Why No Child Left Behind is Great in Concept but Misses the Mark in Practice

By Lisa Wilkin

Everyone can agree that we want our children to be successful and well-educated, but the No Child Left Behind Act, no matter how well intentioned, has expectations that even high performing districts will eventually have trouble achieving.

The No Child Left Behind Act was a bipartisan effort to improve student achievement across the country, especially for low-income and minority children. The goals of the law are commendable. I don't know anyone who wants some children to be less successful, or less well-educated than others. The goal is to enhance the quality of education for low-income and minority students so that they have educational equity with all other children.

Education has traditionally been the responsibility of the states, who provide the lion's share of the funding. The Federal government provides money to the states specifically for the purpose of improving education for at-risk populations, and therefore expects to have some role in making the rules and wants the states to have some accountability for the money that they receive. There's nothing wrong with this, except that many of the rules and expectations that the NCLB law dictates are unrealistic and unwise.

First, the NCLB assumes that the primary goal of schools should be to raise test scores and that standardized tests are the only measure of a quality education. In order to raise test scores, schools have ultimately spent less time on meaningful curriculum that will prepare them for college and adulthood and more time on coaching children on test preparation skills. Until we can devise tests that reflect learning rather than the parent's educational level, we should at least allow other measures of student achievement to be considered. A RAND Corporation report states, "There is a danger of relying on statewide test scores as the sole measure of student achievement when these scores are used to make high stakes decisions about teachers and schools as well as students."

Secondly NCLB is focused exclusively on reading and math, implying that science, social sciences, fine arts, physical education and social skills are unimportant to a child's education and future life success. Schools across the country are eliminating recess, music classes, and de-emphasizing anything that won't raise math and reading scores. What kind of adults will be be producing?

NCLB states that the law provides flexibility to the states in determining how to define "proficiency". This encourages states to lower the bar for the children. If one state defines proficient as scoring 25% and another defines it as scoring 75%, obviously one state will have many more students designated as proficient, but it is the child who suffers by the low expectations. California has very high expectations for students and therefore has a much lower percentage of students classified as proficient. Should we lower our standards so we can meet our NCLB goals. Hopefully, we will hold our ground.

Related to that is the fact that, with the exception of a 2% allowance for seriously disabled students, 100% of the students in any school will be required to score at the proficient level by 2014, regardless of whether they can speak English fluently, or what developmental or learning disability they may have. I would argue that there is no way that even the highest performing schools can meet this benchmark.

NCLB assumes that teachers are incompetent and unable to determine for themselves which children are in need of additional assistance. Teachers are well educated, well trained professionals who are perfectly capable of identifying children who are falling behind and figuring out the best strategy to help them succeed. Testing is very expensive, and states and school districts spend an inordinate amount of money preparing for, administering, and scoring standardized tests. Why are we paying so much to tell us things we already know?

Finally, NCLB holds teachers and schools accountable for low standardized test scores. This completely ignores the fact that, currently, the only reliable predictor of standardized test scores is family income, something the schools have no control over. Check out the College Board website that reports SAT scores by income category, or the California Department of Education website that reports API scores by demographic information for verification of this assertion. The ultimate reponse will be teachers unwilling to teach in high-poverty schools, which is good for no one.