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No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)

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“After No Child Left Behind (NCLB) passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009” (Standardized Testing). The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed by George W. Bush on January 8, 2002. The Act required all United States students have 100% proficiency on state reading and math test by the year 2014 (Standardized Tests). Since this act has been passed by Congress there has been a wide debate over the requirements and standardized test. The No Child Left Behind Act is not an effective educational policy because the teaching focus is on standardized testing, there is a negative impact on students, and penalizing on schools and teachers for not …show more content…
First of all, testing in unfair to students with special needs. Handicap students struggle with the same test their peers take and receive little or no help (Standardized Tests). Secondly, it has been argued that due to teaching to the test students fail to receive a well-rounded, creative, and personal curriculum (Pros and Cons of NCLB). “According to late education researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include "creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity" (Standardized Test). Also, people have claimed that standardized test rob children of their childhoods. For example, there have been times during testing that students get so stressed that they vomit right on the assessment (Standardized Tests). How can we let our next generation continue to suffer with these harsh …show more content…
There are five stages of sanctions that is used to castigate the educational institution and it’s faculty. “If it still fails to improve – which it must do by meeting standards for two years in a row – the school is subject to escalating sanctions over five stages” (Gioja). The stage of the punishment depends on if the public school gets federal funding. An example of a stage one sanction is that the school has to offer students the ability to attend other schools and transportation must be done at the cost of the school. By stage five, schools are suffering extreme penalties for failing to meet goals. For instance, replacement of all staff or having a private company take over the school can happen at stage five punishments (Gioja). Teacher are fearful that if their students preform inadequately they will be terminated due to stage five sanctions. Another way schools are chastised by this law is that they have had to pay for all the expensive changes created by the NCLB Act (Pros and Cons of NCLB). “Following the passage of NCLB on Jan. 8, 2002, annual state spending on standardized tests rose from $423 million to almost $1.1 billion in 2008” (Standardized Tests). The government passed this bill and does not supply funding, which leads to suffering schools and states paying billions of dollars for a fallacious

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