NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT

No Child Left Behind Act

No Child Left Behind Act

Introduction

The progress of US lie greatly in its public education system. All through the history of USA, it has struggled to offer every child with admission to a free and high-class education since US recognizes that without education, its independent approach of life will be at risk. Certainly, it is the US system of democracy, derived from the two supports of civic duties and personal rights, that necessitates that USA has a proper public education system. This paper discusses No Child Left Behind Act.

Discussion

Several of NCLB's core goals, as described by the Bush administration, are described explicitly in the language of the act. These include increased accountability, increased parent and student choice, a more intensified focus on reading, and the guarantee that all learners will be educated by very skilled teachers. These requirements are meant, according to the Bush administration, to ensure equal access to quality education by all students.

Background

As part of his “War on Poverty,” President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed and signed into law the ESEA (Elementary & Secondary Education Act) in 1965. Enacted in order to improve equal educational access across socioeconomic strata for students attending public schools, the ESEA directed additional federal funding to schools with large percentages of economically disadvantaged students. Since its passage, the ESEA has gone through several reauthorizations and modifications. One such transition occurred in 1994, when, largely in answer to “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform”, which was a statement by National Commission on Excellence in Education of President Ronald Reagan, and the concerns it raised about the teaching profession, school curricula, and other schooling issues, the ESEA was reauthorized by the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA). Among other changes, the IASA, along with the Goals 2000 Act, required more tightly defined standards of student learning but afforded state- and local-level flexibility on how to meet those demands. (William , 2008)

Drawing on and expanding the corporate-style, standards-centered model for education and educational assessment introduced by the IASA, President George W. Bush's administration proposed its reauthorization of the ESEA in the form of the NCLB of 2001 (No Child Left Behind Act) within months after his election. Coauthored and endorsed widely across party lines, the bill passed in the House of Representatives (by a vote of 384 to 45) and the Senate (91 to 8) and on January 8, 2002 it was made a law by then President Bush.

Like the IASA, NCLB endorses standards-based schooling and assessment. NCLB differs from its predecessors, though, in the extent to which it relies on standards and standardized assessment data to measure the effectiveness of schools. It differs, as well, in the specificity with which it directs schools to collect and analyze data about various populations of students, the way it requires similarly standardized assessments of future teachers, and the penalties with which it threatens schools that do not meet certain standards of ...