Thoughts on NCLB

After reading the two articles on No Child Left Behind, I affirmed my belief of how great this law looks on paper, but how unrealistic it is to actually do what it says. The purpose of this law is to make sure all students are proficient in reading, writing and math by the third grade and in most districts, if they are not then they are retained. Are we not leaving them behind when we retain them? Most importantly we are passing along students that might not be ready for the challenges of a specific grade level, but because of social promotion we cannot retain them. It is sad to see how some students are passed along in hopes of them to catch up the following year and when they are not able to produce grade level work in third grade they are punished for it.

In order to assess how the students are doing, there are required high stakes assessments that occur each year from third to eighth grade and then again in high school in order to graduate. These assessments are used not only to see where the child is, but how the entire school, district and state is doing as a whole. When students do not perform at the expected level or meet the required standards, the schools are punished by removal of funding from the state. After two continuous years of this happening, the school will be referred to as a CAPA school, meaning that they have not made benchmark.

Although there are standards that students must fulfill, we should not wait until it is too late. Intervention should begin early on when students enter school. Having an early intervention might make the difference between a student fully understanding what they have learned and just being passed along.

Although the purpose of this legislation is to ensure that all students are successful, a lot of educational aspects are being neglected. This law was signed when our country was going through a major crisis and was not implemented as it should have been. We need to focus on what is best for our students instead of what will sell more or sound better. Sometimes people who write these laws and put these laws into effect have no background on how children learn and best practices. Instead of putting what sounds best on paper, we need to do what is best for our students, which is make sure there are enough early interventions to assist these students as best as we can.