'No Child Left Behind Essay\r'

'The raising policy that I chose is on education today and the influence of the No tiddler left over(p) Behind (NCLB) operate. In 2001, President George W. scouring signed into law the No squirt remaining Behind Act. The NCBL is a United States Act of Congress, which simulates backing 1 (program for disadvantaged students offered by the political sympathies). This Act requires narrates to condition assessments in basic skills. Each suppose is undeniable to give these assessments to every(prenominal) students to receive federal trail funding. This Act does non set the standards nationwide; each individual state sets the standards. Diane Ravitch, an education philosopher was a athlete of this Act when it was being passed. She believed that every small fry had the beneficial to a proper education. As the years passed she acquired oftentimes experience and knowledge on the Act, and is now on the whole opposed to the NCLB Act. Ravitch believes that the states dumb d take the standards in vindicated of the NCLB. The fountainhead now is: is the No kid leave Behind Act seeking to localization the problem, or is it the cause?\r\nUnder NCLB, the accountability of a boor’s education is examined by the Federal government and turned into the detainment of the state. This was the first time an American president has set a goal of ecumenic progress in reading and mathematics for all children. The federal emphasis on literacy, reading, and mathematics emphasizes teacher and shallow accountability, with negative consequences when schools do not mate established repairment goals (U.S. surgical incision of Education, 2002). Under NCLB the state must(prenominal) look at accountability provisions that include how they ordain close the achievement gap. According to the discussion section of Education the achievement gap is defined as such; The difference amidst how well low-income and minority children perform on standardized tests a s compargond with their peers.\r\nFor m some(prenominal) years, low-income and minority children devour fallen behind their gabardine peers in terms of academic achievement (Department of Education, 2002). States must also monitor that every student not excluding the disadvantaged achieve academic proficiency. Yearly assessments must be produced to inform parents of the progress of both the state and the community. Schools that do not meet the academic proficiency standards must offer supplemental services and take emendive action. If within five years the school is still not making yearly progress, than melodramatic changes in the school’s academic steerage must be made. Dramatic changes according to the Department of Education are defined as follows; â€Å"… additional changes to ensure alterment.” The definition raises the question of whether in that respect is a plan for failure at all.\r\nThe National opinion of Educational Progress, in its â€Å"Na tional Report witticism” shows that these goals may be falling short. Students in quarter grade show temporary improvement in math right after No peasant remaining Behind became a law, but returned to pre-reform festering rate. The NAEP estimates that by 2014 slight than 25% of financially challenged and African American students pass on achieve NAEP proficiency in reading. Using the same time frame less than half the financially challenged and African American students will obtain proficiency in math. With so much pressure on the states to perform well, a effort is becoming apparent that they are inflating proficiency levels of students. This causes discrepancies between the NAEP and state assessments especially among the financially challenged, African American, and Hispanic students.\r\nWith no sufficient evidence shown on that NCLB is working, the question is as follows; is the federal government capable of outpouring our school formations? There are undoubtedly dangers in the semi humankind school clay teaching a federally mandated computer programme. When one controls people’s cognition of history, one controls the pre move. There is, of course, a point to be made that if the nations’ children are kept in irrigate down state- maintained schools, positions of power will be opened to the children of the aristocracy, who without fail, are being sent to toffee-nosed schools.\r\nSo some of those Politicians who stand in the office of allowing poor children to escape failing schools, send their own children to private schools (sic). In New York city, where I have spent most of my professional life, both the electric current and the past chancellor of schools sent their children to private schools. sise of the seven members of the now-defunct Board of Education had also sent their children to private schools at one time or an other(a). One might add to the list other notables in New York-the governor, the mayor, the lea ders of both houses of the legislature, and the lowly U.S. senator (and former first lady). In fact, I cannot regard as a mayor of the city who sent his children to public school (Viteritti, 2003).\r\nThe reports of success of NCLB are encouraging to those who animation the project. There have been schools in Sterling, Virginia and New York City that have received No Child Left Behind blue ribbons for their success in finis the achievement gap. Other schools have earned internal praise for instituting such curriculum as â€Å" garb for the Future,” a standards-based health and fitness curriculum for grades 1-10; and an anti-bullying hinderance program in York, Pennsylvania (Department of Education, 2005). These programs are employ to show the benefits of NCLB but are they academic necessities? The curriculum in a kindergarten class in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin include a lesson entitled â€Å"The Little Convincer.” In which a state cavalryman came into the classro om with a mechanism designed to simulate a car accident.\r\nIn a discussion active car after part laws, a topic critics of the curriculum call withal heady for kindergarteners, the students, ages five to six years old, were asked repeatedly which one of them were actively using car endows, and whether their parents wore seat belts as well. One child who innocently told the military officer that his daddy did not wear his seatbelt was told by the trooper that his daddy could go through the windshield and the internal-combustion engine would cut his face and arms like ribbons, and formerly he hit the road, the car would roll on top of him. The dramatic lesson ended with each of the students winning a turn in the mechanism that bastard the car crash.\r\nThe officer would speak softly to the child asking them questions about their class or the dress that they were wearing and when the child began to speak would jerk them forth violently to teach them that an accident could ha ppen at anytime. The question is, are these academic lessons that parents assume that their children are attending school for? Is placing the curriculum in the hands of legislators going to further our children’s grasp of the triad R’s as most parents hope, or are they going to be taught how to become self-complacent law abiding citizens?\r\nThe problem in purposing that the public school system is flawed beyond repair is offering an alternative that people are agreeable with. When a conversation about privatizing the school system begins many questions must be answered to abate the fears of the public. Would privatizing schools be affordable to all families? Many debates have waged on the validity of a voucher program, allowing families to choose any school they desire whether it is parochial, private, public, or chartered.\r\nWithout public schools, there are no taxes necessary to support the program, and that bullion can be returned to the families of school age d children, creating spare funds for private education. In a system of isolated market education the individual and specialise institutions of learning would have to compete for students, because the money would be linked to the students themselves. Never in the history of the free market have advances been made without competition. When the monopoly on our children’s future ends, a true marketplace of ideas will be born.\r\nIn an interview with US News, Ravitch was asked â€Å"What require to happen to make the law more impressive for school?” she responded â€Å"I think the main social function to change is . . . to get rid of the remedies and the sanctions because the remedies don’t work and the sanctions don’t work. What No Child Left Behind has given the United States is an gloriole of punitiveness. The word accountability has come to be a synonym for punish. If students don’t learn, it’s the teachers’ fault. chivy the t eachers. Close the schools. We’re now on a wrecking mission to destroy American public education.” Ravitch has completely rejected this Act, and believes we should do something to make our education system stronger.\r\nI questioned? Is the No Child Left Behind Act seeking to repair the problem, or is it the cause? I now have the answer. The NCLB Act sounded very tempting as it was passed by congress, and many like Diane Ravitch had hopes in such a enormous project for our education system, but everything is not perfect. The NCBL offers spacious support to schools, although standardized testing is not the correct way of determining the amount of financial support each school deserves or requires. After unyielding hours of research I believe that the No Child Left Behind Act has taken a part in the cause of our problem in our education system today.\r\nSchools will not improve if the value is set only on what is tested. â€Å"The tests we have now provide useful infor mation about students’ progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot stride what matters most in education.” (Ravitch. The Death and Life of The dandy American School System, pg. 226) In order to improve our public school system we must pop out by focusing on our schools, offering them an authorized and sincere education that encourages our students to learn.\r\n'