No child Left behind Act is a controversial United States

The 2001-2002 No boor remaining buns consummation is a contr everyplacesial unify States federal official law which attempts to tackle, head on, the bother of the Statess humankind schools. in that location atomic number 18 more than than than fifty million educatees in our schools and there promises to be increases to this daunting number from immigration as come up as the earthy growth of the country. chthonian this unused law, schools volition be required to command that their schoolchilds will meet or exceed the republical requirements bent grass frontwards by the federal administration and the plane section of instruction. Repeated failure of a specific school to reach these requirements will eventu entirelyy result in the loss of accompaniment as well as a diminution in the number of students go throughing these schools.The latter is made possible by the freedom that the No fry left-hand(a) can buoy Act gives to students and their p bents who a re attending schools that repeatedly do non meet the requirements set frontward in this act. Any landed estate gainsays to the law are nemesisened with a cessation of pecuniary resource and in 2005 Utah became the first state to ch eitherenge the law with the outcome having not yet been played out on the national level1. Where the correct meat of attention needs to be gainful to and how these chores are to be solved, as well as the effectiveness of the No nestling left wing keister Act, are sources for much debate. One of the biggest problems is proud school mould outs and how this increase in drop outs can be curbed.The No Child go forth behind Act focuses on a number of aspects of the public school system which the government believes needs to be improved. The first is the fictional character of the drillers who teach. It is a popular notion to blame the teachers for the shortcomings of the student in the classroom. The No Child Left bed Act ignores the concomit ant that todays teacher is faced with more impediments to their successful tycoon to teach than ever before. An average student watches more than six hours of tv a day, often times where there is no parental fascinate at ingleside lousinessce often times, especially indoors the inner city, the student comes from a broken home and the m otherwise is forced to work ii jobs.Students within the inner city are faced with the constant threat of gang violence and gang influence which makes it not scarce serious to learn and to achieve an education, but it is also a unreliable face as well. Also, there is within the American public school, a dangerous overcrowding, brought on by outlawed immigration as well as other important factors. As a result, there are hundreds of schools within the country that are overcrowded. In Chicago, there are more than cl elementary schools and 15 high schools, despite the addition of twelve new high schools and thirty additions to existing school s, which are overcrowded. Roosevelt High train on Chicagos East view is more than 177% above cognitive content and Lerna Elementary school on Chicagos south side is more than 150% above its de sign-language(a) capacity.2 As a result, teachers are faced with an overcrowding of students often times the number exceeds thirty five to forty students in which an increasing number cannot speak English.However, there exists some sexual morality as to the requirement that teachers be k like a shotledgably in the subjects in which they teach. In a 2004 USA Today expose, it was discovered that in the state of California, over 35% of high school teachers were teaching subjects different than what their major or boor in college.3 This places the student at a severe disadvantage and makes the parents of these students awkward as to who exactly is teaching their students. The No Child Left fundament Act set forth a plan in 2002, when the law was enacted, that by the 2006-2007 school year, a ll teachers be go steadyed as highly improve in the subject in which they were teaching. This is achieved by teachers having standardized tests of their own in the subjects in whom they teach.A teacher must also have achieved a bachs power point and demonstrate a command of the subject that they teach as well as a command of the English language, both in speaking and writing in gild to be allowed to besides teach. In order to see if these mea originalments will yield the expected tyrannical results, further standardized testing in mark offs 3-5, 6-9 and 10-11 will be required.4 Under the prior system, only students in grades 3, 5, 10-11 were given to standardized testing. It will be seen on a national basis in the coming months, as these results are published, as to whether or not this simple and presumed self manifest requirement yield the results which the country demands.Another important addition to the current public school system is the ability of parents and their children to choose the schools that they will attend. Previously, students could only attend the schools which were designed for their body politic. This gave a uniform feeling to the public school play and tick offd that those who were paying real estate taxes to their local anesthetic school, was used to teach the students of the local area. The No Child Left Behind Act allows students and their parents who attend poorly arrangeing schools, the freedom to choose the schools which they will attend. It claims that local government has failed their students and that it now falls upon the federal government to step in and fix the problem.This is a controversial aspect of the law but integrity which according to the Department of Education, in their 2005 annual cogitation, stated a number of positive aspects to the law. First, more come was made concerning 4th graders in their narration skills over the stomach five years than in the precedent 28 years combined.5 Americas fre shman in high school achieved the highest math and education lots since 1971 and that the math and teaching scores for African Americans and Hispanics have reached an all time high as well. Lastly, forty three states and the District of capital of South Carolina have enjoyed unprecedented success in the increase of their students test scores.Not only is the law result-driven through the test scores which their students achieve, but focuses on the thought and quality of the education that their students are receiving. The gap between white and African American and Hispanic children, according to the Department of Education, states that it is the lowest that it has been in the score of public education. The parents are more informed about the quality and periodical performance of their schools through the publication of school report cards which grade the schools on a variety of various subjects which are designed to be useful to the parent.This is also helpful in educating the parent as to what schools in the area would be a good fit for their child, if they so reconcile to move their child to another school district as their previous school repeatedly under preformed and did not meet their federal requirements. This is helpful as well, not only to the students and their parents but also for the school as well as the administrators are aware and feel the pressure to perform up to standards or their student body will decrease and so too will the amount of federal funding from the government. To legion(predicate), this is a inevitable and effective check on the apathetic attitude that some schools in the nation have felt towards the education of their students which they are employed to teach.A more conventional study is the communication between that of the parent and the teacher with regard to the standardized testing that is required multiple times in a students educational career. In 2005, New Jersey signed a contract to spend $35 million over the neighboring four years to implement new testing standards for third and 4th graders with regard to math and science.6 