No Child Left Behind
... meetings, and enforcement effort” (106). Before looking at the criticisms of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 first one must understand the basics of the act. According to Bracey, this NCLB is eleven hundred pages “with reams of attendant rules and regulations from the U.S. Department of Education” (69). The U.S. Department of Education website outlines the major provisions under the act as the following: accountability for results, creating flexibility at the state and local levels and reducing red tape, expanding options of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring every child can read with the Presidents Reading First plan, strengthening teacher quality, confirming progress, and promoting English proficiency. First, this act creates assessments that all states must administer countable for their results. These assessments come in the form of testing in reading and math in grades 3-8. Every year these tests must be administered and in some states the children are required to pass these test to move on to the next grade. These assessments will ‘empower parents, citizens, educators, administrators, and policymakers with data…The data will be available in annual report cards on school performance and on statewide progress” (U.S. Dept. of Education 2). These report cards are intended to help parents understand the progress of their child’s school. If the child’s school receives a ‘failing’ grade, they then may have the opportunity to change schools. The performance tests from the NCLB also are used to see how gender, race and poverty affect education. Second, this act creates more local control by cutting down on the federal control on education. Federal money is made more available for local schools to do with what they wish in an appropriate manner without seeking approval for every dime spent. Different projects can then seek to gain funding through federal monies more easily. According to the U.S. Dept. of Education the act “will give local school officials serving rural schools and districts more flexibility and a greater say in how federal funds are used in their schools” (2). By not having to worry about getting permission to do certain projects, the schools are supposed to benefit with less wasted time and energy. Third, the act is to give options to parents who have children in districts that are failing according to standards. The parents are to have the option to not only transfer their child to another school, but also seek out extra educational services that can enhance the child’s knowledge. This includes tutoring, after-school programs and summer learning programs. With all these aids the hope is that once failing schools will become better performing and parents will continue to place their children in these schools. Another option is to create more charter schools because this provision allows for more federal money to be spent on charter schools. According to Saulny, “New York has approved the city teacher’s union’s request to provide tutoring services to students in failing schools” (Education Section). Now some 81,474 students in New York City are receiving the tutoring that their teachers feel they need in order to learn. Fourth, the act helps ensure that every child can read. All too often children graduate from high school unable to even write their own name. There have been multitudes of cases of children getting through school by cheating or being pushed through by pressure from athletic departments. With this provision, every child will learn to read and testing will prove their abilities. The NCLB “authorizes an increase in federal funding for reading from $300 million in FY 2001 to more than $900 in FY 2002 and lings that funding to scientifically proven methods of reading instruction through the President’s Reading First plan” (U.S. Dept. of Education 3). The more money pumped into programs that are proven successful, the better chances that children will learn to read as they are supposed to in elementary grades. Fifth, the act claims to strengthen teacher quality by making sure that teachers are certified and have received the education necessary to become great educators. Through higher salaries and better benefits, the school districts can then obtain and retain better teachers. The freedom of spending federal funds allows the districts to also choose to use their money to hire more teachers and train them more efficiently. Teachers are required to have so many Continuing Education hours each year but these hours are useless if the information taught in these workshops are not helpful. With the added funds, school districts can ensure that the workshops will be as useful as possible. Another related issue to the teacher quality is that of paraprofessional quality. One of the issues in the act deals with paraprofessionals, who are assigned to help tutor individual students and perform clerical work. The NCLB act will now require paraprofessionals to have at least two years of college education. “Current requirements range from a high school diploma to some college training, but new provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act that come into force on January 1, 2006 while require a two-year college degree and state certification” (Kingsbury 48). Sixth, the act proved for national assessment to ensure that the act is benefiting the United States. According to the U.S. Dept. of Education the NCLB makes it possible to test a group of students from each state to see how they are progressing and if the act has helped make progress. These tests are also used to compare state’s success and help learn from other’s mistakes. The purpose is to help the U.S. Dept. of Education see how the act is helping and how it is hurting. This allows them to see what changes will be necessary for future amendments to the act. Lastly, the act helps to pr...