The document discusses the No Child Left Behind Act and its goal of improving education for disadvantaged students through measures like annual testing and accountability, but argues that it ultimately failed to address the real issues in education like unequal funding. While the intent was good, critics say it focused too much on standardized tests and hurt schools more than it helped students reach their full potential.

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Stephanie Smith
Mrs. Corbett
AP Literature
17 November 2011
An Issue in Education: No Child Left Behind
Education, if simply defined, is“a discipline that is concerned with methods of teaching
and learning in schools or school-like environments” (“Education”). Education is the diffusion of
societal values and the knowledge that each society has accumulated thus far. Education is said
to be responsible for the cultivation of a civilized society; it enables the development of a
responsible society through the teaching of values. Ideally,the purpose of education is to
cultivate the innocent minds of children by instilling those values and principles into their minds.
By introducing these values, children are able to develop physical, mental and social skills.
Children are guided by education in learning about their culture until their behavior has become
adult-like and they are able to pursue a role in society. Nevertheless, education is not foolproof in
its aimsandsuffers from one central problem. That is, what exactly should education be focused
on in order to help children attain their full potential?
In response, several aims have been proposed by philosophers and other figures in an
attempt to make learning more efficient. Many have considered balancing student needs and
interests or replacing close-mindedness with an augmented imagination (“Education, philosophy
of”).No matter the approach, all of these propositions have been defended and criticized by other
thinkers.No Child Left Behind, a prime example of a proposal, was both ridiculed and praised for
its attempt to pinpoint the focuses of education. The reform, signed off on January 8th, 2002 by
President George W. Bush, was based on four principles- “stronger statewide accountability for

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students' proficiency, increased flexibility for state and local control in the use of government
educationfunds, expanded school options for parents, and an emphasis on proven teaching
methods” (“Education”).No Child Left Behind was a major alteration of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, a federal law that suffered from its own faults. The revised
NCLB debuted at a time of public concern over the state of education. The legislation set in
requirements that reached into every American public school imaginable. Chiefly, it took aim at
improving the academic skills of disadvantaged students by using a number of measures
designed to enhance their academic performances.
Positioned at the core of the No Child Left Behind Act, these measures forced states and
schools to become more involved in their student progress as well. They represented significant
changes to the education landscape and lit the path to a more promising future for education. The
first of these measures was annual testing. “The testing portion of the plan required states to set
standards for what every child should learn in reading, mathematics, and science in elementary
and secondary schools” (“Education”). Commencing in 2002, all schools were to administer
reading and math tests to grades 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12. By the time 2007 rolled around, annual
tests were required in grades 3-8 and science tests were added. The tests were based on state
academic standards, determined whether or not a school continued to receive federal funding,
and took its participant’s results to be compared in the National Assessment of Educational
Progress.
Secondly, the No Child Left Behind Act measured academic progress in a moderated
fashion. States were required to bring all students up to the proficient level on state tests by the
end of the 2014 school year. Individual schools had to meet state “adequate yearly progress”,
objectives that “focused on the collection of data and the analysis of that data in relation to

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student learning” (Woestman). Adequate yearly progress is measured not only for their student
populations as a whole but for students of certain demographics and capabilities as well. No
Child Left Behind clearly mentions that the target goals must be raised over time and that more
students should be meeting them. States are required by the act to evaluate every student and
make sure that their adequate yearly progress is met. Any school that does not adhere by these
requirements will suffer from failure in its entirety and may have to reorganize or surrender to
federal control. However, private schools and home-schooled students are exempt from the
requirements.
Moreover, states had to equip yearly report cards showing a range of information such as
student achievement data and information on the performance of school districts. Through the
use of report cards, the federal government displayed school performance and statewide progress
to parents. Concerned parents were also able to evaluate the quality of their child’s school,
teachers, and progress in major subjects. These reports showed progress for all student groups in
diminishing achievement gaps between disadvantaged students and ones of separate ethnicities.
In addition to these reports,the No Child Left Behind act “[suggested] that state governments and
school districts use alternative means of licensing and endorsing teachers” (Waid and
McNergney). Contrary to the past, teachers now had to be “highly qualified”, or certified and
proficient in the subject that he or she taught. They should have also completed at least two years
of college, obtained at least a bachelor’s degree, or passed an assessment to depict their teaching
aptitude. Only under these circumstances would teachers be qualified and trusted to guide
children into reaching their full potential.
Lastly, No Child Left Behind ensured student safety and created a new program called
Reading First.Funded at $1.02 billion in 2004, the program“was designed to help students in