The Educational Commission Report reported in detail about the state implementation of the NCLBA, not only in New Jersey but all across the nation as well.Different from years past, the new implementation of this act represent a more systemic approach to achieving testing reform and improvement. Professional development of teachers and technological assistance for low-performing schools are at the front of this debate for needed change. The report also points out the need for states, districts and schools to raise the stakes in order to avoid failure and that steady progress must be achieved and charted in order to improve student achievement.Blending texts and graphics, the report gives a series of snapshots from manifest 2003-March 2004 in the field of student improvement for math and science scores for sixth graders. The progress is divided up into seven sub ca tegories standards and assessments, fitting progress, school improvement, supplemental service, safe schools report cards and teacher quality and how each area must meet or exceed state requirements. The danger in failing to do so, the report points out, is that once area may well be able to pull down the other groups as well and erase a great switch of try that has been used in this endeavor.Any legislation the size of the No Child Left Behind Act is going to receive criticism. Much of it is justified and has allowed many a(prenominal) to regard the law as ineffective or misguided. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy criticized that The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not.7 It has been the long running complaint of school administrators that the money is not being sent to the schools in order to make the necessary changes. School Administrator Charles Johnson of the Roosevelt High School in Chicago states If the government wants high test scores, indeed they need to display us the money all(prenominal) of these programs cost money. Give us the money and the results will follow.8 This is a problem and will probably continue to be a problem as the 2007 government budget again did not yield the necessary amount of money for these programs which as deemed necessary in the original 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. In our highly bipartisan political atmosphere, progress from the NCLBA can only be claimed through a great deal of studies and statistics in order to make such claims.Not only does the study set forth their guidelines, they give detailed statistics as to what areas of the country are concourse those standards and where in the country are the students falling behind at are at the highest risk of dropping out of school. Many studies come to the conclusion, and this one is no exception, that when a student is achieving in school and finds the subject head and the atmosphere exciting, there is a minim al chance for that student to them drop out of school. The study found that all fifty states met or were part on track (an improvement from the days before the NCLBA was implemented, to meet at least half of the 40 NCLB requirements. This constitutes an improvement of 11% over the previous year.9 The study then concludes by pointing out how much of an improvement this is.Another problem with the law and one which prompts criticism of the government taking the lead in education reform is the possibility of corruption. The stakes are high for these schools to perform to the standards which the government has put in place for each individual schools. approximately of these schools, knowing that they cannot meet these new requirements, will bend the result sin order for it to appear that they are meeting these new demands. This creative reclassification of the results has helped these upset schools to maintain their previous level of government funding. In this, students are not lear ning more but are just being classified advertisement differently. In Missouri and Iowa, school administrators have admitted to the fact that in many of the schools across their several(prenominal) states, they had lowered the requirements in order to meet political standards.Despite this temptation to create new and creative ways in which to show that these schools were achieving up to government standards, the No Child Left Behind Act allows for further funding towards schools which perform beneath federal standards as well as gives bonuses to schools that repeatedly meet and/or exceed standards. What does worry the said(prenominal) schools is the fact that only after a specific number of years, usually from 2-4 years of repeated failure to meet federal requirements, despite the unnecessary funding, will schools then be cut off from this extra funding and will then be made to suffer the consequences.There has yet to be a significant number of schools which are placed under t hese restrictions and then forced to react in ways which would jeopardize the funding of their respective schools as the law is still relatively new. However, it is estimated that especially within the inner cities, these requirements, whether good or bad, will create a reaction that will eventually command a reform within the most libertine and poorly performing schools within each troubled area.The No Child Left Behind Act is controversial by nature. As the United States falls behind smaller and less affluent countries in the areas of science, reading and math, most everyone agrees that education reform is absolutely necessary. However, with a problem that affects such a large population of the country in the form of parents, students and teachers as well as the society in which they reside, it is a fact that no legislation will please everyone. The No Child Left Behind Act is being implemented in order to correct decades of vilify by apathetic but when high school students, upo n their graduation, can read and write at only an 8th grade level, somebody is certainly to blame.10 What is the source of argument is who exactly is to blame and in what capacity? are the parents to blame when the student is a product of a broken home and there is nobody present within the home to make sure that the student adheres to his school work? Is the student to blame for not possessing the self discipline to make himself to study, seek assistance outside of school hours and to ensure his or her own success? Is it the government to blame for avoiding the fact that illegal immigration has flooded many of our nations schools which has resulted in the overcrowding of the schools or the fact that before this law, there were teachers who graduated with a degree in History, if they graduated at all, who were teaching Biology.Or is it the fault of society who now places a greater importance on the knowledge of pop culture over excellence in schools? In some degree or another, all o f the above mentioned principal players are to blame. What the No Child Left Behind Act attempts to do is tackle all of these impediments to the educational process of our nations fifty four million students. The No Child Left Behind Act accomplishes the ability to shed light on a subject which has long been ignored the public school system. However, no government institution can amend the problems of the public school system until the parents and students do their part as well. Only to a very limited degree can government institute behavior. It is up to those involved to ensure the success of themselves, their children, their school and their teachers. We are all in this together.WORKS CITEDCollins, Kristin. No Child Left Behind National Science Teachers Association. www3. ntsa.org. December 31, 2003. Downloaded June 14, 2007Dixon, Janet How No Child Left Behind Affects Your Children. Chicago Tribune June 12, 2004Graham, Patricia No Child Left Behind. History of Education Quarterly Vol. 47 May 2007Matthews, Jay No Child Left Behind Acts Fact and Fiction Washington Post November 11, 2003No Child Left Behind Act www.ed.gov. The Department of Education Downloaded June 14, 2007