Maryland Schools and NCLB Essay

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No Child Left Behind

Letter of Transmittal

Impact of NCLB on Maryland School Systems

Request for specified action

Federal and State Restructuring Options

Maryland State School Improvement Grant Budget Application,

Allowable and Non-Allowable Expenditures

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is the re-embodiment of President Lyndon Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The primary purpose was to raise the standard of education and bridge educational boundaries. NEA certainly supports these aims and works solely in order to provide children equally standardized public schools.

The paper discuses impact of NCLB on Maryland schools and what effect the state takeover had on the schools present in the district. Several recommendations and strategies are discussed in order to improve the management of the schools and a detailed request to Mr. Delaney has also been made in the paper to further improve and implement the strategies for the improvement of the schools.

Prelude

No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President Bush back in January 8, 2002. It prescribed changes in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is the basic federal law for pre-collegiate education. ESEA came into being in 1965 and revived back in 1994. It comprises of Title I, the known federal government's program for disabled children (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011).

This law was enacted when public concern was huge regarding the education's state of affair; NCLB legislation revamped the educational atmosphere of all public schools in the U.S. The federal government had a more prominent role in education and took some measures for empowering disabled children (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011). The No Child Left Behind Act was tasked with empowering the student's educational performance and obligated schools to be monitored constantly. This changed the educational landscape of America's public schools.

Backdrop

NCLB the abbreviated form for No Child Left Behind is the re-embodiment of President Lyndon Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education of 1965 (ESEA), as the main objective was to raise the standard of education whilst bridge the educational boundaries. NEA has strongly enforced these aims in order to keep all the public schools equal. The school authorities deem that NCLB's current configuration is still far from it (Issues and Actions: No Child Left Behind Act, 2011).

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee in June of 2013 sanctioned the Chairman Tom Harkin's (D-IA) ESEA reauthorization mandate, which reaffirms the Strengthening of America's Schools Act of 2013 (S. 1094), with vote of 12 to 10. NEA emphasized to keep the equality and impartiality at all times, apart from working collectively to attain student's success whilst adopting new changes, which will help the cause and neglect those which are counterproductive. NEA has no present say on the bill, voicing that it has further room for improvement. Apart from that, there isn't any deadline for the mandate to be submitted to Senate. In July of 2013, House of Representative approved a form ESEA reauthorization, Student Success Act (H.R. 5) winning by 221 vote to 207 (Issues and Actions: No Child Left Behind Act, 2011). The last passage was rejected by both Democrats and 12 Republicans. NEA deemed the bill was too inconsistent with federal's actual role in public education. Their primary job is to target resources in certain student populations in order to raise their standard of education.

NEA had at least 18 changes prepared for the bill and secured two significant ones: Adding a provision in order to measure success of a student by a variety of means, apart from test results and withdrawing the troublesome language to avert federally authorized teacher's assessment which is primarily based on student's success in the absence of collective bargaining (Pinder, 2013). NEA wants congress to be more flexible and give educators liberty and concentrate on ESEA's point of impartiality and justice (Issues and Actions: No Child Left Behind Act, 2011). The message echoes with power and authority, as it's from those who are highly knowledgeable: teachers and educational support staff.

Boundaries

According to a public poll dating back to December 2003, about half of the school heads and superintendents deemed the federal legislation severely politically driven or sometimes targeted towards degrading the public schools.

Similarly, research policy analysis in case of California proposes that, as school requirements are assessed on the grounds of demographic sub-groups, this law can excessively reprimand the schools due to diversified students.

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There were concerns regarding the law, especially on the grounds of yearly report on progress and attaining 100% proficiency by 2012-2013 (Rudalevige, 2010). The top performing schools failed to attain the rates set for improvement whilst the states observed most schools completely failing to attain the set rates. In 2010, 38% of the schools couldn't meet the given criteria at all, it had spiked from 29% in 2006 (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011).

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in 2011, during his campaign caught Congress's attention to get the law amended or otherwise, 82% (Rudalevige, 2010) of schools would shut down that year alone. The numbers were falsified but most states took note and observed that 50% would shut down soon enough. The law enabled the states to set a certain standard and attain it to 100% by 2012-2013. Most didn't want to set a standard and some others wanted abdication from the law. Mr. Duncan in 2011, vowed to have an abdication preference for states but that would come in effect when states agreed to adopt certain educational policies. Meanwhile in Congress, members wanted to amend the law, but forming a final version was slow (Ellis, 2007).

No Child Left behind Act has many supporters, as most education leaders deem the accountability clause in the law very viable, discerning them as change agents and necessary for transparent results. Basically the law will prove effective when the schools and states are within the confines of accountability factor.

Maryland School Systems and influence of NCLB

Before NCLB Act was passed, Maryland had an accountability system in place which consisted of state reconstruction of schools which were performing below level. The legislation didn't have a deadline for state reconstruction; the state department would observe the yearly report and discuss with the state superintendent on which schools to reconstruct (The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2012). For many years since 1999, Baltimore City Public School System was in the reconstruction list. After intense public pressure, Maryland State Department of Education finally took a step to reconstruct three schools in city of Baltimore. Prior to Maryland State Department selecting the three schools, state called for educational management companies to supervise these three schools. Edison School was named the management organization of choice then. The same year, the state had rebuilt a fourth school after reaching an agreement with district officials in Baltimore. The results of student performance have been mixed even after this step. After the reformation, the school performance of state schools was scrutinized. The 3 Edison schools showed some development, but forth one (the Victory School) didn't improve as of yet. The Edison schools also attained the AYP aims in 2003-2004 but again the Victory school failed to do so (Schools, 2012). Finally in May of 2004, the contract with Victory School was revoked.

In the school year of 2005-2006, 79 schools from Maryland comprising 65 elementary as well as middle schools and 14 high schools, were either in development or planning stage of NCLB reformation, which was established on 2004-2005 Maryland School Assessment (MSA) test results. There were 49 Title I schools from 65 of total. The 49 schools under Title I were basically on the edge of urban areas. The Baltimore City Public School System is credited with 92% of total 45% Maryland's Title I school reformation (Sheldon, 2006).

Figure 1: Federal and State Restructuring Options (Sheldon, 2006)

(Sheldon, 2006).

NCLB extends the current development: The legal success of adequacy supporters have graduated to new heights after 1989, because President George H.W. Bush presided over a National Education Summit ordering the state and federal machinery to step up the standards of education and hold them accountable.

The judges have been powered with 'judicially maneuverable standards' in order to measure the competence of state education systems (and release the funds), the student's increased performance has motivated them to give positive verdicts on legislative policies and impose sanctions where necessary. But NCLB just creates more fire by adding fuel into it. NCLB has been constantly reporting on student performance by combining the racial and income sub-groups providing the advocacy supporters with more firepower (Dee, Jacob, Hoxby, & Ladd, 2013). The students are expected to attain a certain expertise on the course by 2014, by having an expert teacher in class.....

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