CURRICULUM CHANGES TO MEET NCLB STANDARDS

Curriculum Changes to Meet NCLB Standards

Curriculum Changes to Meet NCLB Standards

Introduction

President Bush expressed his position that "too many of our neediest children are being left behind," despite the nearly $200 billion in Federal spending since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. He placed an emphasis on his values and beliefs that public schooling has the potential to allow all students to achieve their academic potential. As a result the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law on January 8, 2002. This policy specifically addressed the social problem that there were achievement gaps between non-minority students and those of minority racial groups, economically disadvantaged students, students who are not proficient in the English language, and physically disadvantaged students.

The problem of underachievement in public schooling has long been an issue of concern. In 1965 the Elementary and Secondary Education Act became law which focused funding based on the number of disadvantaged students in a local school district, not necessarily proficiency data. Standards-based reform was initiated in 1994 when President Clinton reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with the Improving America's Schools Act. It was then that the problem was defined as a low achievement across all children, but also did specify economically disadvantaged and English limited children--not racial differences. Once standard based testing came about, observable signs became apparent of racial, economic, and disadvantaged student differences in proficiency testing. This led to the reforms that we now see in the No Child Left Behind Act.

Potential causes of the achievement gap, as defined by "No Child Left Behind", are due to past limited accountability of how the States and districts previously handled and defined schools that were not making adequate yearly progress, teachers that are not highly qualified as defined by the State, limited flexibility of how education funds are to be designated, limited ability to transfer out of a low-performing school, and standardized testing that included all the populations represented. Consequences of underachievement can include unemployability which directly impacts economic growth. The average unemployment rate for high school dropouts in 2003 was more than 1.5 times higher than the unemployment rate for people with just high school diplomas.

Discrepancy

The existence of this discrepancy of achievement puts the minority racial groups, economically disadvantaged students, students who are not proficient in the English language, and physically disadvantaged students at a disadvantage. These groups are at a higher risk of dropping out of high school and therefore are at risk for unemployment. Unemployment has consequences in itself, such as dependency on state aid. Even if these groups graduate, the preparation received in the areas of math, science, and reading is more likely to be inadequate as opposed to their non-minority counterparts. In my opinion, there are no gainers due to the existence of this problem. Non-minority students are already thriving in their performance, but this is not based on the fact that other students are failing.

In general, No Child Left Behind policy addresses this ...