“Sweeping Legislation Spells Major Changes” and “NCLB Fact and Fiction” summary and Response
...eld, and sets the closing of the achievement gap between the span of 12 years. The ESEA has control over the policy of school safety, tutoring and school prayer. It is also asking for schools to give up names and addresses to the draft boards. The ESEA requires schools to participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It would like the students to reach 100% proficiency in English and math in the next 12 years. States are setting up the bar according to the lowest performing demographic group or school in the state. California already defined proficiency as meeting University of California standards and new regulations can be hard to implement. California already has high standards so exceeding them can be difficult. Schools that don’t make steady progress face the consequence of being a in the “school improvement category.” School improvement category are forced to apply two-year improvement plans, use 10% or more of Title I funds toward improving the teaching staff, provide school choice and transportation costs for students within the district, use Title I funds for supplemental tutoring services. If schools fail to meet AYP four consecutive years go into the “corrective action” category. They still must provide school choice and supplemental tutoring but also local decision-making will be decreased, a new curriculum will be used, the school day or year will be extended and staff “relevant to failure” will be replaced. If the school fails to make AYP six years in a row will be met with serious action by the government. The schools will either close or be a charter school, the principal or teachers could be replaced, the school could be taken over by a private company or the state. The sanctions are in effect already. Parents have the choice of moving the student to another school with transportation on the school’s dime and supplemental services are already provided. But parents taking advantage of transferring their kids don’t have their requests met. Districts don’t know how to fit extra kids into higher-performing but crowded schools. Some schools are surprised to be on the worst list. They don’t know how to implement the new sanctions with no extra money. Response: This article was written for teachers and other folks that really don’t understand the law. I think I match the opinion of this article because I don’t like this law. It seems to give the most power to the government instead of the local or state governments. I think the federal government doesn’t really understand the local students and shouldn’t implement a plan that supposed to apply to each student and situation. There is such a great emphasis on the performance of each subgroup and I don’t think that’s quite right. The most complicated education law in history can lead to many misunderstandings or misinterpretations. People think the No Child Left Behind Act is the Republicans “plan to undermine public schools” but in the ‘80’s, several Southern Democrats supported a law to label bad school and require testing. It may seem the federal government is spending more on education but they put 7% o...