NCLB

The No Child Left Behind Act serves as the foundation for increasing student proficiency. Some of the ways the NCLB aims at improving student achievement are through accountability, high-quality teachers, and parent involvement. The NCLB policy was set up so that ALL children have an opportunity to receive an education. Whether they come from low-income families or have learning disabilities, the State wants to make sure all kids are educated equally. This means that the same teaching requirements and opportunities are available to everyone.

Even though the NCLB Act is making many advances in education, there are some disputes. Are the goals reasonable? The NCLB Act tries to unify the diversity that is present within schools. It helps all those who speak different languages and come from different cultures to come together to work towards a common goal. However, some children go home to parents who do not speak the same language as that at school. These children then must balance there language according to where they are. Maybe learning reading may be harder for them because they are un-teaching themselves grammar and phonics from their own language. Hence the decrease in reading scores is due to their environment. Maybe they go home to parents who cannot read, this makes it more difficult learn reading skills. It also may take longer for different children to learn a certain subject area. NCLB wants all children to be the same, when in theory it is impossible to compare children from different backgrounds.

NCLB focuses on parent involvement as well. But what happens when a parent does not want to get involved? Parents may think that teachers are babysitters. They want to drop off and pick up kids and not worry about what happened in between. Although most parents report that they want to be partners in their children’s education, usually those parents with more formal educations will only follow theirs child’s success throughout the grades. I believe the NCLB Act needs to think of more aggressive ways to reach out to parents.


NCLB is based on standardized test scores and closing the achieve gaps in New Jersey schools. Reading is very important in this policy and starts at an early age. However, I feel that with NCLB books are read to get answers, not for enjoyment. Teachers teach children information they need to know to past a test, not to understand. The state is more concerned with raising the Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) and comparing children throughout the states. I personally do not think standardize test accurately measure a student’s progress. They just serve as a means of showing statistical data for their beliefs. I personally feel that NCLB needs a lot of reforms.