No Child Left Behind: A Failing Attempt at Reform

Testing has changed in many ways since it first appeared with the beginning of public education led by Horace Mann. Standardized testing is the most commonly used and well known method of testing used in the United States as well as numerous other countries in the world. It is used to determine student achievement, growth, and progress. However, standardized testing was not always used for the exact same purposes as it is today, nor was it as important and as heavily relied upon by our school systems as it is in today’s world. The purposes of standardized testing have gone from an equalizer of opportunity to a tool of segregation used to separate, not only by intelligence, but by socio-economic status, wealth, and privilege. In 2001, when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was created there was a great emphasis placed on standardized testing, so much so that testing is now crucial to the success of American students. It is therefore important to critically examine the testing system and correct any flaws that may be present.

The NCLB Act has become a major part of public education reform by striving to meet one major goal: reaching 100% proficiency of all groups of students in America by the year 2014. This goal will not be easily attained and may not be possible to achieve at all unless there are corrections and revisions made to the act and the way the programs are enacted in schools across America. Education is a major part of the success of our country and with an Act like this being such a dominant force in education it needs to be as close to perfect as possible. The No Child Left Behind Act created by President George W. Bush in 2001 has caused several major changes within public schools regarding funding, testing, and the reporting of test results. Despite the negative effects the Act has caused, with the use of individualized testing (less emphasis on standardized testing) and different regulations regarding funding, the Act could help schools achieve the goals they were intended to meet.

When Horace Mann developed a test to administer to a group of students in the 1800s, his intentions were to make judgments about how the student was doing at their current level and determine if they would be capable of advancing to a higher level. The student’s success on the test had no negative repercussions but rather served a simple purpose of answering a question: should the student remain at their current level or proceed to the next level of academic difficulty and intensity (Edwards, par. 3). These tests were a necessity at that time because the idea of public education was still being adjusted and developed and these tests were the only means by which student progress could be measured.

In the early 1930s when James B. Conant, president of Harvard University, decided to develop a test for admissions, he was searching for a reliable and objective way to measure student achievement without taking into consideration who the test taker was or what background they came from. According to Kevin Finneran, editor of Issues in Science & Technology, Conant believed that through administering the same test to all applicants for admission, factors such as family wealth, which private or elite academy the student may have attended, and any benefits their attendance would bring to the university would be removed from the decision making process (41). While his colleagues believe this would provide a real rationale for excluding those they did not particularly want entering Harvard, they were soon proved wrong as those from humble beginnings began scoring very high on tests and ultimately earning acceptance into the university. By removing the outside factors that were a huge influence on admissions, especially at more elite and prestigious institutions, chances and opportunities were given to typically underprivileged, minority students. This test was eventually adapted to become what is now the Scholastic Aptitude Test or better known SAT (Edwards, par. 10). As standardized testing became more popular and commonly used, the government took notice and began developing ways to improve testing within public schools.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was a part of the “Great Society” proposed by President Johnson in 1965. The goal of the Act was for the government to supply aid for underprivileged children in schools in order to improve the performance of these students and elevate them to the same level that the more privileged students were achieving at the time. This Act introduced Title I, which mandates programs for schools with high populations of students from poverty-stricken homes. Head Start (the most common pre-school program) and bilingual programs were large components of Title I as well (Mycoff 36). This was the first major educational reform proposed by a president.

In 1994, the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA) reauthorized the ESEA and began making efforts to analyze student scores but had no real consequences for schools that were performing poorly. Redirecting the focus to actual test scores was a major step in improving education in America and was more than likely the motivational factor and idea behind the next and current step taken in education reform (Mycoff 36). In 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. This Act combined the goals of the ESEA and the IASA but rather than just setting goals, NCLB laid out consequences for schools that couldn’t meet the goals and provided specific funding for programs to motivate schools to meet goals. In addition to providing a list of specific consequences, the Act also created a plan of action for schools as well as programs to help fix problems, or keep them from ever occurring. While standardized testing has been utilized for many years and in many different institutions, it has never carried the weight that it does today. With the average of 500,000 mistakes made each year on college admissions tests, if the system remains solely dependent on tests, the number of mistakes will become more detrimental to a student’s future success (Glovin 21). The margin of error increases the importance of a balanced measure of student achievement and growth.

The four pillars of the No Child Left Behind Act are the basic elements of the Act and what it was intended to improve upon. They are: accountability for results, unprecedented state and local flexibility and reduced red tape, focusing resources on proven educational methods, and expanded choices for parents. They were designed to improve upon the most recent event in educational reform, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965, which spent more than $130 billion dollars to improve public education since 1965 and still had not completely closed the achievement gap between different groups of students (“Fact Sheet”, sec. 6). These pillars became the law for educators across America in 2001 when the Act was passed. Since then, the effectiveness of each pillar has been heavily questioned.

The accountability pillar imposed new requirements on both the tests being administered to students and the way in which results are reported and shared. Under the NCLB Act, schools and districts are required to produce annual report cards showing the student improvement (or lack thereof) on standardized tests for every school year. These report cards are intended to be distributed to students, parents, and communities so that everyone, parents in particular, can be well informed of what is going on in their child’s schools. In addition, this pillar briefly mentions that ultimate goal of the Act, that all groups of students improve their performance on test scores, thereby closing the achievement gap between students and ultimately reaching the goal of nationwide proficiency at grade level by the year 2014 (“Fact Sheet”, sec.6).

Another pillar in the Act is about focusing on teaching methods. These pillars go hand in hand because the accountability pillar is about closing the achievement gap and the pillar about teaching methods provides the means by which the gap will be closed. In order to accomplish the goals of the Act, certain programs had to be set in place to promote growth and increased testing success. One of these programs is the “Reading First Initiative”. This initiative is designed to ensure that every child can read by the time they are supposed to exit the third grade. To supplement the efforts of teachers, six year awards were dispersed to schools with children that were considered “at-risk” of not being able to meet the reading competency requirements. This initiative alone has accounted for more than $900 million in federal funding. Although third grade is a very young age, there was also the Early Reading Initiative that focused on the reading capabilities of pre-school aged children (“Fact Sheet”, sec. 8). The emphasis on putting reading first is a major factor in improving test scores because reading skills have a large impact on all other skills, especially when it comes to standardized testing.

The NCLB Act has placed a large burden on teachers and school administrators by more than simply requiring additional testing. By the year 2005, all teachers were required to be “highly qualified” as determined by the stipulations found in the Act. Those requirements state that all teachers must hold a bachelor’s degree, must obtain full state certification, and demonstrate a mastery of the core academic subject they will be teaching. More than $2.8 billion dollars has been used to enhance teacher quality programs at schools across America (“Fact Sheet”, sec. 4). While this is very beneficial to students that need to be taught by intelligent professionals, it affected many older, veteran teachers who’d been teaching and teaching well for many years that failed to meet one of the requirements. Overall, this requirement may have been frustrating for educators, but is truly better for student success in the long run.