Politics a Policy Issue in Term Paper

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Superintendents must deal with student populations that change yearly as school choice options alter. These alterations will influence schools that have to present school choice, and schools that do not get Title 1 funds. The child who uses school choice does not have to attend another Title 1 school. They may decide to go to a school that does not get Title 1 funding (Whitney, 2011).

Evaluation of the Effect and Effectiveness of NCLB

Holding schools and school districts responsible for the level of education that they supply is the chief principle of the No Child Left Behind Act. The key to the Act's approach is the make use of measurement tools like standardized tests to be given on a regular schedule, the utilization of benchmarks, and a scheme of encouragements and punishments linked to the generation of higher test scores. On some accounts, the outcomes of this law have been very positive (Cleary, n.d.).

As new or amended standardized tests go into effect in every state, educators, parents, and others interested in education have more trustworthy tools in order to measure the accomplishment of students, as well as the accomplishment of schools. This law commands extended importance on the education of subgroups of minority children, disabled children, and children who doe not speak English. By including teacher certification as one of the measurements used to gauge schools, rising numbers of teachers are going back to school in order to pursue certification credentials (Cleary, n.d.).

NCLB has shown itself to be a standard case of a good idea, with bad implementation. it's a noble attempt that ended up demeaning teachers' morale and putting so much frenzied focal point on testing that real learning got left behind. Before No Child Left Behind was implemented, there was no clear answerability for how well schools were teaching students, and there wasn't a sense of accountability for those performing at a low-level. When students graduated from high school, no one knew whether they were reading at the fifth, eighth, or twelfth-grade level. The light bulb moment came when researchers exposed how poorly many low-income and minority kids were doing. Schools were not doing well by them, and a lot were performing beneath grade level (Rubenstein, 2010).

A lot of the promises in NCLB sound good for enhancing education. Everybody wants schools to do a high-quality job teaching all students. They want to close the gap that exists in achievement. They want to have capable teachers in all classrooms along with safe schools. Parents want to play a significant function in the schools. Unfortunately, the way NCLB in fact works opposes the guarantees that it fundamentally makes. NCLB entails a strict, universal structure that depends exclusively on test scores in order to gauge students and schools, it endorses teaching to the test and a dummied down program of study, the choice granted to parents has been a practical nightmare which does nothing to advance area schools and NCLB mandates school districts to pay for child transfers and privatization.

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These programs have no record of accomplishment. The increased in testing have already escalated the drop out rate and engaged more schools to push out low scoring children. Limited education finances are being wasted on testing, administration, and rules and regulations instead of on decreasing class sizes, providing more early childhood education, increasing parent participation, and pay for up-to-date textbooks (PURE FACT SHEET NCLB- the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, n.d).

Last year, the Obama administration introduced a blueprint for education reform and there are many differences that can be seen between how it is now and how it may become in the future. Under Bush's NCLB, children were looked at according to a universal measure, which meant that children who came into the classroom already behind would end the year still failing when contrasted to their peers. The new plan entails more concentration to personal student growth, not just how well a child measures up to the students around them. Under Bush's NCLB, teachers were thought to be qualified if they held certification in the subject or areas in which they taught. Under the new plan teachers will be required to be proficient in the subjects that they teach (Garrett, 2010).

Conclusion

It is clear that student accomplishment has developed more quickly in the last ten years than throughout the 1990's, particularly for the most disadvantaged children in the country. Accomplishment is what NCLB is all about, so the law has met its most fundamental assessment. The Obama administration distinguishes that No Child Left Behind aspires to help the federal government carry out its most significant education purpose: enhancing the education of the children in the most need. The education requirements that NCLB addresses are not going away, nor are the need for financial support. Over half of disadvantaged and minority children have reading and math abilities far beneath grade level, whether gauged by the hard performance standards of the NAEP or by the standards of the diverse states. Dropout rates linger around fifty percent in a lot of key cities. NCLB is founded on good philosophies and should with time advance the accomplishment of all children, particularly cost-effectively disadvantaged and racial minorities. There is experimental evidence that shows that these philosophies are indeed effective (Ravitch and Chubb, 2009).

There appears to be good and bad things in regards to No Child Left Behind. There is a quantity of evidence that the basic concept is working but there are many that question the implementation of the policy in achieving maximum effectiveness. The Obama administration has put out a plan that will hopefully close some of the gaps that currently exist in the implementation of this policy. What the program is trying to achieve is a good thing, there just needs to be some tweaking done in order to ensure successes in the end. Children are not necessarily learning what they need to but measuring their learning accomplishments solely by testing are not the most effective measure of accomplishment that.....

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