Tawanna Lovey
Business Environment and Public Policy
No Child Left Behind

Abstract This paper will take a look at the No Child Left Behind Act. It will explore its history, its goals, intentions, methods, and measures. This paper will also look at the effect that NCLB has on the ethical behaviors and decisions, and the various effects on curriculum, students, teachers, schools, and its effect on sub-groups of students involved.
Introduction
In 2001 Congress passed the landmark federal law, No Child Left Behind, (NCLB). President Bush signed the law on January 8, 2002. NCLB has been the foundation of the Bush Administration’s educational agenda. The four major components of the law are stronger accountability, more freedom for states and communities, proven educational methods, and more choice for parents. One of the purposes of the law was to require schools to pay more attention to a segment of the school population specifically, minorities and poor who were being left behind. The law requires that no later then 12 years after the 2001-2002 school year every student who attends public schools shall achieve academic proficiency as determined by state tests.

Literature Review NCLB measures rely primarily on indicators of performance such as large-scale assessments and other objective measures of school success. NCLB requires all states to have core academic standards, and furthermore dictates that states will need to bring all students to proficient levels in language arts and mathematics by 2014. In the meantime, states must show that districts are showing adequate yearly progress (AYP) towards those goals. The criteria for meeting AYP are as follows:

• Establish “annual measurable objectives” of achievement (i.e. state assessments)

• At least 95% of all students must be included in state assessments

• Assessment performance and participation data must be shown for all significant
subgroups of students, including economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic 
minority groups, limited English proficient, and students with disabilities

• Demonstrate yearly progress in student achievement

• Demonstrate yearly progress on an additional criterion, i.e. in high school 
graduation rates or student attendance

The goal of NCLB is for all students to reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014. Student achievement must be proficient not just in an average across the school, but in all significant subcategories of students. Schools must demonstrate that all students, including those who are economically disadvantaged, who have disabilities, etc. are both participating in assessments and showing proficiency in language arts and mathematics. Educators should expect all students to demonstrate proficiency in critical academic skills. Educators truly want all students to be successful. This goal of proficiency should be at the forefront of all decisions and actions. If that were the case then few people would argue that NCLB and the decision for implementing the law are not founded in ethics. Both the law and the implementation would be determined to be ethical.

The NCLB Act has increasingly had a major impact on daily decisions in schools, especially for principals' performance. Depending on the accountability rating, schools are in jeopardy of closing, and principals and teachers are at risk of being fired. As a result, it is increasingly difficult to make daily ethical decisions on behalf of students and teachers when much of the focus is on standardized testing and accountability. In order to make AYP these schools drill there students on taking tests and place more and more instructional time on tested items. Due to the intense focus on math and reading proficiency, fewer resources and time are devoted to subjects such as art, physical education, social studies and science. It’s not surprising that these students see a further decline in a motivation to go to school and do well.

Many teachers fell a loss of autonomy, respect, and stress partially related to high-stakes testing. These factors add to the already high attrition rate of teachers. These teachers feel an increase need to cover what is specifically on the test, so that they look good. This often causes teachers to become more controlling and as a result has a negative effect on students’ motivation when they feel a teacher cares more about scores then their learning. Often instructors will resort to more and more teacher-oriented strategies for teaching, which may not teaching broad critical thinking skills but will provide a raise in test scores. This causes many teachers to feel their creativity is being suppressed and pushed aside in order to gain higher scores.

Unethical practices to improve test scores have also tainted the NCLB Act. This includes instructors giving answers to a test to students in advance. Superintendents encouraging low-performing students to stay home on test day, drop out, or transfer to a new school. Its also led to smaller ethical infractions such as using look-a-like test items that focus instruction very narrowly on tested items, but do not create transfer. This sort of behavior destroys the validity of a test and its usefulness. It also creates a situation were educators are modeling unethical behavior to our youth or at least to a smaller extend encouraging ineffective teaching practices that do little but inflate a specific test’s scores. Teachers are increasingly only teaching “to the test” due to the widespread fear that their students will perform badly resulting in their termination. Opponents of NCLB, which includes all major teachers' unions, allege that standardized testing, is deeply flawed and biased for many reasons, and that stricter teacher qualifications have exacerbated the nationwide teacher shortage, not provided a stronger teaching force. Supporters of NCLB agree with the mandate for accountability to educational standards, and believe emphasis on test results will improve the quality of public education for all students. They also believe that NCLB initiatives will further democratize U.S. education, by setting standards and providing resources to schools, regardless of wealth, ethnicity, disabilities or language spoken. There is evidence that support NCLB, and that is student test scores. Student test scores have been increasing since NCLB took effect in 2002. In particular, the test scores of minority students have increased the most in this time. Additionally, the overall achievement gap between minority students and the white majority has decreased between 1999 and 2004. The percentage of classes taught by a highly qualified teacher has risen to over 90 percent across the nation and regular testing has allowed schools to identify the individual students in need of additional aid to reach grade level proficiency. The increased school choice option for parents provides an additional incentive for both schools and teachers to reform any ineffective educational strategies. Results have shown that the nation is still on track to reach the 2014 deadline for universal grade level proficiency in math and reading.

Conclusion The method in which the NCLB Act uses that labels schools, teachers, and students, as failing based on single measure is unethical and ineffective in improving education. However when care is taken to use tests effectively to measure quality instruction and training is given to use the tests in such a way they are indeed ethical and desirable. Looking at the intentions of these tests we see that whatever flaws these measures had they did improve achievement, they have cause improvement in instructional practices, they did help address the achievement gap, they also brought to the light the need to align curriculum and as flawed as these measures have been they did create accountability. These improvements have not been consistent from school to school or even state-to-state, but as its lead to significant conversation about effective educational practices. They need to be improved to be ethical everywhere. They are a useful tool in education and need to be treated with care.

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