In 2002, the realm of education, which is usually considered a state's right to fund, regulate, and implement was met with a federal mandate. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) became a very important piece of federal legislation that would change the way the American school system functioned throughout the decade up until the present. NCLB required school districts to measure the achievement of their students in several different ways, aggressively encouraging individual schools to meet state standards with penalties for not making yearly progress (Armstrong, 2009, p. 72-73). Such penalties include reducing funding given to schools, allowing parents to take students out of the public school and move them to another school at the previous school's expense, the termination of “unqualified” teachers, among others (Armstrong, 2009, p. 73). The legislation sounds reasonable enough--weed out “bad” teachers, hold schools to higher academic achievement standards, and provide every student with the opportunity to get the best education possible; however, as the years unfold, this is not always the reality.
Great opposition toward NCLB policies have manifested since its inception due to the negative affects is has not only on state education systems, but individual schools and classrooms as well. The many studies done over the past nine years show the same results: NCLB takes very little into account when it comes to students considered to be racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities (Armstrong, 2009, p. 72). These students are the ones suffering the most as their schools are consistently getting their funding cut, the salaries and therefore the moral of many teachers cut, their reputation slandered, and consequently, these students are the ones not so ironically left behind. It is no secret that the darker your skin color, the more likely you are to live in poverty, thanks to the economic system of capitalism and its fatal relationship with racism (I would highly recommend this article for those of you who are curious: www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/racismcs.pdf). NCLB and its funding cuts, which are mainly in underachieving schools, which are mainly located in areas of great poverty, are further putting children who come from any sort of racial, ethnic, or cultural background behind in their, extenuating the vicious cycle of poverty into which they were born. The results of this are unacceptable, and I cannot stress the urgency of revision and consideration of this matter when NCLB is undergoing review this year. The policy is hurting the very children it is supposedly designed to help.
The Center on Education Policy (CEP) (2010) analyzed U.S. Department of Education data from all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and reported that 33% of the nation's schools and 36% of the nation's school districts did not make the adequate yearly progress (AYP) NCLB required in 2009 (p. 1). It was a slight increase from 2006, but a decrease from 2008 (CEP, 2010, p. 1). The report also found that the percentages of schools as well as districts that did not make their adequate yearly progress fluctuated within states and across the nation; a curious finding considering NCLB aims to increase these numbers yearly by 2014 (Armstrong, 2009; CEP, 2010). Such variation in numbers could be due to a number of reasons.
The debate over No Child Left Behind continues, as it is up for revisions and reauthorizing. It leaves one with many questions: What right has the federal government to create and implement legislation like NCLB if education is a state's right? If NCLB is federal, how does that translate into having to meet "state standards?” Who gets to decide these standards for states and individual schools? If the majority of findings are showing that NCLB is not an affective tool for educational improvement, why would it be reauthorized? And ultimately, will the changes that are being applied to the legislation be adequate enough to justify said reauthorizing? The discussion is happening now, with limited input allowed from states, school districts, schools, teachers, and students alike. Will the new No Child Left Behind be a democratic, all-inclusive educational policy, or will it continue to eat away at the American educational experience? How will our students, despite racial, ethnic, religious, gender/sexual orientation, or physical ability, fit into the new plan? We must be sure that these children's needs are accommodated so that they are able to achieve academic excellence, anything short of that is unacceptable.
Policy makers and stakeholders in education, beware. The people are listening, and we won't stand for mediocre decisions regarding our children, our future, much longer!
References:
Amrein-Beardsley, A. (2009, June 22). The unintended, pernicious consequences of "staying the course" on the United State's No Child Left Behind policy. International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership, 4(6), 1-13.
Armstrong, D. G., Henson, K. T., Savage T. V. (2009). Teaching today: An introduction to education (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Braun, H., Chapman, L., & Vezzu, S. (2010, September). The black-white achievement gap revisited. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 18(21), 1-42.
How many schools and districts have not made adequate yearly progress? Four-year trends. (2010, December). Center On Education Policy, 1-10.
U.S. Department of Education. (2009, July). The effects of teachers trained through different routes to certification. In National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
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