection with this project.

Beyond the criticism levied against the issues of NCLB-programmatic implementation, it may very well be that the entire philosophy underlying the NCLB approach is seriously flawed in design and educational philosophy. In that regard, very little research seems to support the idea once one discounts partisan reviews and subjective characterizations presented by the Bush administration and G.O.P. spokespeople.

Conversely, after six years, a multitude of educational research projects have been devoted to evaluating the merits demonstrated by the first half decade of American public education shaped by the NCLB doctrine. The result of those inquiries are virtually unanimous in their characterization of the NCLB concept as a failure and as a tremendous waste of valuable resources (Murray 2006). Likewise, the anecdotal information in the form of first-hand experience of career educators suggests that the damage goes even deeper than failed promises and financial waste.

According to many experienced teachers and school administrators, the NCLB approach to public education reduces education to drilling students for the exclusive purpose of performing on the standardized test used to gauge statewide compliance with federal standards. Rather than increasing learning, the NCLB programs have narrowed the focus of academic learning even more than was the case previously to the detriment of the students (Sonnenblick 2008).

In fact, many modern experts in the field of academic learning and human cognitive development believe that what is required to motivate increased academic interest and success is precisely the opposite of such intensive unbalanced focus on reading and mathematics.

A tremendous volume of research has demonstrated the value of expanding rather than narrowing the scope of academic learning, in particular, the research and successful implementation of pilot programs in both hands-on active-participation academic programs (Huber & Moore 2001) and the multiple intelligences approach pioneered by Harvard School of Education Professor Howard Gardner (Gardner 1999). Unfortunately, the implications of contemporary research into the factors that contribute to the success of education programs seem diametrically opposite the design of the NCLB approach to education.

Instead of training students to perform "adequately" on standardized measures of competence in two areas exclusively, modern educational theorists have proposed that what is needed is actually a reduced focus on rote memorization, lecture-based passive learning modules, and the overemphasis of linguistic and mathematics abilities. Instead, improving American education may require recognition of the degree to which academic potential and cognitive abilities lie wholly outside the traditional scope of academic curricula altogether (Schroeder & Spannagel 2006).

On the basis of my research and personal experience, I am inclined to believe that cognitive development and academic learning are inseparable from social learning, emotional, sensory, and physical experiences. The requirements of the NCLB Act fail to recognize that aspect of education and the methods of implementation of NCLB programming actually ignore those elements of human learning even more than the traditional educational programs and approaches upon which it was intended to improve.

As a career educator, my only concern is to stimulate the academic interests of my students in a manner that increases their enthusiasm for learning. In that regard, I hope to incorporate the latest available information and research that identifies educational approaches conducive to that goal.

Therefore, the apparent failure of the NCLB Act concerns me, as does the discrepancy between its conceptual design and the elements of educational programs that appear to offer the greatest potential for achieving the objectives that seem to have all but eluded the NCLB approach, regardless of its laudable purpose and expectations.

Educational Reform Under the No Child Left Behind Act: The fundamental design of the NCLB Act incorporates four essential elements, consisting of: (1) standards and testing, (2) testing result reporting, (3) Title I institutional accountability, and (4) nationwide testing through a sampling methodological approach. Since the constitutional separation of powers doctrine and individual state's rights likely prohibits setting minimum federal standards and testing of achievement or academic performance, the NCLB Act sets out more general standards and testing objectives such as the requirement that all states establish "challenging" academic standards (USDOE 2001).

Testing and result reporting under the NCLB Act require each school to report the results of testing to the state and for the states to monitor their schools for compliance with federal objectives. Under NCLB, states must also conduct periodic statistical analyses of performance that takes into account race, income, ethnicity, disability, and English language fluency (USDOE 2001).

The Title I institutional accountability component of NCLB imposed the obligation on states to design and implement testing standards sufficient to achieve federal objectives by the academic year 2005-2006, as well as to document progressive improvement on an annual basis with respect to those standards. Finally, nationwide testing through sampling requirements under the NCLB Act is conducted through nationwide diagnostic testing via a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The NAEP is intended to provide a uniform standard for all state education programs as measured through biannual testing (through sampling) of each state's fourth and eighth-grade students (USDOE 2001). Conceptual Problems with the No Child Left Behind Approach to Education: In principle, the NCLB concept appears fundamentally flawed on several different levels.

