Opinion
We’re All Getting Left Behind
In 2001, President George W. Bush passed a law to put him down in history as the education president. This law is known as the No Child Left Behind of 2001(NCLB).
Within NCLB, all public schools are set at a standard in which they must improve their test scores and proficiency ratings gradually every year until the year 2014 where 100 percent of the students will be performing at 100 percent levels.
This law has set up every single student for failure in their education because now all teachers don’t care about teaching their lessons; they care about teaching the test and nothing less.
NCLB has also meddled with every fine arts department and extra curricular activity because most funding is put toward mathematics and English departments.
Another problem of NCLB is the fact that not all students are treated equally. What that means is that the student who attends Central Academy also receives the same test as the refugee from another country who does not read a bit of English.
Not only that, but even the children with disabilities are required to be at the national set benchmark. NCLB violates another law allowing disabled students to take their own tests at their own level under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
For instance, a blind student who cannot read the test under IDEA may listen to the teacher read the test out loud. But because they cannot read, the blind student therefore fails the reading portion of the test and from there fails at the national level.
NCLB is fully and one hundred percent unfair to require all students at different levels to compete with each other.
When schools do not meet the requirements or do not improve their scores, they receive a punishment. Those punishments can range from firing the principal to denial of money grants to closing the school for good.
When all schools lose the money they were promised, private schools will benefit in enrollment and their own development of their schools.
Overall, the result of privatizing all schools where each school budget can pay for their own education and diminishing the spending on public education from the government is in effect.
It may have sounded like a great idea with the title of the act, but the politicians needed to do their job and read the actual context of such a failure for all students.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 does not benefit free public education. It destroys it. It does not boost test scores. It lowers the quality of education and sets up every student for failure. 