No Child Left Behind

Background Information

• Act of 2001 Signed into Law by President George W. Bush on Jan. 8th 2002

• Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

• Federal Government’s flagship aid program for disadvantaged students mainly in poverty stricken areas

• Set requirements for Public schools

Requirements

• Testing in grades 3-8 in reading and mathematics• Testing in science once in elementary, middle,

and high school.• Tests are aligned to state academic standards• States must bring students up to proficient level

on state tests by 2013-2014 school year.• States must provide detailed school report cards

with districts showing school-by-school progress.

Requirements Cont.

• All new teachers hired with Title 1 money must be highly qualified.

• Teachers assistants must have earned at least an associates degree or higher.

Problems with NCLB

• Underfunding – Not nearly enough funding given to disadvantaged schools to achieve the test scores set as requirements.– States are facing the worst budget crisis in decades.

• Testing – creates a concentration in test related fields only, devaluing other curriculum such as social studies, music and fine arts.– Large scale testing is ineffective in diagnosing individual

students needs.– Testing is turning many schools in poverty stricken areas

into test-prep programs rather than high quality schools.

Problems Cont.

• School Improvement – NCLB’s first step in this department is to allow parents to transfer their kids to schools with better test results.– However, in many cases, there aren't spaces

available in these better schools for children to attend.

How to fix the problems• Congress should offer incentives for school districts to provide

more information to their communities, including graduation rates, measures of student growth, participation in gifted and talented programs and achievement in the arts.

• Use the $600 million spent on state testing, to improve instruction.• Fund schools in poorer areas to enable them to higher the best

teachers available.• Prevent teaching based primarily on improving test scores.• Refrain from slapping failure labels on schools and actually work

on fixing the problem of improving the schools by working with people who are closest to its students.

Future of NCLB

• Instituting changes to the NCLB act and fixing current problem or…

• Getting rid of the program all together.– President Obama has recently proposed a dismantling

of the current NCLB program.– New plan will allow states to use subjects other than

just reading and mathematics as part of their measurements to meet federal goals.

– Also, for the first time in 45 years, congress is proposing a $4 billion increase in federal education spending

Future Cont.

• Other plan highlights– Rewards (money, flexibility) to high poverty area

schools who show great improvement and student achievement.

– Punish the lowest-performing 5% of schools having the state take over federal funding for poor students, replacing the principal and half the teaching staff or closing the school altogether.

– A new name for No Child Left Behind (yet to be decided)

Works Cited

• http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/no-child-left-behind/

• http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625192-4,00.html

• http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/nclb181.shtml

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35852205/