The No Child Left Behind “law” is supposed to improve the education of students giving them equal opportunity by testing them regularly with a state issued exam. In many struggling inner city schools where graduating rates and test scores are low, students are tested in order to graduate from grade to grade. In the eyes of President Bush and other supporters of No Child Left Behind, this is the best thing we can do to ensure that every child has an opportunity at the education they deserve.
The only problem is that students are not receiving a full education now, instead they spend day after day learning how to take a test properly, and how to do a process of elimination on questions. Teachers have had to throw their lessons plans away because they need to focus the entire year on making sure all the students are prepared to take this state issued test and pass. Students in those inner cities are not getting the education they deserve because since their test scores are so low, they have to focus daily on how to take and pass this test. They are not receiving full educations, but are being pushed through the school system so long as their test taking skills are top notch. Thousands of schools have already decreased time spent in classrooms on other subjects other than math and English, and many have completely eliminated any curriculum that is not math and English. This is a fraction of the education students should be receiving, but because of the schools low testing scores they are forced to learn only what is necessary to pass a test.
Furthermore, what this law is missing completely is that you cannot only change the schools education (even-though they could not do that in a more efficient manner). A student’s neighborhood and living situation play immense roles in how the student will perform in the classroom. Many of the struggling schools in America are in poor inner-cities and rural areas, where the schools are dilapidated to begin with. Imagine how difficult a student’s academic life in Ohio is because his school does not receive any kind of grant or money from the government to help rebuild his school that has no library, a coal furnace in the basement for heat and dangerous fumes to breath, classrooms with a couple of chairs, a few desks, and a giants leak in the ceiling that constantly leaks. In these schools there is no cafeteria, so students go down to the local gas station and billiard hall for a “nutritious” lunch of junk food. A student in an inner-city might be trying to just survive not being murdered by a gang before he or she gets into or out of school, and then while they are trying to go the bathroom or walking in the hallways between classes. If the government cares so much about our children doing well in school and becoming star students, then maybe they could see the bigger picture here that these decrepit and dangerous schools and cities are not providing a place of learning for students. The government can not even fund the schools with more up to date text books that don’t read “WHEN we land on the moon some day.” Many opposed to No Child Left Behind cite this as being the biggest problem and the one that needs to be addressed more quickly. The lack of funding and help from the state and federal government is inexcusable especially when they care so much about the prosperity and education of this countries future leaders.
School reform is a very complicated and there is no one way of answering it. But, the way that our government is handling it with the No Child Left Behind law is having more negative effects than positive ones. It seems that what is happening now is just a quick and cheap way for the government to pretend like they are putting a lot of emphasis and help into the education systems. In reality all they are doing is increasing drop out rates in inner-city schools, graduating students who do not have full educations, and caring only about having high numbers for test scores in each school instead of what is really beneficial for students. The government needs to pour money into struggling neighborhoods and crumbling schools across the nation, to provide the best in learning technology and resources, as well as quality educators. Constant testing is not the answer either; and although, some kind of testing needs to be done to ensure that students are receiving full educations, the school has to provide the full education that students deserve first. This country’s education systems has a long way to go before the governments’ promise of No Child Left Behind will ever be met.
– Joe Monninger’s Journalism Class