No Child Left Behind revisions sorely needed

---

Tweet

No Child Left Behind is being, well, left behind. President Barack Obama intends to drastically reshape former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law from nearly a decade ago.

No Child Left Behind is a law that gives each of the nation’s 100,000 public schools a pass-fail grade based on the school’s performance in annual math and English exams.

Funding is then determined for the schools based on those assessments. The plan limited curriculum by making schools focus attention on making students proficient in English and math, along with labeling one in three schools as failing.

Introduced to Congress on Monday, Obama’s plan includes some features of No Child Left Behind, such as annual reading and math tests, but will replace the pass-fail school grading system with a system that would measure individual students’ academic growth and judge schools based on attendance, graduation rates and other conditions conducive to learning.

Instead of forcing pupils to reach standard proficiency levels, the new goal would be for students to graduate ready for college and careers.

Although it’s hard to say for sure if Obama’s education plan will work any better than Bush’s, it is refreshing to see the new administration realize the current problem areas and attempt to fix them.

No Child Left Behind was crafted with good intentions but created a lot of difficulties once it was implemented. The plan left behind teachers, forcing them to spend most of their time on reading and math proficiency, especially in primary schools where one teacher taught most of the subjects.

It also left behind the students it hoped to help by preventing broad education in other areas such as history and science, focusing proficiency requirements on English and math. One of the most problematic provisions of Bush’s plan was allowing only teachers who were certified for certain subjects to teach those classes. The rule forced a lot of schools to shift teachers around to comply with the rule.

Bush’s program failed to acknowledge individual schools for the most part and failed them by not taking into account key attributes such as the schools’ population makeup. No Child Left Behind was not conducive to learning in many ways, and revisions by the Obama administration to the plan are more than welcome.

Judging the schools on learning climate indicators, such as student attendance, will help many districts. Also, allowing and encouraging schools to offer more diverse and interesting courses in art, history, science and physical education will help students become more intelligent and well-rounded overall.

The administration will call for more interaction in failing schools, reward top performers and lessen interference with well-run schools in the middle of the pack. This is a good inclusion by Obama as many decent and well performing schools were denied funding in the past because of a few lackluster test scores.

No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2001, and this is the first time that any major changes are being proposed to the plan. Although it’s nice the Obama administration is trying to re-evaluate and improve Bush’s policies, it is not helpful or effective for the government to reform plans with each new administration.

Improving education in our country must be a bipartisan effort, and politicians constantly should be aware of the pulse of the nation’s school systems. Keeping that in mind, federal government interaction should remain limited, leaving states and school districts with the primary responsibilities of setting curriculum and evaluating educators and their methods.

---