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 an apparent 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 federal funds) (Dever & Carlston, pp. 61).

Schools charter violates the hard-won benefits for unions and teachers and makes our schools even less responsive to the needs of the communities they serve. According to the act, federal programs are reauthorized, and progress is measured with regards to the performance of the primary and secondary schools. This is done by increasing the standards for the states, and it also provides flexibility to the parents to select the schools for their children. However, there are many people who have raised questions with regards the act and the way it aims to fix education problem.

Discussion

Nearly 20% of the United States population is involved in the public education system, in some capacity, whether as a student, teacher, administrator, or investment vendor, which supports the process. Funding a student's education is a collaborative effort. States provide approximately 47% of the funds, local education agencies about 44%, and the federal government supports about 9% of the total cost. Research has focused on understanding the role of school resources in student outcomes and how school resources might be more evenly distributed to improve student outcomes. While the costs are primarily in real teacher wages, many of these expenditures are due to the rising costs of special education services and other expenditures outside of the classroom (Deborah &Wood, pp. 100).

Substantial increases in spending are difficult to track and appear to have been used ineffectively as student achievement outcomes have not significantly improved. The Evidence Based Model (EBM) is also used which a school finance model is seeking funded schools to promote high levels of student achievement. The model provides a policy-based approach to resource allocation which provides the foundation for school success built upon best practices for instruction for elementary, middle, and high schools based on a school's demographics, language and instructional needs. EBM ensures this school budget is built from the ground up and is designed to provide schools with a budgetary model for success. However, well-designed, this model has never been fully implemented, although several states are implementing components of this model.

Firstly, the act implemented standards-based reform that tied curriculum, professional development, and assessments to standards set by each state. Secondly, the accountability movement regularly measured student ...