Child Left Behind Pitfalls

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The “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001” or the NCLB was originally enacted in 1965 and later renamed Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA in 1994. The ESEA was a Title 1 Federal government’s flagship aid program for disadvantage students. In 2001 the program was reauthorized again as the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001” but wasn’t signed into law until January 2002 by President Bush. Several questions and issues have been raised because of the program such as, what is the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001”? What are the teachers’ roles? And what are the strengths and pitfalls? The “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001”, was reauthorized to be a program to improve the public school system in order to help children who were…show more content…
One pitfall is teaching to the test, parents and teachers feels that the NCLB encourages, and rewards, teaching children to score well on the test, rather than teaching with a primary goal of learning. As a result, teachers are pressured to teach a narrow set of test-taking skills and a test-limited range of knowledge. A few more pitfalls are: problems with the standardized tests, teachers’ qualification standards, and failure to address the reason for lack of achievement just to name a few. This often resulted in teacher discouragement, role ambiguity, and superficial responses to administrative goals. A few strengths are: standards are set for teacher qualifications, NCLB emphasizes reading, writing, and math, and NCLB requires schools to focus on providing quality education to students who are often underserved, including children with disabilities, from low-income families, non-English speakers, as well as African-Americans and Latinos. Supporters of the NCLB agree with the mandate for accountability to educational standards, they also believe if one put emphasis on test results it will significant improve the quality of public education for all students…show more content…
This can have a negative effect on the children and cause them to ‘hate’ school and as soon as they are able to they will ‘drop out’. According to Deborah White who wrote the guide in about.com, she stated, “These supporters also believes that NCLB initiative will further democratize U.S. education, by setting standards and providing resources to schools, regardless of wealth, ethnicity, disabilities or language spoken” (2011). Since the NCLB’s 2002 inception, the act hasn’t been effective in improving education in public education; this is evident in the high schools mixed results in the standardized tests. In January 2007, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings published "Building on Results: A Blue print for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act," in which the Bush Administration: • Asserts that the Act "is challenging our students to succeed and our schools to improve." • Claims that "90% of teachers have met NCLB's highly qualified teacher requirements... At-risk students are getting help earlier... children with disabilities are receiving more classroom time and attention...

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