Albert Einstein said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that is is stupid." In 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law, The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), thus sealing the fate of students to be fish trying to climb trees.
The NCLB, which was initiated due to concern over the American education system no longer being internationally competitive, increased the role of federal government in holding schools accountable for the academic progress of all students. NCLB put emphasis on ensuring that states and schools boosted the performance of certain groups of students such as English-language learners, students in special education, and poor or minority children. States were not required to comply with the new requirements of NCLB, but by not doing so, it jeopardized their federal Title I money.
The ideology behind NCLB sounds wonderful, boost performance of students and make the American education system more competitive internationally. However, the effects of such a law has not led to the results expected, and yet the legislation still pushes the law and forces state to comply to lose federal money. The NCLB desired to have all children arrive at equal proficiency levels by 2014, and here we sit in 2016 with no significant changes.
The impact of NCLB has not shed a positive light on the American education system, it does not encourage the American education system to be competitive, rather strikes fear of job loss in the eyes of administrators and teachers and holds students accountable to meet certain set of standards presented by the federal government. The K-8 classroom has significantly deviated away from empowering creativity, freedom of thought, and the desire for knowledge. It has now been replaced with questions being left unanswered, students access to knowledge being limited, and teachers ability to be creative within the classroom impossible. Making teachers responsible for ensuring each student make "adequate" yearly progress, the focus of the classroom becomes on test material, rather than on other important subjects outside of the standardized test.
By mandating schools have a high percentage of students passing the standardized test, and ripping away a schools accreditation for failure to adhere to NCLB regulations, classroom sizes continue to grow. As schools shut down for failing to meet the absurd mandates of NCLB, students are relocated to "better" schools which cause teachers to be placed with more and more students, while still trying to ensure all students are on the "same page".
So why have law makers insisted to keep NCLB? Is it a means to maintain government control over every aspect of society? Do they truly believe it is better to judge the knowledge of students based solely on some standardized test? Have they not considered other options? As a society we may never understand why the government still supports NCLB; with no evidence to support that NCLB is beneficially to students and the American education system, law makers still renew the law year after year without batting an eye. Rather than admitting the failure in the law, politicians still push it forward in hopes maybe someday it will work out; all the while children are continually being left behind and teachers are being overwhelmed.
After high school, students will not be placed in a setting where they will only be expected to know what is on some test. Eventually, we are all required to think for ourselves, to question "why", and achieve things without a teacher holding our hands through it all. The law may be called No Child Left Behind, but as soon as the graduation ceremony ends, all children are left behind in the governments eyes. It is time we bring back critical thinking into classrooms and do away with standardized test being the determining factor of us as students, teachers, administrators, and a society.
