No Child Left Behind: A Short Summary and Why it's Failing (Pt. 1)

The statistics are bleak.

According to an article published by Columbia's Teachers College:

• By the end of fourth grade, African American, Latino, and poor students of all races are two years behind behind their wealthier, predominantly white peers in reading and math. By eighth grade, they have slipped three years behind, and by twelfth grade, four years behind.

Aware of this 'achievement gap,' the government enacted the “No Child Left Behind Act” in 2001.

NCLB does the following:

• Ties federal funding to standards-based achievement testing in the belief that setting high standards and measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education.

• Schools that receive federal funding through Title I (funds provided to schools with usually 40% or more of students designated as 'low income') need to meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) or face being placed on a 'failing schools' list and risk closure and/or restructuring. In Baltimore City for example, funds for public schools are provided on a system of per pupil enrollment, and students are free to leave 'failing schools,' lowering a school's operating budget as enrollment declines. A smaller budget means fewer staff, resources, etc. The incentive then, is to get students to pass state tests.

Schools then, in reaction to NCLB, and not meeting AYP:

• Increase course offerings in reading and mathematics, decreasing courses in other subject areas

• Provide block schedules that place students in 4 classes per day/90 min class
  

• Offer few to no electives

• Place students who failed tests in remedial classes with instruction that mirrors the instruction they received when they failed the tests.

• Hire teachers with high turnover rates from alternative certification programs such as Teach for America and the New Teacher Project that educate their cohorts to approach instruction from a NCLB perspective where mantras such as 'high expectations, data, standard-based instruction,' are emphasized.
  

Why is this bad and Why is NCLB is Failing?

The assumption of NCLB is that failing schools and failing teachers are the causes of the achievement gap, and that if teachers stop having the 'soft bigotry of low expectations,' student performance will improve.

But as Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute explains, “the notion that with schools alone you can create equal achievement for children of different social backgrounds is one that's not based in any research. It's not based on any experience. It's not based on any true understanding of what the many, many factors that contribute to student achievement are.”

He, like many experts and educators alike, realizes that NCLB cannot focus solely on schools. Education reform needs to be wrapped up in the reform and policies of housing, healthcare, the economy, and the reform of 'dysfunctional communities' (which I will address in the next blog post).

The biggest impact of NCLB that I've seen in my classroom in Baltimore City centers around a lack of access to a broad curriculum and menu of course offerings. Students have no choice. They are forced to spend hour upon hour in classes that are geared to help them pass state tests that the majority fail. Both teachers and students end up frustrated and burnt out. Students' love of learning diminishes. Teachers' love of teaching feels fruitless. Students are unprepared for higher education, and worse still, are unequipped to critically engaged with, and participate in our democracy.

Rothstein, in another essay ,provides some tangible solutions to education reform:

• Expand existing low-income housing subsidy programs to reduce families' involuntary mobility.

• Ensure good pediatric and dental care for all students, in school-based clinics.

• Provide higher-quality early childhood care so that low-income children are not parked before televisions while their parents are working.

• Increase the earned income tax credit, the minimum wage, and collective bargaining rights so that families of low-wage workers are less stressed.

• Promote mixed-income housing development in suburbs and in gentrifying cities to give more low-income students the benefits of integrated educations in neighborhood schools.

• Fund after-school programs so that inner-city children spend fewer nonschool hours in dangerous environments and, instead, develop their cultural, artistic, organizational, and athletic potential.

All of these are tangible solutions to problems that American educational reformers want to frame as tangible problems, but as I will suggest in my next piece, there is a much more difficult and intangible barrier to solving these problems, making education reform one piece of the larger puzzle of societal reform.