Introduction
In January 2002, President Bush administration put into law the NCLB (No Child Left behind) act. Seemingly, the act was meant to improve the standards of education for all American children.
However, the act has faced a lot of criticism due to its inability to deliver the needed results and most importantly, due to issues of ethical concern. This paper investigates and tries to answer two main questions. Is NCLB act ethical? Of what value is it to Atlanta Public School?
Ethical Issues
First, the act uses a yearly-standardized test for all students notwithstanding that different children have different educational capacity. This makes the learning structure look more of a competition and survival for the fittest rather than a place to nurture and develop abilities.
Ethically speaking, the education system should aim at providing opportunities for children to discover and develop their intrinsic gifts. It should not be a field of competition.
Secondly, the act creates a field of academic discrimination. According to the act, children who fail to meet the standards have to work extremely hard and even transfer to performing schools. This creates two groups of children in the society failures and academic giants. This is not ethical since education is certainly a multivariate discipline and several factors may contribute to a child’s failure.
Thirdly, the system heavily punishes school administration as well as teachers in terms of sanctions, funding and performance evaluation without considering the multifaceted nature of education.
Sanctioning of non-performing schools makes everything worse since it destroys the school reputation and jeopardies its ability to regain academic status (Robicheau, 2006). It does not come by surprise that schools such as Atlanta Public School has to cheat on the standardized test in order to keep the school running.
Finally, the act fails to meet ethical standards by setting a standardized test for students of different capacities, abilities, and background. Is it not a test for the academically bright? What about the students talented in other fields such as sports, why not have standards for sports and other facets of life? It is an issue of ethical concern when the society brands failures and winner based on one academic standard (Robicheau, 2006).
Atlanta Public School came in to the public limelight when it was alleged that the school was cheating on the standardized test (Toppo, 2011). Cheating is not ethical at all but it certainly reflects an ethical vicious cycle. The NCLB act fails to meet ethical standards by setting unrealistic goals to students and the schools. In return, the schools cheat in order to survive (Toppo, 2011).
From the cheating scenario at Atlanta Public School, it is evident that the NCLB act is of no value to the school. The school is trying to do what needs to be done for survival. Perhaps, the act needs to be revised to make it more realistic for schools such as Atlanta Public School.
Conclusion
NCLB act has failed to meet ethical standards by not addressing all variables of academic system. It is not sensitive to issues such as cultural background, personal ability, social status, family background among others. It just makes education system survival for the fittest hence losing its ethical value. No wonder schools such as Atlanta Public School cheat since the system is of no value to them.
References
Robicheau, J. (2006). The Absence of Ethics in No Child Left Behind. Web.
Toppo, G. (2011). Atlanta public school exams fudged. Web.