NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

No Child Left Behind

No Child Left Behind

Introduction

No Child Left Behind is an education reform bill passed by President Bush's Congress in 2001. It says that all children should be proficient in academics such as reading, mathematics and Science. Although parents, students and education experts recognize that many of our schools are failing to effectively teach their students, forcing these schools to meet higher standards and suffer from sanctions higher without providing additional resources equivalent to a certain failure. Two school districts and 231 public schools in the Bay Area were designated as "failing" in 2004, and many of these schools will ultimately be closed, reorganized or past the state. Instead of improving schools with low academic performance, impact of NCLB is replacing them with charter schools (schools run by private firms financed by public funds). Schools charters violate the hard-won benefits for unions and teachers and make our schools even less responsive to the needs of the communities they serve (Pederson 2007).

The No Child Left behind Act is a United States Federal Law that reauthorizes an amount of federal programs that seek to progress the performance of America's primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of responsibility for states, as well as providing parents more flexibility in selecting which schools their children will attend. Many have questioned this program and its structured towards fixing the education problem in the U.S. Testing scores have not improved from this program and withholding money from the schools will only do more harm than good(Grey 2010).

Discussion

Analysis of Legal Implications

NCLB believes that boosting standardized test scores should be the primary goal of schools this assumption leads to the one-size-fits-all teaching aimed primarily at test preparation and it works against efforts to give all children a high-quality education. NCLB provides report cards on the schools progress so that the parents know how their school is doing as well as it allows parents to make an education decision when it comes to their children's education. NCLB does provide for much needed innovation in education and allows parents unprecedented choice in the education of their children, but it may jeopardize the success of traditional public schools, with such things as promoting charter schools (Center on Education Policy 2007). It provides a testing ground for innovative ideas and programs in education. However, the amount of money needed to fund the charter schools serves relatively few students and spends money that could benefit more students in innovative programs within traditional public schools. This does however, expand school choice in that it gives parents more direct control of the students education than previous generations have enjoyed. With expanding school choice, it creates instability of funding that causes hardships and inability to manage finances and staffing needs from year to year (Holland 2004).

The goal of the NCLB is to close the enormous achievement gap between student social-economical groups. A candidate for State Assembly in the 41st Assembly District, Amy Hayes-Raitt claims "'No Child Left Behind' is leaving thousands ...