Due in part to its special needs program, Powers's school showed low test scores. Thanks to "accountability measures," the beloved principal was fired a week before Christmas break, sinking morale school-wide. Test scores have continued to drop.
In 2006, nearing re-authorization of the law, Mr. Bush was greeted with applause during these remarks to the NAACP: "See, we must challenge a system that simply shuffles children through grade to grade, without determining whether they can read, write and add and subtract. It's a system — see, I like to call it this: We need to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations."
The profound disconnect between this lofty goal and everyday classroom reality is vast.
One of the well-intentioned NCLB objectives is to improve the academic performance of disadvantaged students by providing more choices for their parents regarding their education — for example, giving them the opportunity to switch to charter schools.
Steven Cugley, a twelve-year teaching veteran who works at a Los Angeles junior high, illustrates the difficulty of making this aspect of NCLB work for the kids who would benefit most from it. Cugley was concerned about a smart student's failure to ever turn in his homework. He tried several times to contact the boy's mother. After having no luck, he made a home visit, but no one was there. As he drove down the street, he found his student collecting cans to get money to buy himself dinner.
"We've got kids who aren't thinking about homework or test preparation; they're worried about finding food," Cugley said. "This kid's single mother with eight children works three jobs just to pay rent and try to provide for her kids. She doesn't have time to oversee his homework, much less his education. There are many parents who are simply not going to go through all the paperwork required by No Child Left Behind and aren't able to give the required volunteer time to get their children into a charter school."
Click for President Bush's speech on No Child Left Behind.
Schools serving underprivileged students bear the brunt of the policy's sanctions.
The schools serving underprivileged students, the supposed beneficiaries of NCLB, bear the brunt of the policy's sanctions. And teachers like Cugley, who are actually passionate about helping these kids, aren't getting any support. Conscientious teachers like him go above and beyond out of genuine concern for their students each day. The standardized test doesn't take into account the many factors that make a great teacher, or a student with true potential in the world.
In 2006, President Bush announced the American Competitiveness Initiative, which sought to increase investment in research, development and encourage entrepreneurship. This billion-dollar initiative would strengthen education in the U.S. by improving math and science education and foreign language studies in high schools.
Again — sounds reasonable, right? But there's a major downside to this too.
Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving, a maker of educational materials for high-performing math students, says this policy requires schools to devote all their resources to helping below-average students meet basic requirements, not in helping above-averages students flourish: "The schools now have even less incentive to develop [high performing students'] skills. So, the top students need to go elsewhere for their education. That's good for my company, to be sure, but not so good for the future of science, technology, medicine and anything else in this country that requires top minds."
Former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor agrees, remarking recently at a conference in New York City that, "One unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is intended to help fund teaching of science and math to young people, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics education, because there is no testing for that anymore and no funding for that.
