Previous Topic (7/4): No Child Left Behind

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy

What is No Child Left Behind?

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (the act that our little organization's name is based upon, in case you hadn't noticed) was signed into law in January of 2002. It is the first national legislation on education. No Child Left Behind intends to call for accountability in the nation's public school systems, as well as measure progress, provide parents with more information about their child’s education, and increase the quality of teachers.

How does it work?

There are a lot of small components that make up No Child Left Behind, but here is a basic rundown of how it’s supposed to work.

First, lots of studies have shown that learning problems later in a child’s life stem from poor education early on. For instance, if reading problems aren’t fixed (or even noticed) by a teacher in kindergarten or first grade, then the student is going to be behind when he/she reaches second grade. Then they won’t do so well there, and will be further behind in third grade, and so on and so forth. No Child Left Behind intends to increase resources for early childhood education so that problems will be caught before they get out of hand.

Progress is measured by a series of standardized tests. Currently the tests cover reading and math, but science should be included by the 2007-2008 school year. Tests are given yearly in grades 3 through 8, and once in grades 10-12. The tests are supposed to show parents and schools where their students’ achievement rates in comparison to other students’ and in comparison to state standards. Testing is also broken down into minority groups. Students are no longer measured just by the average, but by the average of their particular minority group.

The act also allows a provision for students in continually failing schools. If a school continually fails, the parent can ask for the student to be transferred to a better performing school in the district, if there is space. The district is supposed to cover the cost of transportation. If the better performing school is full, then tutoring, after-school programs, and remedial classes should be made available.

Lastly, No Child Left Behind is supposed to provide greater funding to schools to allow for all the provisions above to occur.

What’s Wrong?

This sounds great, doesn't it? How could anybody vote against an act to help kids achieve in school? What kind of sick jerk would want to leave children behind? Nobody. Who would want to run a re-election campaign where the competitor could say "my opponent voted to leave children behind?” No one would, and that’s why the act was overwhelmingly passed in Congress. So what's the problem here? Well, children are being left behind. Some say they’re being left behind at a greater rate than before the act was passed. How come?

One of the bigger problems with the act is that it assumes that administrators and teachers in schools that are failing just aren’t doing their jobs. This act will show the country that they aren’t educating the children properly, and they will be shamed into doing their jobs better lest they want to be branded as a failure again and again. The problem with this thinking is that so many public schools have been so under-funded for so long that threatening them to do their jobs better just won’t work. They’re doing the best they can, just as they always have been. Just branding them a failure doesn’t do anything to fix the problems that have always been there.

If a school fails two years in a row, every single student in that school has the right to try to go to another school in the district. In a high school of 1,500 students, that’s impossible (for lack of space in other high schools and lack of district money to move them all). In a district with only one high school, that’s impossible. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that the high school of 1,500 can be bussed to other schools if all the parents wish their children to move. Now the better performing schools are overcrowded. There is a higher student to teacher ratio. There is less individual help for students. Students aren’t doing so well there either. Where do they go? And where do students go in districts where the majority of schools are failing? Parents with money can pick up and move to another district that is performing better. Parents with less will have to leave their children in failing schools.

Failure is described as a lack of “adequate yearly progress.” Adequate yearly progress is measured by standardized tests. Each school’s various subgroups - like racial minorities, English as a Second Language students, etc. - must all show progress, and if just one subgroup fails, then the entire school fails. Even if the subgroup consists of just one student. And there are 37 different criteria that a school must pass in order to meet the adequate yearly progress standards. A school that meets 36 out of 37 is deemed as a failure and is lumped in the same group as a school that meets just 1 out of the 37 criteria. Another problem is that progress isn't measured on a school-by-school basis, so while one school may improve from the 30th to the 60th percentile in math from year to the next, if the bar is set at the 65th percentile, that school has failed to show adequate yearly progress, even though it doubled it's score in a year.

Another complaint about No Child Left Behind is that it doesn't actually measure students' performance from year to year; progress is compared from one grade's performance to the same grade's performance a year later. So if a school's fourth graders reach the 50th percentile in English, the next year's class of fourth graders would have to do better for the school to progress, even though different students are being tested. Last year's fourth graders have moved on to the fifth grade, and their performance won't be compared to their performance last year at all.

Perhaps the greatest problem with No Child Left Behind is that the act has been grossly underfunded. A lot of special programs (even the ones that are good ideas, like extra tutoring and after school programs) won’t work without money. So what did Bush do about it? The budget for 2005 includes $24.9 billion for Elementary and Secondary Education Act programs. No Child Left Behind calls for $34.3 billion. That’s $9.4 billion of missing funding that the act itself requires to work.

In 2003, the bi-partisan National Governors Association voted to label No Child Left Behind as an “unfunded mandate.” An unfunded mandate is a requirement of the federal government for a state or school district to do something (in this case, comply with No Child Left Behind laws) but then not provide the funding needed for compliance. It's like if the City of Seattle said that all citizens are required drive hybrid cars and you'd be penalized if you don't, and then said that you had to buy the car yourself. As an unfunded mandate, No Child Left Behind ends up penalizing schools in poor districts that can't afford to enact the laws, furthering the education gap between poor and wealthy schools. What's the penalization for failing to comply or failing to show adequate progress? No federal funding! So if you don't have money to enact the laws because your district is poor to begin with, the government then refuses to give your district money. Without money to implement new programs, schools will continue to fail, and continue to be denied federal funding.

And remember all that talk about catching problems early on, all that funding for early childhood education? Well, the Bush’s budget doesn’t really leave room for that. $2,005,056 that was supposed to go to the Even Start family literacy program in Washington State was cut. Programs that promote family literacy have been pushed by First Lady Laura Bush. Another other example of underfunding that affects Washington State includes a two year total of $179,691,000 in unfunded mandates that Washington schools have to pick up. So our schools that already were already underfunded now have to pick up the slack from the Bush administration’s lack of funding.

Where can I find out more?

Once again, there's a lot of information out there, and more shows up every day about different districts around the country with problems regarding No Child Left Behind. Here are some resources to get you started.

“America Under Bush: The State of Washington Working Families”

There’s lots of great information about how the Bush administration has affected Washington State. No Child Left Behind information begins on page 6.

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Education Week’s No Child Left Behind page

Basic information on the act, as well as lots of links to articles related to No Child Left Behind.

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“Built to Fail: Every Child Left Behind”

A discussion of how the act has affected schools and educators in Minnesota.

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“Proficiency is Not Enough”

An aspect of No Child Left Behind that isn’t talked about as often is that of the left behind gifted child. The author argues that setting the bar at proficiency will not “maximize the capacity” of every student.

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“The Punishing Truth About No Child Left Behind”

This article discusses the may problems of the act, as well as a large aspect that is left out: parent involvement.

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“Education Secretary says ‘No Child Left Behind’ Critics are ‘Whiners’”

Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s response to criticism is to resort to playground-style name-calling. What a dweeb!

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"The Problems with No Child Left Behind."

This article focuses on NCLB and disabled children.

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“No Child Left Behind Two Years Later: Empty Promises, Empty Rhetoric”

Lots and lots of statistics about failure from the Democratic National Committee. Did you know that Bush’s 2004 budget cut $200 million in funding from a program to fund education for military families?

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“The No Child Left Behind Hoax”

Written by a New Jersey high school teacher. Long, but very interesting.

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“Yes: No Child Left Behind should be flunked and replaced with legislation that works”

A relatively short article by the national director of Americans for Democratic Action. The author gives the Bush administration an “F” for failing to follow the same standards that it sets for local governments and school districts.

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