WHAT IS THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT?

In a 2001 The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed by the Bush administration. The NCLB Act was established to help keep the United States educational systems competitive in the 21st century with countries such as China and India (ESEA, 2005). The NCLB is a federal mandate, which is focused on helping all students acquire the basic skills necessary for living a productive life. The NCLB Act will not only benefit students who are from low income areas, but also will help students with learning and physical disabilities.

The NCLB Act had its origin during the middle of the 1960’s. The United States during this time led the world with new ideas, inventions and technological advances. The educational system in the United States was superior to any other country on the face of the earth (Wilcox, 1996). One of the reasons that made the educational system so advanced was that any and every student could attend a public school free of charge. During the first half of the century many countries did not offer free public education; only the privileged were able to attend schools. In the early sixties researchers noticed a major divide with the best public educational system in the world. First of all, schools that were comprised of mostly African American students were being neglected and deprived of vital educational resources. Secondly, the achievement gap between the have’s and the have not’s was astronomical. In other words, students that attended schools in more influential areas, scored higher on achievement test than students in less influential areas.

After much debate politicians realized that something had to be done about the discrepancy in achievement scores and school resources. In 1965 a new act was passed by legislation called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The ESEA was mainly directed at narrowing the achievement gap among blacks and whites and between the rich and the poor. George Allison, a renowned researcher stated that:

The overall purpose of ESEA was to improve educational opportunities for poor children. This was not meant as a general package of aid to all schools; the allocation formulas directed assistance to the local education agencies (LEAs) with the greatest proportions of poor children. The funds were purposely distributed through state education agencies (SEAs) to avoid the perception that the federal government was intervening in the rights and obligations of states to provide public education and also to use the funds as leverage to upgrade the capabilities of SEAs themselves (Allison, 1966, p.776).

Title 1 of the ESEA is the largest source of federal income for public education facilities. No Child Left Behind builds upon education reform efforts that were started during the Clinton Administration with the passage of Goals 2000 and the Improving America's Schools Act in 1994 (Cortiella, 2006).

President Bush revised Clinton’s school improvement act. Bush proposed a bill that would help ensure that all students no matter of their socio-economic level, culture, or race would receive the same educational resources as other students. The NCLB Act is comprised of two main categories. The first area covers the issue of adequate yearly progress (AYP). Every state and school district is responsible for ensuring that students meet state standards for proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Schools must use data to ensure that every group of students are making adequate progress. Several school districts are in an uproar over the new laws. In 2005 the State Department of Connecticut filed a lawsuit against the federal government. The state legislatures believe that NCLB will set up schools to fail rather than succeed (Arce, 2005).

Another area that NCLB mandates is teacher quality. According to NCLB all special education teachers must be highly qualified. All special education teachers have to meet all the state standards. NCLB requires states to define a qualified teacher and to ensure that low-income and minority students are not taught disproportionately by inexperienced, ill-equipped, or out-of-field teachers. States had until 2005-06 to get all teachers to meet state standards. Many special education teachers are upset with this aspect of the NCLB Act. Teachers who have been teaching in the classroom for years will have to go back to college and get highly qualified. There is a huge shortage of special education teachers already and the new laws will make the matters worse.

Mrs. Thompson a veteran has been teaching special education for the last thirty-five year. Mrs. Thompson has won the teacher of the year award, served on several different committees, and has spent years on the teacher advisement board. Mrs. Thompson received a letter last year stating that she was not highly qualified. In order for Mrs. Thompson to be highly qualified from the government point of view she will have to take eight college courses in a particular subject area. Mrs. Thompson had thought about leaving the school system, because she did not want to go through the process of completing the course work to be highly qualified (Thompson, 2006).

The highly qualified mandate should be grandfathered into the system and not forced on teachers that have been teaching for over six years. It is not fair as one teacher radically expresses his anger at a special education meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Many special educators feel that the new mandate is unconstitutional. Special education teachers have received the same certification as regular education teachers, but the law says that they are not highly qualified (Scott, 2006).

References

Allison, George E. ESEA: Title I at work in Orange County, Florida. Audiovisual Instruction, December 1966, p. 786.

Arce, D.(2005). No Child Left Behind: Who Wins? Who Looses? Social Justice, 32, 56-70.

Cortiella, C. 2005. No Child Left Behind and Students with Learning Disabilities: Opportunities and Obstacles. Retreived October 12, 2006. Website http://www2.edtrust.org/EdTrust/Press+Room/Haycock+Testimony+9.29.05.htm

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Retrieved on October 15, 2006, from Web site:http://www2.edtrust.org/edtrust/ESEA

President Bush Discusses No Child Left Behind. Retrieved on October 15, 2006, from, http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&an=32W1595462464

Scott (personal communication, October 14, 2006) indicated that NCLB is unconstitutional.

Thompson (personal communication, October 10, 2006) indicated that highly qualified law is destroying education.

Wilcox, R. V. (1996). Shifting Roles. Studies Education, 13(2), 51-55.