Is No Child Left Behind Irretrievably Flawed?

No Child Left Behind The law which is known as No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, was created to help students in the United States. When the law was written, it was intended that schools would be held to a high standard. Students would each have specific standards based on their grade which would better ensure that all American children have more equal education (Noll 2012,-page 402). The intent is also to make sure teachers are highly skilled and putting the greatest amount of effort into their work.

New technologies are incorporated into the classroom and used to enhance the learning experience and funding is increased or decreased based on the level of the school's success on exams overall. It is designed to hold schools accountable for the education that they provide to their students; it is good-intentioned. This sounds like a wonderful idea; however, the NCLB law is highly flawed because the systems in place to secure quality also cause hurt to schools that are already troubled and underprivileged.

In an article titled "Unacceptable: My School and My Students are Labeled as Failures," teacher Amy Ambrosio explains why NCLB is flawed (2003). Students need to pass tests in order for the school to get funding from the government, which in turn dictates how well the students do later on in their academic careers. If the students do not do well on their standardized tests, then the school is punished financially.

It has been proven that students from lower-income areas do more poorly on such exams because of the factors which might impede their education, such as family dynamics or lack of proper health or child care. These schools really need more money than those in higher-income areas, but the standardized tests punish them. Consequently NCLB punishes the very students it was designed to assist. Since so much emphasis is put on the test, the teachers are also put into a very difficult situation.

They either have to teach to the test or risk losing their jobs and having the district be taken over by the state. Teachers and education administration are pressured to get the test scores up or risk being taken over by the government and the loss of many jobs. This has led to problems all over the country. For example, "In Texas many public school districts have found raising their standardized testing averages to be the No. 1 goal of classroom curriculum.

Consequently, schools is no longer a forum where students can discuss the effects of alcohol, or the best method to achieve a life filled with value and pleasure, or the simple antics of their daily lives" (Noll 2012,-page 407). This is just one state but it is an attitude that is found all over the country. NCLB leaves the schools and educators more or less hand tied over what can be taught and what must be done.

Instead of seeing a problem in the system that judges them, the government has labeled schools which cannot solve this issue as "unacceptable" (Ambrosio 2003). The students in low income areas all have some severe problems such as having to get jobs to help their families or having to move several times because of getting kicked out of their homes or because of abuse and domestic violence. The scores reflect their hardships but do not make allowances for them.

The current laws about education punish the schools that score poorly and this makes it so the teachers have to teach the test in a way. If we know what content will be on a test, then we make sure we put extra emphasis on educating the students about the stuff that they will be tested on to help the students pass the exams. This can be conscious or unconscious, but it happens.

The problem with this is that when we have to teach to the test, it stops teachers from teaching material that is enriching, but may not show up on a form of assessment. It can become all too easy as a teacher to expect students to get their work done and not be aware of the reasons that they might have for having difficulties. The lowest economic schools traditionally do the worst on tests and generally the schools have a low ranking.

This has nothing to do with the abilities of the students at the school but has everything to do with the hardships these students face. There are so many reasons that a student might test poorly, i.e. having medical problems like a dyslexic kid or having to take care of a child, like another student. In fact, no special needs are taken into account by NCLB.

Special needs' students who are developmentally delayed or have learning disabilities are subjected to the same exams as other students in the same grade, despite vastly different skill levels (Noll 2012,-page 403). The No Child Left Behind.