No child left behind - Essay Example

College No Child Left Behind President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act was passed by the congress on the 8th day of January 2002 with the main emphasis being on accountability (Testing) in addition to presenting the option for parents to leave failing schools while at the same time learning to read as soon as possible (U.S Department of Education 108). The recent past has seen a good number of schools failing to meet the set out standards. Despite this, it is evident that there is no reliable proof regarding the fact that we have stopped leaving children behind.

Key to this study will be The Act to Leave no Child Behind that was proposed by the Children’s Defense Fund and its subsequent introduction to the Congress in May 2001 (Crawford 2004)The No Child Left Behind Act leaves behind various aspects as proposed in the Children’s Defense Fund which include child care for all eligible children, protection of children from abuse and neglect, healthcare for all uninsured children, tax relief for low-wage working families, head Start for all eligible preschoolers, working to lift all children out of poverty, the prevention and intervention to prevent juvenile delinquency.

Additionally, other factors left out include Nutrition and housing assistance for low-income children and equally important building supportive communities for children and their families. The absence of the above mentioned measures in the No child Left Behind Act and the fact that the states are funds strapped as regards supporting these goals has made the current type of education reform to be easily misinterpreted in the effort to implement the act for the young learners (U.S Department of Education 108).

Apart from testing and retesting, teaching to the standards on the tests has resulted into very little discussion as regards to how best to reach the goal of bringing each and every child along in a manner that can be considered developmentally appropriate manner.Despite the provisions and goals of The No Child Left Behind Act having been initially to intend to bring about improvement in the education amongst all the disadvantaged groups of children, its implementation had evidently without doubt proved of the act providing too much flexibility to the states hence leading to teaching for tests curriculum (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2010).

The prioritization of the standardized tests implemented by each state in each child’s education has not only caused negative changes in the curriculum development amongst groups like English as a Second Language, but also disadvantaged the ESL students. The No Child Left Behind Act also needs to be reformed to address curriculum implementation in schools so as to ensure that there is accountability in the system and that the system actually functions in coordination with the curriculum as opposed to impacting reform to the curriculum negatively.

Additionally, the singular focus of NCLB policy in standardizing achievement test scores as the metric of student performance devalues complementary sources of information thus leaving behind the essential information on self-control and the competencies it enables. Works CitedU.S Department of Education, The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. P.L. 2001, 107-110. Washington,DC.Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Fewer, clearer, higher: Moving forward with consistent, rigorousStandards for all students, 2010.

Seattle, WA: Author.Crawford, J, No Child Left Behind: Misguided approach to school accountability for English languagelearners. National Association for Bilingual Education, 2004.