No Child Left Behind Act: A Marxist Analysis of Education Inequality

Introduction

When it was first enacted, the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to make schools accountable for the education of their students. This federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act was supposed to improve the quality of education for all children in the United States. This paper argues, however, that in many school districts the No Child Left Behind Act has had the opposite effect. As a result, many minority schoolchildren are left behind in school districts with worsening educational problems.

This paper applies a conflict perspective to analyzing education in the United States in general, and the No Child Left Behind Act in particular. The first part provides an overview of Karl Marx's writings on social inequity and discusses how his theory and the conflict perspective apply to problems in the American educational system. The next part gives an overview of the failure of the No Child Left Behind Act in improving the educational system in the United States.

In the final section, the paper applies Marx's writings and the conflict perspective to analyze why the No Child Left Behind Act has failed to improve the quality of education for many children in minority school districts. It argues that as long as the roots of social inequality in education remain unaddressed, programs such as the No Child Left Behind Act will at best effect only cosmetic changes.

Karl Marx and Social Inequality

Marx is most well-known for his economic theories and his critique of capitalism. However, he also made significant contributions to social philosophy and social theory. Particularly relevant are his writings about how social institutions — such as religion, education, and the family — contribute to social inequality as a whole.

Marx was a strong advocate of establishing new economic institutions, ones that would do away with the destructive nature of capitalism. His main critique of capitalism was that the current economic system promotes the domination of one group in society. As a result, many groups remain subjugated, their voices unheard. Furthermore, capitalism as an economic system reproduces these conditions, ensuring its own continuity in a vicious cycle through the selective distribution of social privileges.

According to classical Marxist theory, the economic and social privileges available to a person are products of his or her economic class. For Karl Marx, all people are "an ensemble of social relations" (Bottomore 89). People live their lives within the context of unequal social relationships — relationships that have grown out of an individual's access to the dominant means of production in a society.

Marx recognized that the ruling class maintains a strong dominance in society. It is the ruling class of capitalists who control the means of production, while the proletariat sells its labor to them. In addition to these two classes, Marx identified the middle class, or "bourgeoisie," which is also dependent on the labor of the proletariat and serves to further the interests of the ruling class (Bottomore 85).

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote that the "history of all existing society is the history of class struggle" (cited in Bottomore 87). Under capitalism, the ruling class's ownership of the means of production compels proletariat families to live under economic conditions that separate them from the interests and culture of the ruling classes. This means that the proletariat is constantly in hostile opposition to the ruling class, even as their labor continues to uphold those class divisions (Bottomore 85).

For Marx, this economic "base" forms the foundation for the larger "superstructure" of state forms and class consciousness. In addition to economic conditions, the class structure also determines the "social, intellectual and life process in general" (Marx, cited in Larrain 45). The superstructure is not an autonomous body existing independently of economic institutions; rather, forms of government and state authority, as well as the social "consciousness" of a class, are determined by the economic foundations of a society. Any permanent change in the superstructure must therefore be preceded by a change in a society's economic relations (Larrain 45).

In other writings, Marx explores the roots of proletariat consciousness — a consciousness formed in relation to the workers' lack of capital. Economic conditions transform people into a mass of workers who have nothing to exchange but their labor. They are defined largely by what they do not have: capital and property. This form of negative association means that the proletariat lacks an "identity" and the sense of community that would allow them to define and enforce their class interests, whether through political or other means. As a result, the proletariat often cannot represent its own interests within the state's political structures and must be represented by members of the ruling class (Fletscher 89).

In contrast, members of the ruling class carefully use class consciousness to enhance their social and economic privileges. The system of inheritance, for example, ensures that property remains concentrated in the hands of the ruling class, so that the aristocrats remain aristocrats, possessing circumscribed privileges defined by their class interests (Fletscher 89).

Despite the insight that consciousness is defined in relation to economic conditions, the classical Marxist model of a superstructure resting on an economic base proves inadequate to explain the many forms of social stratification. Gender and race, for instance, often affect privilege even more than class does. Furthermore, Marx himself recognized that the peasant and working classes often use their limited voting rights to further subjugate themselves rather than to mount a revolutionary challenge to the ruling class (Fletscher 89).

As evidenced by advanced industrial capitalist systems like the United States, class struggle is not always active. While class conflict is inherent, whether workers engage in collective action against their exploiters also depends on the social structures that shape people's consciousness. In societies such as the United States, an active class struggle does not emerge mainly because workers do not perceive themselves as exploited. A vast network of social institutions — media, religion, public schools — effectively imparts the values of the ruling class, quelling class struggle by promoting those values as the only "correct" social values. In schools and through the media, many Americans learn to accept current social conditions as the only "legitimate" social structure.

It is in this respect that the state plays an important role. Marx saw the state as "the form in which the individuals of a ruling class assert their common interests." Because capitalists are the ruling class, their ideas and values become the ruling ideas. In the United States, through institutions such as mass media and education, this ruling class promotes an entrepreneurial culture in which individual hard work is richly rewarded. A consumer-oriented market focuses people's attention on acquiring goods, and the government enacts laws that favor corporate interests over labor.

Because Marx viewed the problem as rooted deep in capitalism, his solution calls for the development of a new economic system — a "positive humanism," the ultimate form of communism that abolishes private ownership of the means of production. In this utopian vision, Marx envisioned a society where the common ownership of goods abolishes destructive competition and greed, freeing people to find tasks suited to their interests and in line with their true creative essences.

The No Child Left Behind Act

In summary, class struggles are inherent in advanced capitalist systems. By harnessing the state's media, market, and government mechanisms, the ruling class lulls workers into complacency about their exploitation and is able to quell or at least hinder class struggle. The only lasting solution, in Marx's view, is an overhaul of the current economic system into one that recognizes people as more than mere workers but as complex human beings.

Officially named the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. This law sought to improve education by making states accountable for the performance of their students on standardized tests. Toward this end, the federal government allocated $58.3 billion in funding for 2005 alone ("U.S. Department of Education").

One of the key features of the Act was the requirement that all students demonstrate proficiency in math and reading by the 2013–2014 school year. Schools must show yearly progress toward this goal, especially for English language learners and special education students. School districts that continuously fail to post improvements face sanctions: principals and teachers in such "underperforming" schools could be suspended, removed, or replaced. The Act also makes provisions allowing states to take over underperforming schools, and federal funding could be withheld from schools that fail to improve ("U.S. Department of Education").

To measure improvement, the Act relies largely on annual tests. One provision requires annual state-administered examinations for all children in grades 3 through 8. These tests provide educators with a measurable goal and give evaluators a standardized method to assess improvement in reading and math skills ("U.S. Department of Education").

Conclusion

A Marxist analysis shows that the No Child Left Behind Act fails to address the achievement gap and inequality in education. This failure stems from several factors. The Act focuses solely on holding educators accountable for test scores but does not address the myriad social forces that contribute to the achievement gap for disadvantaged students. It does nothing to address the socio-economic conditions that affect a child's family life, nor does it confront the racism that interferes with the cognitive development of young disadvantaged students early in the education process. The law also does nothing to help minority schools become more economically competitive with more affluent school districts. This lack of preparation means that minority youth emerge from their school districts unable to compete on the same level for college admission and employment.