Federal Education Program Analysis

NCLB & IDEA The author of this report has been asked to answer a few questions and conduct some points of analysis on a law of the author's choosing. For the purpose of this report, those laws will be the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Special Education IDEA program. The analysis of these programs will in three major parts, those being need identification, policy evaluation and reflection/analysis.

The need identification will involve the identification of needs of people and families that are affected by the NCLB and/or the IDEA. The policy evaluation will include a summary of the website/policy name, the needs met or services provided, the policy strengths, the policy weaknesses/challenges, the stated impact vs. The actual impact and the issues not addressed in the policy. The reflection and analysis will be a succinct and comprehensive review of the findings from the previous sections.

While the intentions and goals of NCLB and IDEA were noble, they outcomes vs. what was expected were fairly obviously at odds. Analysis For the needs of those that are subject to and affected by No Child Left Behind, the families of children under the purview of No Child Left Behind need food and shelter and the children in particular need a quality education so that they are able to become productive members of society irrespective of what they choose to do in their lives as they become adults.

The NCLB website is found as a sub-page of the Department of Education. Its stated goals are to have effective teaching, accountability and reports and choices for parents (NCLB, 2015). The IDEA Program is also under the purview of the Department of Education. The IDEA program is specifically for those with learning disabilities and is divided into two major parts, those being Part B (ages 3-21) and part C (birth to age 2) (IDEA, 2015).

The strengths of NCLB include that the federal government should absolutely have a role in education, the law sets one hundred percent proficiency as the goal and testing is the easiest way to measure such proficiency. The weaknesses are that state constitutions are involved as well when it comes to teaching, achieving one hundred percent proficiency in twelve years (per the bill) is not realistic and the test scoring methods used are not calibrated properly.

Loopholes would include data being cherry-picked and manipulated and the stated impact of NCLB is not nearly as realistic and authentic as what is really going on. As inferred already, an issue not addressed in the policy is that a realistic timeline to achieve the proper test scores is not addressed in the law and the testing system is not reliable. (Arkansas, 2005). As for IDEA, a strength is that parents are enthusiastically behind the law and its efficacy but a weakness (and a difference in stated vs.

actual outcomes) is that no states are in full compliance with the law. As such, this would serve as a bit of a loophole as the schools are operating while being out of compliance. The main issue seemingly not addressed in the law is funding as a shortage thereof seems to be the major reason or non-compliance. (Wright's Law, 2015). Conclusion Both of the programs noted above.