No Child Left Behind Act and its Impact on High School Dropout Rates: Is it Effective - Research Paper Example

From the viewpoint of a teacher, analyzing the provision of the No Child Left behind Act is not an answer to reduce the rate of drop out among high school students but rather made the situation worst. The provisions of the No Child Left behind Act which states that schools should administer a standard test on a yearly basis is one of the aspect teachers mostly do not agree with. The Act is identified as one of the main culprit high school students drop out in the middle of the school year. In the study by Walden and Kritsonis (2005), they identified that dropout rates among minority students involving African American populace studying in school with exit exam have alarming rates.

This is because the test serves as an identifier who is going to get his/her diploma. In situations where students fail the test, they are labeled as poor performers or “in need of improvement”. Such label is doing injustice to both the students and teachers because a single test discriminates them despite good grades and excellent teaching of the teachers. The labeling is difficult to break thus students drop before the school year ends to get rid of being labeled. Teachers also encourage the poor performers to take other steps to avoid taking and failing the test.

Since, it was observed that children from African American descent have generally shown poor academic performance than Caucasian descent, they are the target population of this act. It was evident that 71% of African Americans go to high minority schools and 72% of children from this community go to high poverty schools. Standardized assessment markings show that reading and mathematical proficiencies of African Americans are considerably lower than that of their White counterparts. African American children manage to score about one fourth of what White Americans score.

This results into high dropout rates among African Americans, particularly the males. (Knaus, 2007) However, schools that have 40% or less minority students are doing far better than those which have 75% or more minority students. The statistical results obtained consequent to the NCLB Act clearly show that African Americans are lagging behind mainly due to the problems of the system (Knaus, 2007) such as the lack of the system’s approach in targeting the wrong goal. Although, the main purpose of the No child left behind Act is to eliminate the existing discrepancies of the US educational system (Owens & Sunderman (2006), it is observed that the Act is only treating the symptoms but not the main cause of the problem which is poverty.

This is obvious in the study by Lowe and Kantor (2006) where they indicated that equality in economic and social support among whites, blacks, and other ethno-cultural groups is more effective than the No child left behind Act. Another problem is the discrepancy in teacher qualification assigned in minority schools. Most teachers who lack the qualification are the ones teaching the minority group. If they are qualified, they do not teach their specialization resulting in mismatch learning needs of the students.

On the side of the teachers, this strips them of their ability to show their best and to develop their talent. Along this line, it