Persuasive Essay On No Child Left Behind

The aim of the No Child Left Behind Act is to insist that schools focus on the lesser performing students, trying to boost their scores. However, this notion of helping the weak almost entirely omits the needs of the top performing students whose skills are dulling as they must wait for the lesser performing students to catch up. Even for the lesser performing students, there is no incentive to achieve any higher than the bare minimum. Also, the test is flawed in the sense that even in a perfect world, not all students can be above average, someone has to fail. Aside from its fundamentally flawed basis, the pressure put on the school for students to do well on the test causes schools to cut other essential programs for a well-rounded education. Electives and art classes are slipping away from student’s schedules because the school would rather they take more English and math classes to be more prepared for the all-important exam that determines the school’s funding for the next year. For many students, an art class is the saving grace to their day; when art is stripped away, school becomes dull and morose. The government has spent billions of dollars on the creation of nationwide standards, preparing students to take the tests, and technology for students to take tests online but there is nothing to show for their efforts. As a result, they defunded the arts and the other subjects that are not

Ravitch contends that the “billions would have been better spent to reduce class sizes, to restore arts and physical education classes, to rebuild physically crumbling schools, and to provide universal early childhood education”