The No Child Left Behind Act was proposed in the mid-1990’s, however; it was not until June 2001 when it was voted on, shortly after President George W. Bush signed it into law in January 2002. The No Child Left Behind Act was popular despite it’s many flaws. NCLB had strong intentions, however, there were many underlying issues with standardized testing, teaching children to be anti-intellectual instead of allowing them the opportunity to have intellectual thought. Richard Hofstadter, a public intellectual and teacher at Columbia University was an inspiring American historian of the twentieth century. According to Hofstadter “The intellectual lives for ideas” he then continues to say, “There is in fact no profession which demands that one be an intellectual” (Hofstadter 258). Throughout his entire piece Democracy and Anti-Intellectualism in America Hofstadter tells us how nowadays nobody is striving …show more content…
Being an anti-intellectual is just that, not having the desire to discover new things. Anti-intellectualism is spreading like a wildfire throughout America, and it is having an enormous impact on the education system. The No Child Left Behind act is forcing children from grades 3-8 and then either tenth, eleventh, or twelfth graders to take standardized tests in math and reading. Standardized testing and anti-intellectualism link hand-in-hand. When one takes a standardized test there are specific answers that are hand picked, and you only get to pick one, it is generally a, b, c, or d and the answer follows. This is not allowing children and students the ability to challenge the system and think outside of the box. The reading section of the standardized tests is when it becomes especially difficult, they