Annie Gbaford

English 301: Section 1 Professor: Rachel Sanchez

The Real Cost of The No Child Left Behind Act

Education has always played a very important role in my life growing up, I had seen how

my mother’s level of education dictated the jobs she could have or even apply to. Growing up I’ve

seen my mother work as a janitor, housekeeper, and dishwasher. I’m sure that there were many

other occupancies that she has done in between those but those are the ones that stuck out the most

to me. I remember when she would have to leave us home alone to go to work she would always

say, “ this is why I tell you guys to take your books seriously so you don’t have to cry every time I

go to work”. I could see that she was miserable at the jobs she worked but she always went to work

so that she could provide for us, her children. Education is essential to success, it leads to being

wealthier, happier, and provides more career opportunities.

There is an undeniable correlation between education level and socioeconomic status,

according to Sewell & Shah “the educational system plays an important role in the allocation of

personnel to various occupational positions”. Having good quality education sets you on a path for

having a better life and more opportunities for success overall. The United States of America is

known for having a good education system until 2002-2015 when the No Child Left Behind

(NCLB) Act was passed and implemented all over the nation. The NCLB is the policy that gave the

state had power over public schools accountable for what students learned and achieved. The whole

basis of this policy was to try to increase student’s test scores and implement more
 funding to schools. Schools were fighting hard to get their students to get higher test scores

that way they could be on the

New findings and studies have shown how damaging this policy was to our education

system and student’s success in school. This policy put students at a disadvantage in their education

which was solely based on assessments to examine their knowledge of certain content areas. This

way of assessing learning was too strict and did not provide enough support for students with

disabilities and English Language Learners (ELLs).ELL students are directly impacted by the

NCLB not only is it harder on these students, but the standardized test is also designed for native

English speakers with the many nuances we use in the English language. They don’t provide a test

that would cater to the ELL student’s ability that could properly test these students on what they

know. Education Next did an interview with Sandy Kress an NCLB supporter asking her about the

policy its effectiveness, and disadvantages of the NLCB. This is what she said, “There are a small

number of students, such as the severely cognitively disabled, who will not perform at such a level,

and the law should recognize these challenges. But for the cognitively able who start school in our

country (the vast majority of our students), there is no reason they can’t all be at grade level each

year”. This is exactly what’s wrong with the NCLB, people who have never taught in a classroom

yet alone worked with English Language Learners make these policies, that put up barriers to the

students learning and make it hard for students to succeed inside of the classroom.

There are many different students in a classroom the way you teach one student may not

work for another. As a teacher and future educator, we have to take extra time to ensure that we are
catering to each of your student’s needs and learning styles, one size does not fit all. Standardized

testing focuses on one way of assessing learning and focuses on 3 subject areas.

The NCLB did not give teachers the time they would need for that, because they are so

focused on getting their students ready for the end of the year state assessments. Funding based on

how well students test in school is unfair we are putting students at a disadvantage in the learning.

Students who come from high-income families tend to do better than those who came from low-

income families. According to Sujata (2019), “The average performance of the lowest income

students in the United States lags about three to four years behind that of the highest income

students an achievement gap that has remained constant for more than four decades, a new study

finds.” Students that come from high-income families tend to live in better neighborhoods, go to

better schools, with more qualified teachers and resources in place to better help their students

succeed. With education already being an unequal playing field the NCLB contributed to making

this even worse.

Education was no longer focused on students learning and understanding the content but

their ability to take a test. Teachers are much more focused on preparing students for a test. The

classroom setting now is set up in a way to prepare students for tests practicing test-taking and

drilling these test-taking skills into the student’s heads. Teachers aren’t checking for a deeper level

of understanding of the content, it is to examine if the student could showcase what they learned on

these tests. there is a difference between knowing how to take a test and actually understanding the

information that they have learned. Schools are under pressure to keep up high test scores so that
they could get more federal and state funding for their schools. This funding is what help pay

teachers, have more extracurricular activities, or hire ELL specialists.

If students are scoring lower on these standardized tests and we decide to take away funding

from the school. This is taking away extra resources that could be in place to help teachers and

students put resources that could help their students succeed like hiring more ELL

certified teachers, instead of having one specialist per district, this does nothing for the

students but further, disrupt their learning. Policymakers and the people in power have never

worked in a school and don’t understand the needs of the students they implement policies that

make it harder as a teacher to teach your students and get them engaged in learning.

The policies also help to widen the gap between affluent students and poor students,

according to Sujita Gupta (2019), “Test scores for 17-year-old students in the bottom 10th income

percentile were far lower than those in the top 10th percentile — suggesting the poorest students’

learning was about three or four years behind that of the richest, the authors report”. We can see this

in Oregon Schools demographics the schools that had less than 45 % of their students on free or

reduced lunch had higher test scores than the schools that had more than 50% of their school on free

or reduced lunch. David Douglas High School in Portland Oregon, 69% of their students are

economically disadvantaged. Less than 31% of the students are proficient in math, 64% of the

students are proficient in reading and 69% of the students are minorities. While at Clackamas High

School in Portland, Oregon, as of 2018 less than 15% of their students are on free or reduced lunch,

61% of the student population is white, and the whole school test higher than 91% of the whole

state. I can find many other schools in the united states with these same statistics.
 The reason that getting a college education is so important to me is that my mother never

had the opportunity to finish high school when we lived in Liberia. My mother had gotten pregnant

at a very young age with my oldest sister, so she had to grow up very fast. Letting go of her

education was one of the things that made her push me even harder in school. Her dream was for

her kids to come to America to get the education that she wasn't able to receive so that they didn’t

have to live in poverty. Education is a roadmap to success when we have policies like the

No Child Left Behind Act, we are doing a disservice to children and their education. It is

important to remember when creating policies, we need to take all the students in mind and their

different needs. Keeping in mind that their lives outside of school have a major impact on their

education. So, when creating policies we need to be mindfully aware that we are not creating

barriers in education.
 Reference Page

Menken, K. (2010). NCLB and English Language Learners: Challenges and Consequences.
Theory Into Practice, 49(2), 121–128. doi: 10.1080/00405841003626619

Albrecht, Susan Fread, & Joles, Candace. (2003). Accountability and Access to Opportunity:
Mutually Exclusive Tenets Under a High-Stakes Testing Mandate. Preventing School Failure.,
47(2), 86–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/10459880309604435

Sewell, W., & Shah, V. (1967). Socioeconomic Status, Intelligence, and the Attainment of Higher
Education. Sociology of Education, 40(1), 1-23. doi:10.2307/2112184

McClusky, N. (2015, February 9). Has No Child Left Behind Worked? Retrieved January 26,
2020, from https://www.cato.org/publications/testimony/has-no-child-left-behind-worked

Next, E. (2011, April 8). Confessions of a "No Child Left Behind" Supporter. Retrieved January
27, 2020, from https://www.educationnext.org/confessions-of-a-no-child-left-behind-supporter/

Gupta, S. (2019, August 8). Learning gap between high- and low-income students remains high.
Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/learning-gap-rich-poor-
students-remains-high

Rankings, N. (n.d.). How Does David Douglas High School Rank Among America's Best High
Schools? Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-
schools/oregon/districts/david-douglas-sd-40/david-douglas-high-school-16460

Clackamas High School. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2020,

fromhttps://www.schooldigger.com/go/OR/schools/0883000093/school.aspx