No Child Left Behind: A Failing Attempt At Reform Analysis

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Since the beginning of organized schooling there has been many reforms in the hopes of producing more “qualified teachers” and making sure all students are receiving and retaining the necessary material needed to be successful in the future. The first documented attempt was made in the 1800’s when Horace Mann developed a test to determine if the students were retaining the information. This test held no negative repercussion for students or teachers. Later in the 1930’s James B Conant, president of Harvard University, developed the first admission test. The test would measure the skill and content mastery level of the students but it would not provided any information pertaining to the students background. This test was later become what students identify now as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 was intended to help students in underprivileged neighborhoods perform at …show more content…

Later the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) forced ESEA to analyze the scores of students not just for achievement but to measure the pedagogical levels of teachers . However schools who did not perform at the desired level endure no consequences. This eventually led to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) “No Child Left Behind: A Failing Attempt at Reform,” written by Sarah E Holmes in 2010, examines the intended goals of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) versus the actual results the act has produced. The NCLB was implemented in 2001 under the George W. Bush administration. The goal of the act was to reach “100% proficiency of all groups of students in America by the year 2014.” Although ESEA and IASA were already developed the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to be a mash of the two and solve all the problems and weakness that both acts displayed. The NCLB act “ laid out consequences for schools that could not