No Child Left Behind
The "No Child Left Behind Act" was signed into law early in 2002. It was areauthorization of an earlier bill that had the goal of improving schoolachievement for all students (Jorkenson & Hoffmann, 2003). The bill wasintended to increase accountability for student achievement or lack ofsame, tying this accountability to federal funds. It requires that localschool districts increase parental involvement, monitor student achievementclosely, and in cases where student achievement is not progressingadequately, determine the reasons and apply remedies. Emphasis for monitoring progress was placed at the state level andrequires that each state establish assessment methods that track allstudent learning against a set of nationally-set standards. It emphasizesthe idea that increased funding alone will not increase achievement or newrules and emphasizes public accountability for student progress or lack of The roots of NCLD are in the 1981 National Commission on Excellence inEducation authorized under 20 U.S.C. 1233a, which was charged with the taskto "review and synthesize the data and scholarly literature on the qualityof learning and teaching in the nation's s
chools, colleges, anduniversities, both public and private, with special concern for theeducational experience of teen-age youth. Department of Education (USOE),charged with implementing the new laws, has a Web site designed toalleviate concerns about the increased emphasis on testing. Meanwhile, a Web site for the U. The NEA pointed out that the new rulesencompass a wide variety of issues including "standards, tests, alignment,professional development, rewards, sanctions, teacher quality, curriculum,resources, and the system's positive and negative effects on schools andstudents," (NEA, 2003b), and that if the results were to be measured usingone measurement, then all of those factors should organized in what theycalled a "coherent way. The NEA put forth ten standards they believedwould constitute a well-planned accountability system, including student-based goals and objectives (NEA, 2003b). Harcourt Bracepublishes achievement tests and would have a financial interest inpromoting the idea of achievement tests as a good way to measureeducational effectiveness. The NEA is opposed to using achievement tests toevaluate teachers, and it is likely no accident that their tenaccountability standards focused on what the students, and not what theteachers, would achieve. It has asection of what they call "myths" and "realities," such as the concern thatincreased testing will call struggling students to drop out of school. The NEA expressed concerns about wide sweep the new rules take,pointing in particular to accounting schools and teachers accountable forstudent performance, recognizing that many factors beyond what the schooldoes may affect achievement. At the same time, the emphasis on testingmoved toward the task of providing a means of measuring student performanceagainst national standards (Jorkenson & Hoffmann, 2003). Naturally, the USOE will work hard to encouragethe idea that these changes are valuable and needed. Newexpectations were codified when the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994(IASA) was passed in 1994 (Jorkenson & Hoffmann, 2003), This law and its companion bill, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act,focused for the first time on all students, not just those judged at riskfor failure or disadvantaged. TheNational Education Association (NEA), the primary organization for publicschool teachers in the United States, has expressed their concerns notabout the goals of these laws so much as their implementation. " However, the new laws don't call for that, and theemphasis has been on testing.
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Acceptance Essays
