No Child Left Behind Failure Essay

What little good intentions No Child Left Behind had were soon trumped by failure as the very name of the act began to contradict itself. Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools across the country were required to administer standardized tests, which, in turn, created a multitude of problems in the educational system. In addition, NCLB sacrificed the arts for core curriculum deemed important by annual Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports. Another downfall to NCLB is the irrational consequences placed on schools failing to meet AYP. And finally, perhaps the greatest mistake of NCLB was the lack of universal proficiency requirements and an unachievable goal of national proficiency by the year 2014. Standardized tests under No Child Left Behind have caused school systems to surrender quality education for test scores. These tests have set strict guidelines on what is deemed important and what is not by the state; they are the sole measurement of academic success in students. As Monty Neill states in his article, “much of what is important cannot be tested with a paper-and-pencil test of a few hours’ duration” (Neill). The law also falsely assumes that increasing test scores should be the immediate goal of

If a school fails to meet AYP four years or more, not only does it lose copious amounts of funding, but it can potentially be, “converted to private management, turned into a charter school, have its entire staff dismissed, or be handed over to the state” (Ravitch). More often than sometimes a few teachers will be let go and the school will be reconstructed to try to recover and become a passing school. The only problem is that the school is left with an insufficient amount of money to have any effect on the recovery; without enough money, the school couldn’t possibly get new, quality teachers hired and gather enough resources to pass