No Child Left Behind Makes A Failing Grade!
During 2002, the Federal government, through Act of Congress, enacted a controversial No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB) . This plan was designed to improve the primary and secondary school student’s comprehension, primarily in the areas of English and math. While this is an admirable objective, the construct of the program has hit a brick wall to bring the desired outcome. Many educators have laid the blame on the approach laid out within the No Child Left Behind plan. With its target squarely on English and math, students, teachers and administrators confront a task that imposes punishments if the objectives are not achieved.
Such punishments take the form of rescinded Federal money, which creates a catch- 22 kind of problem. Even the funding which is appropriated has not been obtained by the towns. This has been regular procedure since the inception of No Child Left Behind. In 2002, approximately$ 4. 2 billion bucks which was appropriated in no way reached the states. In 2007, this financing gap grew to an amazing$ 14 billion dollars! To add to the economic woes of the school districts, states everywhere in the nation were suffering funding shortfalls in revenues, due to the state of the general financial system.
This resulted in several states determining it necessary to make budget cuts in several sections, including, you guessed it, education! Even though schools are demanded to administer consistent tests in English as well as math, the testing protocol of No Child Left Behind does not stretch to other courses. Some schools were forced to drop additional subjects from their curriculums if they were to maintain the Federal financing. This doesn’t seem like a healthy overhaul of our educational program.
