NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was passed of 2001 was signed into law on January 8th 2002. It was proposed by the George W. Bush administration immediately after he took office. NCLB supports a standard-based education reform that pretty just means that by setting high standards and reachable goals they can improve individual outcomes in education. The act requires states that receive federal funding to develop assessments in basic skills for all students. Funding for this act has increased from $286 million to $1.2 billion. Though the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) says in a survey done in July of 2005 that students have significantly improved their test scores in reading and math in the last five years than in the previous 28 years combined. Many argue that the statistics are misleading. They compare 2000 to 2005, when NCLB didn’t take effect till 2003. If you compare 2000 to 2003 and 2003 to 2005 the increase is about the same. Each year the schools are required to make a certain amount of progress in test scores so by 2014 there will be no achievement gap. Not everyone learns at the same rate the problem with NCLB’s standardized test is that they are putting pressure on teachers to pretty cramming all the information that they are told to be on the test in order for the children to pass. That’s not right because the children who do understand the material when it presented to them will be left behind because the teacher has to continue so he/she makes sure she covers all the material before the test. From experience it was at times hard to learn and understand what was being taught to us because our teacher didn’t have enough time to deeply cover the topic so many of us students were left with many unanswered questions. I don’t think a test should determine the future of any student and school. NCLB requires most schools to turn in an Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) it’s broken down into 37 categories. If any one of those categories does not make improvement then the school is labeled a failure, I don't think this is the right approach to fix a problem that is caused by the system.