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kindergarten through third grade develop stronger reading skills” (Gordon). Reading First
focused primarily on teaching students of impoverished backgrounds to read. Through this aim,
the program guaranteed that every child would be able to read by the end of third grade. The act
also provided funds for parents to relocate their child from an unsafe or poorly performing
school to a satisfactory one. This increased choice and flexibility in how states and districts could
consume federal funding. However, the measures implemented by the No Child Left Behind act
were not beneficial from every angle.
Despite its good intentions, several critics questioned the feasibility of the No Child Left
Behind Act, claiming that itsintentions were truly negative and hurt education even further.For
instance, annual testing yielded anxiety-stricken children. The testswere often flawed in that they
neglected low-income children and those of certain minorities as well. This generated the idea
that the No Child Left Behind act had failed to acknowledge the diversity in schools. Although
this idea arose, several states replaced their generic academic standard with a progression
standard to measure how students had developed over the course of a year. Also,“opponents
claimed that standardized test results since 2002 were not consistently better and that emphasis
on test-taking skills led to neglect of other forms of learning” (“The George W. Bush
Administrations”).The standardized testing distracted teachers from other areas such as music,
art, and foreign languages, and thusencouraging teachers to adjust their teaching style and teach
specifically for the tests. The annual tests sought to evaluate a child’s understanding and to
hastily return test results to teachers. But as a result, the tests failed to evaluate student success
and put childrenof less intelligence at a disadvantage. According to a study, “the NCLB
program’s high-stakes testing had done little to improve student’s achievement and had resulted
in higher high-school dropout rates” (“Primary and Secondary Education”). Supporters of the act

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were decreasing as many began to believe that it had no effect on public schools and put an
unnecessary focus on standardized testing. Overall, the addition of annual testing only dug a
deeper hole and led to an increasingly bleak future for education.
To discuss further, the No Child Left Behind Act overlooked a major problem in
education: the disproportion of funding offered in the United States. Unlike schools in other
countries, “the amount that wealthy schools are permitted to spend is approximately ten times
greater than the poorest schools in the United States” (“Funding for Education”). Subsequently,
American schools suffer from a larger achievement gap than any other country. While some
schools may qualify as proficient under the terms of the law others miss the mark. For example,
minority schools are more likely to score lower or fail state required tests because they do not
have access to the same resources as high-end schools.Even though the law “orders schools to
ensure that 100 percent of students test at levels identified as “proficient” by the year 2014…the
small per pupil dollar allocation it makes to schools serving low-income students is well under
10 percent of schools’ total spending” and not nearly enough to aide underprivileged schools
(Darling-Hammond 6-9). Under No Child Left Behind,the students of under resourced schools
end their academic careers with less opportunity to play a meaningful role in society. The act is
unable to provide sufficient funding to all schools, ignores resources that enable school quality,
and handicaps students. For these reasons,No Child Left Behindmisses the purpose of education
entirely.
By and large, the over-all goal of No Child Left Behind was to “ensure that all children
have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain high-quality education” (“Education
Department”). Conversely, the act highlights an unworthy focus for education as it concentrated
mainly on annual state-wide testing. Many critics felt that the act did not reflect the true potential

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of students and damaged schools even more. Bush’s No Child Left Behind did not prove to be as
a solution to education’s biggest issue; controversy over what education should be focused on
still remains.Hence, some children may never be able to reach their full potential no matter what
the focuses of education may be.

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Works Cited
Darling-Hammond, Linda. "Inequality in Education: What NCLB Does Not Change." Many
children left behind. By Deborah Meier. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. 6-9. Google Book Search.
Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
"Education." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2011. Web. 12 Nov. 2011.
Education Department." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Ed. Shirelle Phelps and Jeffrey
Lehman. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 62-66. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 14
Nov. 2011.
"Education, philosophy of."Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School
Edition.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2011. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
Funding for Education." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 3: 1920-1929.
Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"The George W. Bush Administrations." Presidential Administration Profiles for Students.
Detroit: Gale, 2009. Discovering Collection. Gale. Creekview High School. 14 Nov. 2011
Gordon, Byron. "Reading First: States Report Improvements in Reading Instruction, but
Additional Procedures Would Clarify Education's Role in Ensuring Proper Implementation by
States: GAO-07-161." Student Resource Center - College Edition. EBSCOhost, n.d. Web. 17
Nov. 011.
"Primary and Secondary Education.”Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online
School Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2011. Web. 12 Nov. 2011.

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Waid, Kimberly B., and Robert F. McNergney. "Teacher." Encyclopedia of Education. Ed.
James W. Guthrie. 2nd ed. Vol. 7. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. 2435-2437.
Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Woestman, Kelly A. "No Child Left Behind (2001)." Major Acts of Congress. Ed. Brian K.
Landsberg. Vol. 3. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 69-72. Gale Virtual Reference
Library. Web. 12 Nov. 2011.

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