No+Child+Left+Behind

= No Child Left Behind =

By: Izzy Kessler
I read the article "Does the No Child Left Behind Act leave some children behind?" by Hosin Shirvani. The author basically explains how NCLB has changed schools standards and methods. He begins by talking about how President George Bush signed the bill in 2001 and how it was to be implemented in 2002. Everyone believed that this was a great bill and that students who were not getting the help they needed were finally getting some attention, however Shirvani continues the article to articulate that this bill has been far from creating the improvements it was meant to. In the first paragraph Shirvani lists the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act which are "1. Closing the achievement gap between subgroups of students, which include minority students, special education students, English language learners, and White students. 2. Improving teacher quality. 3. Achieving 100% proficiency for all students in mathematics and English language by 2014. 4. Providing an Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for all students in order to show that schools are improving in raising students’ scores" (Shirvani, 2009). He then separates the article into multiple subgroups including "The Achievement Gap," "Funding," and the ones particularly important to my personal research topic being "Ignored Students," "Dropout Students," and "Lowering Standards." He breaks up the article to make everything easy to understand which also allows you as a reader to get information and facts about NCLB that you are looking for. He provides a lot of information (from himself as well as other sources) about how NCLB lowers standards in schools, in particular through how teachers have changed their goals and methods when teaching a curriculum. “NCLB affects testing and curriculum since it motivates teachers to teach the content of state tests to improve students’ score rather teaching for conceptual understanding (Flinders, 2003).” This quote really sums up one of the biggest issues that NCLB creates with standards. Not only have teachers changed lessons just to help students memorize answers rather than to actually comprehend the class, but states have changed tests and curriculums for their schools to make them easier, therefore making a higher passing rate. Even though students may be passing their classes it is apparent to Shirvani as well as his sources that NCLB has not helped those students understand their classes, it has only motivated states to LOWER STANDARDS in order to just push those kids along whether they are ready or not. So “Does the No Child Left Behind Act leave some children behind?”… You be the judge.

-Links:

 * [] (Barack Obama on NCLB)
 * [] (NCLB: Truths and Consequences)

-Citations:
--> Because you need to order the article go to this link to read it: []
 * Images from left to right: thewhitehouse.gov, berkeleydailyplanet.com, ocps.net, texaseducation.wordpress.com, wrightslaw.com
 * ======Flinders, D. J. (2003). "Failings of NCLB." Curriculum & Teaching Dialogue 7 (1/2), 1-9. ======
 * Shirvani,H. (2009). "Does the No Child Left Behind Act Leave some children behind?" Retrieved From: [].