No Child Left Behind Essay

Composition I
Position Paper
December 11, 2009
No Child Left Behind
There were many goals that George Bush set out to achieve when he passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In many ways, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was not as effective as the government was hoping for. They only concentrated on certain subjects such as Reading and Math and there are so many other points of a child’s life that affect their schoolwork and how well they do on tests. There are many points of view on why NCLB went wrong and how to fix it. Some believe that we should completely forget about the act and focus on other things, where as others think there should be something done to fix the problem and eventually achieve NCLB’s ideals. Social workers provide a very good analysis of the act and what should be done about it. “School Social workers can identify students with personal and family problems that interfere with their ability to do well in school, and they can assist these students in accessing the support services they need” (Lagana-Riordan, Aguilar 142). There are good reasons for which some people believe that NCLB should be forgotten, but we need to give these students the chance to shine, and in doing that we need to cater to their needs as students.
“NCLB is a federal law that mandates a number ofprograms aimed at improving U.S. education in elementary, middle and high schools by increasing accountability standards” (White par 4). “NCLB has three major requirements: that all states (1) develop content standards to determine what students should know, (2) administer assessments to measure whether students are meeting those standards, and (3) institute accountability mechanisms to ensure that all students attain the proficiency standards (source 1). NCLB’s goal is to get all the students from around the US on the same page. In some subjects, like mathematics, the student’s scores were better before...