No Child Left Behind (Term Paper Sample)

The year 2002 stands out as a milestone in the long journey to improve the quality of education in US. On January of the same year, the former president Bush signed into law the No Child Left behind (NCLB) Act. The Act made into a central federal law in pre-collegiate education on 8th January 2002 by former President Bush. This was light at the end of the tunnel for the disadvantaged bright students. These students were given an opportunity to achieve their educational dreams irrespective of social background. The legislation of the NCLB Act set holistic education requirements that covered all the public schools in the USA. This increased federal government’s role in education with focus on improving the educational status of the bright disadvantaged students. In general, this Act brought remarkable transformation in the education system in US. The NCLB Act is a good one but has some areas that in my view should be addressed. These areas will be discussed in subsequent paragraphs.The NCLB Act encourages improvement in academic performance of public schools. The fresh rules allowed for the recognition in the expansion in performance through the analysis of each of the public schools annual measurable objectives report. The academic progress reports have been spelt out in the law based on a laid down formula. These reports help to test the abilities of the student and demographic sub-group populace based on state tests for the academic year of 2013/2014. The great beneficiary included specific groups such as disabled students, economically incapacitated students, and the less English proficient students. This Act would ensure that students are at a par on the same proficient level or above within a 12 year work plan period (Stetcher et.al, pp 56).  Academic performance is good but it is not possible for the students to be at par within 12 years. This is because students do not have the same ability to be at par at 12 years. Some students are slow learners while others fast learners therefore hard to be at par.The law also granted the students the right to have qualified teachers. It is a requirement of the law according to the act for the state to provide highly qualified teachers to all the students, with each state having its own set of standards to gauge the qualified teachers. The state is therefore surcharged with the responsibility of identifying the particular standard while bearing in mind the application of the curriculum standards to all the students in the state. In addition, the Act require that the student contact information be made available to the military recruiters, universities and other state agencies for employment purposes after the student’s completion of high school (Ashby, pp 37). This part of the Act is good but the gauging of the teachers is what is not that good. This is because the standards to gauge teachers should be the same in every state. This is because the different gauging restricts teachers to one state which is not good.The NCLB Act plays a significant role in increasing in the level of accountability in the public schools and teachers. The Act requires the schools to pass the annual standardized tests as an assessment means of gauging the school improvements. It also indicates whether the schools are living up to the laid down standards over the fiscal year. However, failure to pass these annual tests for three consecutive years may cost the affected public school decreased funding and other punishments (General Accounting Office, pp 45). Critics argue that the punishments undermine the chances of student and school to improve (Jones, pp 125), these punishments helps raise the value and significance for education to both the school and teachers and the nation in general. This method of assessment and punishment is not good. This is because it encourages the school to be examination oriented. This is because the school does not want to fail therefore they will focus on examination and passing of examination to avoid punishment other than learning.NCLB requires that the teaching programs and methods to solely apply the academic scientifically based research in the implementation of the act in the public schools. The research should be based in the application of systematic, objective and rigorous methods to obtain reliable and valid data important in the implementation of the act’s academic programs and activities. This helps in generating the persuasive empirical conclusions after the application of the research. The research applied should thus be quantitative and not qualitative research. Examples of forms of qualitative research include the use of:  case studies, personal interviews, discourse analysis, grounded theories, ethnographies and action research as the sources for the data (Stetcher et.al, pp 56). This academic program may limit students to one area rather than having a student who can tackle different areas of studies and research. On the other hand it is argued that the use of the standardized tests may narrow the teacher’s course outline, who may be tempted to teach the students on the examinable topics providing a rather shallow and not an in depth understanding of the subjects to the students of the full curriculum. Standardized tests will narrow the teacher and make them teach for examination purposes and not for the student to understand and apply the concept later in life.According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the public schools should accommodate the disabled children. However the IDEA Act may have been violated in the NCLB Act owing to poor planning and inconsistencies in administration of the tests. The teachers are therefore required to read out aloud the test questions during administration of the test to cater for the visually impaired students. NCLB also requires that the students be taught in English and also be tested in the English language which is less favorable for the Native language students. This is contrary to the fact that, it is estimated that in the Native language speaking and teaching schools, the school dropout rates are relatively low and that they enjoy a rather good and higher academic achievements as compared to the schools taught in English (Berkhart and Paul, pp 43). The testing in English instead of Native languages restricts learners to practicing English alone instead of both languages. The testing in both languages will make a learner more proficient in both languages.The act requires that only qualified and certified degree graduates are allowed to be employed as teachers in the public schools. The act focuses on the improvement in the student’s proficient skills with emphasis on language arts, reading, writing, science and mathematics as the core academic subjects vital for economic success. However this has led to the neglect in teaching and funding for the other subjects such as history and music giving more emphasis to the core academic subjects in accordance to the NCLB Act and the focus on achieving success in the AYP assessments. NCLB thus supports early literacy through the implementation of the Early Reading First Initiative. The Physical Education subject is however not affected by the NCLB Act as fitness is directly related to academic success and is a means of reversing the obesity crisis which has hit the American teens (Ashby, pp 37). The Act also requires that the 100% of all the students that are tested under the NCLB Act including the disabled, disadvantaged, and special education students, to achieve the same set standards in all the public schools especially in mathematics and reading, as provided by the Act, by the year 2014. The 100% goal is unattainable f...