First, it was proposed virtually without any empirical studies correlating its mechanisms with academic achievement; it appears that, more than anything else, it was the subjective belief of the president about the educational programs in his home state of Texas that shaped the NCLB ideals. Critics have suggested that even his conclusions about what contributed to academic issues in Texas were flawed, let alone that no objective studies supported the NCLB concept (Sonnenblick 2008).

Second, notwithstanding the prohibition of specific federally-imposed measures of program success, the NCLB Act conflicts with the spirit (if not the letter) of state sovereignty under the U.S. Constitution. Third, by focusing exclusively on standardized test scores as measures of program effectiveness in conjunction with mandatory reporting and publication of institutional success, the NCLB actually promotes an emphasis on test scores irrespective of genuine learning or subject matter retention.

Fourth, the evolution of this emphasis on testing and reporting has already opened up a wider market for private businesses to exploit the need of educational institutions to maintain compliance with federal test-score standards (Murray 2006). Instead of providing students with a wider range of educational materials designed to stimulate their intellectual curiosity and motivate their interest in academic subject matter, schools have invested more of their budget and other resources into testing books, reducing education to little more than extended test performance preparation for the sake of institutional compliance.

Fifth, the NCLB is devoid of any meaningful consequences for failing to achieve federal objectives other than the publication of such failures in conjunction with the rights of parents to request transfers of their children to better-performing academic institutions (Darling-Hammond 2004). Critics have suggested that the most likely result of enforcement of such limited consequences for noncompliance is the overcrowding of institutions who fulfill the federal requirements to their detriment by virtue of diminution in their ability to meet the educational needs of increased enrollment of low-achieving students (Sonnenblick 2008).

Likewise, the NCLB Act authorizes increased federal funding of home schooling and for-profit institutions that further reduces necessary funds to public institutions. Sixth, whereas George H. Bush articulated the connection between adequate nutrition and access to healthcare and preparedness to learn in school, the NCLB Act ignores this element entirely. Many critics and career educators believe that any proposed educational reforms subsequent to the failure of the first Bush administration to meet its stated objectives by the year 2000 should have renewed the attention to early childhood nutrition and health.

Unlike the philosophy underlying the NCLB approach, the link between adequate childhood nutrition and health has been established conclusively in myriad empirical studies (Caillier 2007). Seventh, the consensus of contemporary education theorists has evolved in the last several decades to the appreciation of the multiple intelligences concept of human intelligence, cognitive development, and academic learning (Gardner 1999). Traditional educational curricula emphasize a very narrow subset of human intellectual potential: namely linguistic and mathematical (or quantitative logic) abilities.

Researchers like the renowned Howard Gardner of Harvard School of Education have tested the theory extensively with tremendously positive results. Essentially, they have demonstrated that in addition to linguistic and mathematical abilities, human cognitive potential includes the ability to learn through other senses.

Specifically, by providing educational curricula through nontraditional methods and materials, Gardner (and many others) have established the degree to which the traditional design of public education academic programs unnecessarily exclude students whose greatest learning potential is more amenable to lessons that emphasize their kinesthetic, musical, social, emotional, and other senses. Similarly, a long history of research going back decades (Schroeder & Spannagel 2006) suggests that rote memorization through drilling, and lecture-based passive learning is not at all conducive to maximal attentiveness, interest, or subject matter retention.

Rather, optimal learning, particularly in the sciences, requires a more active learning design and hands-on involvement with materials and practical applications of academic concepts (Huber & Moore 2001).

Instead of incorporating the results of research (and volumes of anecdotal evidence with which it is entirely consistent) documenting the immense value of the multiple intelligences and active learning theories of modern education, the NCLB Act does the exact opposite: it emphasizes the focus on linguistics and mathematics even more than traditional education programs to the virtual exclusion of alternate methodologies that have been proven to increase learning and promote genuine academic enthusiasm (Huber & Moore 2001).

Eighth, and perhaps most significantly, the entire mechanism of using "pass-fail" (or, in NCLB parlance, proficiency) standards to measure academic improvement is conceptually flawed (Murray 2006), and completely belies the entire effort of quantifying performance in a meaningful way. By definition, for the same reason that all children cannot possibly be achieving at an "above average" level, they cannot all be "proficient" to the extent that the term proficiency is defined in a meaningful way.

