No+Child+Left+Behind

=**No Child Left Behind**=

United States' Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings visits with a child in Tennessee during celebrations which marked the sixth anniversary of No Child Left Behind on January 8th, 2008. (http://www.ed.gov/news/photos/2008/0108/edlite-0108_3.html)


 * Initiative**

The No Child Left Behind Law was introduced by President Bush in 2002. It was designed to ensure that each child in the national public school system meets certain standards appropriate to their grade level. Students are given yearly tests in math and reading to report on annual progress. Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is an individual state's measure of progress toward the goal of 100 percent of students achieving state academic standards in at least reading and math. It sets the minimum level of proficiency that the state, its school districts, and schools must achieve each year on annual tests and related academic indicators. The federal government takes corrective action against any schools who fail to meet AYP standards. Parents whose children are attending Title I (low-income) schools that do not make AYP over a period of years are given options to transfer their child to another school or obtain free tutoring (supplemental educational services). Schools are graded on a pass- fail standard. In The Twin Cities (Saint Paul and Minneapolis), nearly 80% of the schools in Minneapolis and about 2/3 of the schools in St. Paul failed to meet the AYP standards during the 2006-2007 school year (McCallum). Overall in Minnesota during the 2006-2007 school year, another 250 schools joined the AYP list (McCallum).


 * Challenges**

Since 2002, educators have found many flaws with No Child Left Behind Legislation (NCLB). The most prevalent flaw is the law’s focus on testing. Focus on testing changes the focus of curriculum from critical thinking and problem solving to test taking skills. NCLB requires testing all students in math, reading and science; curriculums, therefore, are changed to score better on tests. According to Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading education expert, “state that earlier created forward- looking performance assessment systems like those used aboard have begun to abandon them for antiquated, machine-scored tests that more easily satisfy the law.” No Child Left Behind does separate children into groups based on poverty, race, ethnicity, disability and limited English proficiency (US Department of Education). However, the Minnesota Education director, Alice Seagren states that although 26,000 limited English proficient Minnesota children were able to take an alternate test in 2006, this year they were required to take the general standardized test taken by non-limited English proficient students (Hughes). Obtaining a sense of student progression throughout their public school attendance is not emphasized. NCLB compares how one specific year of kids, for example 5th grade, is doing compared to last year’s 5th graders. Although a federal waiver to track the progress of individual children was requested to the federal government by Minnesota, no such waiver has been granted (McCallum). Funding has also been an issue. Many educators and administrators argue that Congress never sufficiently funded the program to begin with and the task of fixing the problems that remain is left to the Minnesota congressional delegates (McCallum). However, the lack of success of the waiver to track individualized progress suggests that the federal government is paying little attention to the adjustments suggested at the state level. The No Child Left Behind law, although standardizing and attempting to level and equalize all the public education students regardless of race, economic background, or English proficiency appears to be unable to support the schools in achieving this goal. The AYP standards are based heavily on reading and mathematics in the required standardized testing. This limits what teachers can teach in their classrooms, leaving less space for the arts, languages, sciences and history (Roberts).


 * Suggested Changes**

Many suggested changes include allowing schools to get credit in AYP for tests in subjects other than math and reading, allowing limited English proficient students to take tests in their native language for five years, and increasing the number of special education students taking level appropriate tests. One suggestion agreed upon was to measure the testing of individual students over time, rather than compare grade level to previous grade level each year (Zuckerbrod).

Darling- Hammond, Linda. "Evaluating No Child Left Behind." __The Nation__ 2 May 2007 15 Nov 2007 [|Evaluation of No Child Left Behind] [|No Child Left Behind Law]**
 * Sources