As a teacher who began his career
in 1998, I can attest to the damage NCLB did to the teaching profession,
education overall, and to the children left behind in the wake of a demanding,
unyielding, bulwark of state and federal accountability. Informed by
experience and the listed research, NCLB was a program that pressurized
standardized testing unilaterally and redirected funding at the cost of
educating our children.
The ideal of school accountability
systems are designed to:
encourage educators to align their
instruction with important learning standards, foster the adoption of
instructional techniques that produce measurable results in student learning,
improve the quality of educators entering and remaining in schools, and inform
educators and the public about how well students are learning various subjects
and skills (Davidson, Reback, Rockoff, & Schwartz, 2013).
With this in mind, NCLB accomplished some of these,
however, the pressure placed on schools and districts by federal mandates and
state directives lined the pockets of test designing companies as schools and
districts scrambled to create tests. This pressure forced schools to manipulate
data and subgroup reporting to appear accountable, when in fact vast
populations of students were underperforming and underserved (Davidson, et al.,
2013).
Funding
also left vast amounts of students behind. At the risks of losing accreditation
and students, underperforming schools in low-economic and urban areas ran the
risk of losing Title I monies if AYP targets were not met. These monies would
then be redirected to school outside the district to more affluent districts as
school choice came in to play leaving the urban school under funded for the
remaining students (Sanders, 2008). Moreover, school decisions to redirect
funds away from non-assessed courses like the arts, physical education,
history, and many other programs depleted these programs and sacrificed a
future for those students within those programs to grow and flourish (Pederson,
2007).
The
impact of NCLB remains in question. While some research suggest positive
impacts such as teacher quality and student performance (Davidson, et al,
2013), other research stress the negative effects on the schools and students
left behind with a lack of funds, closings, cauterization to charter schools
and more affluent schools (Sanders, 2008). Personally, “teaching to the test”
effect was apparent in PLC, faculty meetings, and district professional
development. Although always denied, the riptide of the accountability always
held the noose of school closing above our heads. This looming doom impacted
our teaching and relationships with our students.
References:
Davidson, E., Reback,
R., Rockoff, J. E., & Schwartz, H. L. (2013). Fifty ways to leave a
child behind: Idiosyncrasies and discrepancies in states' implementation of
NCLB. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w18988
Pederson, P. (2007).
What Is Measured Is Treasured: The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on
Nonassessed Subjects. Clearing House, 80(6), 287–291. Retrieved from Education
Research Complete database
Sanders, A. (2008).
Left behind: Low-income students under the no child left behind act (NCLB). Journal
of Law and Education,37(4), 589-596. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/200982802?accountid=12085
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