Similarly, the only measure considered in the NCLB standards is whether or not students reach a minimum standard of performance; as such, that measure is utterly devoid of valuable data quantifying their performance such as by what extent their performance surpasses minimum standards (Murray 2006). Even worse, the compliance requirement, particularly in conjunction with testing programs designed by each state, provides both the incentive as well as the obvious opportunity to devise tests that are deliberately intended to maximize performance by minimizing difficult or challenging subject matter.

This, quite obviously, completely contradicts the fundamental purpose of NCLB standards and reporting in the first place. Finally, as Murray (2006) details, the statistical relevance and presented analysis of the data used by the Bush administration to document the purported progress of minority student achievement in relation to closing the gap between the performance of white and black students in Texas is so flawed conceptually and methodologically that it actually borders on deliberate deception rather than mere mathematical inaccuracy.

Specific Issue Analysis -- Contemporary Learning Theory and the NCLB Approach: As a career educator, I am intensely opposed to the NCLB approach to public education because it contradicts so much of the various philosophies underlying modern educational theory. Consequently, my hope is to secure a teaching position at a private institution that is not subject to NCLB federal requirements. Specifically, my philosophy of education incorporates different elements of several perspectives on education into a more holistic program design.

In that regard, I aspire to implement aspects of educational constructivism, multiple intelligences theory, brain-based learning, and objectivism. The essential characteristic of the constructivist perspective that I intend to cultivate is the fundamental distinction between learning through passive instruction and active intellectual participation. More precisely, students learn better when they are encouraged to participate in the intellectual reasoning process of deducing the right answer than when merely presented with the same information or subject matter in the traditional lecture format (Huber & Moore 2001).

The beauty of this approach is that it requires little expenditure in materials or financial resources to adapt existing academic material for a more objectivist presentation. It merely requires a shift from a lecture- based presentation to a conversational format that provides the opportunity to hypothesize, discuss, test, and form conclusions through logical deduction and objective reasoning.

As previously referenced, Howard Gardner has demonstrated the degree to which traditional educational programs neglect students whose greatest intellectual abilities lie outside the two areas traditionally associated with measures of human intelligence and learning, linguistic and mathematical abilities. In that regard, it is likely no coincidence that President Bush's NCLB vision mirrors this completely antiquated view of academic learning and achievement.

According to Gardner and other proponents of multiple intelligences-based academic learning, there are at least five other distinct aspects of human cognitive intelligence neglected by traditional educational programs: bodily- kinesthetics, spatial orientation, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and musical ability. Most significantly, multiple intelligences theory does not propose instruction appropriate to the five alternate components of intelligence instead of traditional educational subject matter; nor does it require providing subject matter relating directly to any specific type of intelligence to reap the benefits of its method.

Multiple intelligences theory conceives of identifying the underlying obstacles to academic achievement represented by overrepresentation of certain cognitive abilities over others. However, its method is to make beneficial use of different abilities as a vehicle of instruction for the same basic subject matter presented to all students. For example, a student whose musical abilities fall in the superior range but whose mathematical abilities fall below average can learn mathematics more effectively through musical concepts such as rhythm and musical timing.

Likewise, a student who is naturally inclined to learn more efficiently through relating physically to the external world will absorb natural science lessons better if they are presented in outdoor experiments than from reading about (the same) physical concepts in a science textbook. As an educator, I consider it my responsibility to identify each student's individual intellectual strengths and weaknesses for the purpose of devising lesson plans and a general approach to learning that enables each student to benefit optimally from lessons presented in formats conducive to learning.

Brain-based learning has also proven itself a valuable asset to academic instruction (Darling-Hammond 2004), provided it is practical for the educational environment. In principle, brain-based learning recognizes the differences between individuals in terms of their ideal learning environment and external circumstances. In that regard, it is my hope to have the luxury of inquiring into whether students prefer to learn in groups, or by themselves in quiet reflection, as well as various other preferences that correspond to increased lesson absorption.

For example, some students simply learn better from listening (or watching in audio-visual formats) than from reading. Naturally, apart from appropriate instruction in reading skills, other substantive subject matter need not necessarily always be presented in textbooks. Traditional history lessons that may inspire only abject boredom in some students may be received completely differently when students are given the option of watching a documentary instead of reading a chapter about World War II. Since the object of the lesson.