No Child Left Behind, Does it Work?
Debra Roberson
Ashford University

No Child Left Behind
In 2001, then President G.W. Bush introduced the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The U.S. Congress, with bipartisan support, passed the act. The NCLB Act was brought about to combat the rising and devastating social divide within the educational system. “The law targeted early learning, measuring student performance, offering options to failing schools, and ensuring more resources for schools” (Dolgoff, 2009, p. 125).

The 1965 Elementary and Second Education Act allotted funding for primary and secondary education. This act was put in place to make sure all children were given equal education and equal opportunities with their education. (The Santa Fe New Mexican, pp. 1- 2003, A.1.)
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a reauthorization of the 1965 ESA. New standards were put in place that required schools to meet certain criteria or lose funding for their schools. The NCLB Act has 37 categories that each school must meet. There are also 10 specific guidelines for AYP, Adequate Yearly Progress.

Adequate Yearly Progress
Ten Categories:

The Adequate Yearly Progress allows the government to determine how a school is performing academically based on the results of the required standardized tests. The Department of Education guidelines for the AYP are:
1. A single statewide accountability system, which is applied to all public schools and local education agencies.
2. The state accountability system must include all public school students.
3. A State's definition of AYP must be based on expectations for growth in student achievement that includes that all students will be proficient in reading and math by 2013-2014.
4. A State must make annual decisions about the achievement of all public schools and local education agencies.
5. All public schools and local education agencies will be held accountable for the achievement of all individual subgroups.
6. A State's definition of AYP must be based primarily on the State's academic assessments.
7. A State's definition of AYP must include graduation rates for high schools, as well as an additional indicator, which may be selected by the states, for middle and elementary schools (such as attendance rates). 8. AYP must be based on reading/language arts and mathematics achievement objectives. 9. A State's accountability system must be statistically valid and reliable.
10. To make AYP as a school, a State must ensure that it has assessed at least 95% of students in each subgroup (special education, English language learners, low income, race/ethnicity) enrolled. (Dept. of Education, July 2002)

If a school fails to meet the requirements of any one of the categories the school fails as a whole. If the school fails the first year students are now offered the chance to change to a different school that is not failing. The Title 1 funds allotted for that specific failing school is now being used to bus children to other schools. The students who usually elect to transfer schools are the smarter kids. This means that a school that is already failing in certain categories will likely continue to fail because the brightest students elected to change schools.

Does NCLB Work?
Has it worked?
Proponents of the No Child Left Behind Act say, “the law has put a spotlight on inequality and made failure unacceptable, even in low-income neighborhoods where it used to be considered inevitable” (Rubenstein, G. p. 1). The idea of the NCLB was to improve test scores for all children across the board no matter economic status, cultural backgrounds, or any other factors that can and will affect learning for a child. They key components of the NCLB were to narrow the gap between racial and class groups by creating the same test for each grade for every school in the country. It was also thought to hold teachers and administrators accountable for failing schools.

Opponents say the law was a good idea with bad execution. The great idea was all students would be testing at 100% proficiency by 2014. In a perfect world this would have been a great idea and could of possibly worked. The reality is the factors that cause a school to fail are not necessarily education-based issues.
Teachers are teaching the test. This means they are only focusing on what will be on the test so students are losing in other areas such as art, science and social studies. Some schools were cutting recess to dedicate more time to prepare the kids for the test. Students are not being given the opportunity to be well-rounded learners.
Teachers are becoming so concerned about the schools passing each year some have even taken to changing the answers on tests so their schools would pass. In 2010 the Atlanta Public School system was under scrutiny as several schools and dozens of teachers, principals and school administrators were fired or forced to resign for changing test scores.
In some cases teachers said, “the accountability pressures enable the new leaders to implement a vision of school reform and choose the staff they wanted, which led to substantial improvements in student achievement” (Murnane & Papay, 2010, p. 161).

Like the opponents of the NCLB Act, I do not think forcing teachers to stop teaching students is what schools need to succeed especially in low income or troubled schools. Tests are needed, that is a fact. They are good for checking to see how far the children are in their learning. Requiring the same test across the board for all children is not going to make them read or learn math any better. It is stopping teachers from getting the children excited about learning overall.
Schools are able to lower standards for AYP to accommodate the students who are failing but that causes issues with those gifted students. The gifted students or above average students are not being challenged.
The No Child Left Behind Act did not have a direct effect on my son or me because his school is in a predominantly white area with a lot of retired military families. If he attended a school in a low-income area, my thoughts would be different. His school(s) continued to meet AYP. I do however; remember hearing about the stress levels the children often faced with these tests looming over their heads. I now worry about my daughter who will be entering kindergarten next year. She is a very gifted child and I would hate for her to lose that spark she has simply because she is being forced to learn only what is needed to pass these standardized test once she reaches the 3rd grade. My main goal is to find the right school for her.

What Changes are being made?

President Obama heard the concerns of teachers, students, and parents regarding changes the NCLB Act needs to have. He began by giving states waivers from the NCLB Act. So far 44 states have either been granted or have petitioned for waivers, (Phillips, R.H. 2012). There was an assumption the NCLB would have been revised by now. The deadline to have all students at or near 100% proficiency is 2014. Something had to be done to help those states that were still struggling to meet the deadline. In March 2010, Obama also released the Elementary and Secondary Education Act geared to lessen the strangle hold the original No Child Left Behind Act forced on states to up their test scores.
There are many proposed options to overhaul the NCLB but nothing has been put into law other than the waivers put in place to help states that will not reach the 100% goal by 2014. The Co-Chairs of the Aspen Commission on No Child Left Behind offered their recommendations for the much needed reauthorization of the NCLB Act.
In order to make changes to the act that make sense and work, lawmakers must work side by side with teachers, parents and even students to get an understand of what can and will work for all children. The NCLB Act had good intentions but after 11 years it has not yielded the results the 2001 Congress expected to see. There are too many factors to consider for this to be an overnight solution to a problem that has been brewing long before slavery was ever abolished.
As it stands the No Child Left Behind Act has not lead up to the hype it created when the act was first signed into law. The bipartisan support that was responsible for passing the act became the same support for the subsequent reauthorization. I do not believe this quick fix is a guarantee to solve the many issues with the act but it is a start. For the children’s sake, including my daughter, I hope all the cracks are filled and success is reached for all involved.

References
Dolgoff, R. & Feldstein, D. (2009). Understanding social welfare: A search for social justice (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson, Allyn and Bacon.
Teachers' Views on No Child Left Behind: Support for the Principles, Concerns about the
Practices Murnane, Richard J Papay, John P
The Journal of Economic Perspectives24. 3 (Summer 2010): 151-166.
Key Policy Letters Signed by the Education Secretary or Deputy Secretary http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/020724.html Rubenstein, G. (2009). No Child Left Behind: The Good And The Bad, A Mom Congress Report on kids, testing, and the law that is failing our schools, Parenting Magazine http://www.parenting.com/article/no-child-left-behind-the-good-and-the-bad?page=0,1
No Child Left Behind waiver sought by Alabama, six other states Rena Havner Philips, Press-Register http://blog.al.com/live/2012/09/no_child_left_behind_waiver_so.html
What is the no child left behind act? (2003, Aug 17). The Santa Fe New Mexican, pp. 1-A.1. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/331441467?accountid=32521.