The no child left behind act was legislated in 2001 by the United States congress with the aim of improving the education policy in the public school sector. The bill received support from bipartisan members of congress. The bill advocated for schools to set high standards and goals for the learners.
This was to be facilitated by the state by formulating a standardized test based on basic skills which should be done by all the students of a particular grade. The no child left behind act (NCLB) required each state to come up with its own achievement standards rather than have a universal national standard (Armstrong, Henson & Savage, 2008).
Although the NCLB act of 2001 received overwhelming support in congress, it has its pros and cons. According to analysts, the bill advocated for accountability for teachers, students and the state. The yearly standardized tests for each grade acts like a standard measure in terms of performance and the entire learning process. Public schools were supposed to reflect an adequate yearly progress (AYP).
If the school failed to meet the set goals, then measures were put in place to “punish” the school in terms of reduced funding. The act ensures that when students fail a specific class, they have to commit more of their time to classes. As for the students, failing the test meant increased class time.
These measures were tailored towards increasing the students’ as well as teachers’ awareness towards realizing the significance of the education system. The NCLB act of 2001 was a benchmark towards gauging the performance of individual students and also the teaching and learning process (Wang, Beckett & Brown, 2006)
Another advantage of the NCLB act is the fact that it has enabled students in public schools to be able to have a higher standard that has enabled the learners from the minority group to reduce the achievement gap compared to the non-minority. The implementation of the act saw schools in the minority areas and that had previously been left out of the national competition brought into the competition realm.
Although the NCLB act has its advantages, some weaknesses have been noted. Some critics argue that NCLB is selective in terms of the curriculum as it does not apply to all subject areas in the school curriculum. Others have further asserted that some states would go on to lower their adequate yearly progress so as to get the best results which in turn retard performance as the goals set are too low (Kohut & Doherty, 2007).
It has also been argued by some critics that some states may coerce some of their teachers to teach in areas that they may not be perfectly skilled. Other teachers would migrate and take up other teaching subjects that are not within the NCBL for fear of being demoted or deployed elsewhere.
The other demerit that has been pointed out in the NCLB act is the fact that students are allowed to transfer from those schools that do not achieve the set state educational goals under the adequate yearly progress.
This does not solve the problem of poor performance, but it transfers the problem to the performing school by overwhelming the teachers at these schools in terms of class numbers. Again, although performance is related to the teacher’s competence, it is hard to gauge that competence in terms of how the school performs (Kohut & Doherty, 2007).
Reference
Armstrong, D., G., Henson, K., T. & Savage, T., V. (2008). Teaching Today: An Introduction to Education. New York: Prentice Hall.
Kohut, A. & Doherty, C. (2007). No child is left behind gets mixed grades. The Pew Research Centre For The People & The Press. Pp 1-7.
Wang, L., Beckett, G. & Brown, L. (2006). Pros and cons of NCLB: What the research says. Education Research Newsletter & Webinars. 19(1). Pp. 305-328.