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The No Child Left Behind act (NCLBA) was passed in 2001 and it revolutionized the way the students of our nation received education. Some people, like Dennis Gray, a senior associate for then Council for Basic Education believe that this revolution was not the best course of action for all students. Gray's belief was that, "The push for national standards, if successful, will mire schools more deeply in mediocrity" because the standards we set would prove too high for some and too easy to achieve for others. Education before the NCLB was scattered and definitely needed repair, but is there a happy medium? One that challenges the students that are above the standard, one that caters to the needs of those who need extra help, and one that allows students with interests that aren't quite academic to learn what they need to, and to succeed in the field they want to. Education was disorderly and the question of what children should know before graduating was widely debated. Different school districts were teaching different thing and there wasn’t much of a standard for education. This act has affected all students who received education from 2002 to the present day and may affect students in the future. Now that we have the No Child Left Behind act and standardized education all races and social classes have an equal opportunity for education, but one question still pesters students and parents, is standardized education, helping students? Or holding them back? The students of the United States and the way Americans view education has been changed by this revolution. Children of ethnic minorities that were being denied entrance to a better education based on SAT scores were given a more equal opportunity through this act. President Bush, the spear-header of the NCLBA, said, “We expect third graders to read and do math at the third grade level—and that's not asking too much. Testing is the only way to identify and help students who are falling behind. This nation will not go back to the days of simply shuffling children along from grade to grade without them learning the basics.” He believes that the act was helping children who weren’t receiving the education that they needed and it has helped improve the education of students across the nation. There was great resistance from parents, students, administrators, politicians, teachers, and communities. President, Barack Obama, believes that the NCLB act was too rigid and strict, and he plan on replacing it with the Race to the Top act which and he said, "This competition will not be based on politics, ideology, or the preferences of a particular interest group. Instead, it will be based on a simple principle—whether a state is ready to do what works. We will use the best data available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform—and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant. Not every state will win and not every school district will be happy with the results. But America's children, America's economy, and America itself will be better for it.”The two acts are similar but have different beliefs at the core, the NCLBA may have been necessary but is it now out-dated?

The uneven education across the nation and even inside of individual schools caused educational progress difficult and remedial. Past attempts at the standardization of education failed but with the No Child Left Behind act education became uniform and progressive across the nation. Teacher began to demand a standardized form of education so that they would not have to teach children what they should have learned in an earlier class just so they could start their own lessons. Students weren't learning enough to pass standardized tests such as the SAT and ACC. The problem was first realized in 1989 at a education summit in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was approached by President George H.W. Bush where he, "Ignoring traditional Republican reluctance to actively involve Washington in education policy, Bush teamed with the president of the National Governors' Association — Democratic Gov. Bill Clinton, who had been active in education reform in his home state of Arkansas"(Mantel) Once he confronted the issue, people started asking notice of ow lopsided the education system was. In 1994, President Clinton signed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which acted on Bush's agenda and provided federal funds to help states develop standards. This act "“signaled a nationwide commitment to standards-based reform"(Rudalevige) and our country was on the right track. All of the programs before NCLB were slowly helping but this act was what finally capped it off into a perfectly standard of education for every state.

Now that we have standardized education, students need more freedom in school in order to pursue their dreams and so the age old question of 'when am I ever going to use this?' will finally be answered with meaningful classes that prepare students for the future. Education is an important part of our society and of every society and children have never been overly enthused about it. Education has been constantly changing for centuries and now, in our country, we have reached a point where each state has set up standards for our students to achieve. "An education should make students aware of the range of scholarly views on a subject, teach students how to marshal evidence on behalf of a point of view and instruct them on how to make a logical case for their conclusions. An education is not about providing students with the “correct” conclusions on controversial matters." (Horowitz) Education should be instruction on how to think not what to think and this way our education should be setup.

My plan would be implemented the way No Child Left Behind was implemented,through the government. I would start at state levels, plead my case, and gather supporters. The issue will be solved through the increased participation of student in class and, therefore, test score of students. This plan will help prepare our students for the future while increasing test score and returning the USA to the top of the educational scale of the world.

The goal of education reforms is always to increase the standardize test scores but this is merely a political gain, this in no way proves that our students are ready for the future. Robert C. Robert C. Scott, who is a Member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce said, "Tests, when validated and used appropriately, can serve as powerful diagnostic tools to expose shortcomings in our educational system and help individual students... In the absence of such a plan(in President Bush's proposal), test results may be used merely to punish students and schools rather than to help them achieve."(Scott). This plan will use standardized testing as a tool, rather that a milestone.

"The “balance” requirement, which demands opposing sides of every controversial issue in the classroom be heard and given equal time, reduces all discussion of controversial issues to a debate over stereotypical versions of extreme alternatives. . . . This will, if written into law, cause a dumbing down of the mental life of students to the cartoon version of intelligence we find on right-wing talk shows. [Here], everything controversial is broken into categories such as conservative vs. liberal, religious vs. secular humanist, or American vs. communist. It forces classrooms to waste time giving equal time to aberrant opinions when there could be a developed discussion of alternatives . . . viable from an academic point of view. The legislation has the effect of undermining mature discussion; in other words, it . . . undermines academic freedom while claiming to promote academic freedom."(Auxter) Tom Auxter is the president of the United Faculty of Florida. This was a statement he made on legislation introduced in the Florida called the Academic Bill of Rights thar was written by the conservative activist David Horowitz. This 'bill of rights' goal was to redesign school so that it would teach student to think not what to think.

Auxter believes that if the issues of the country or world were to be debated and thought about in class, this would in fact "cause a dumbing down of the mental life of students" because teachers would influence student with their extreme views and the way adults split things into categories such as 'conservative' vs. 'liberal' will dull the minds of students. So, in short, children should not be troubled with worldly issues. I disagree, students need to,know what it happening and be able to process it without difficulty.

“Is NCLB really paying off? The answer is yes,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President Arthur J. Rothkopf said, "While current testing data is still abysmal, it nevertheless “represents improvement from where this nation was” before the law.The law has benefited urban schools by raising reading scores for African-American and Hispanic fourth- and eighth-graders and math scores for African-American and Hispanic fourth-graders to “all-time highs.” Achievement gaps in reading and math between white fourth-graders and African-American and Hispanic fourth-graders also have diminished since NCLB." Students in urban and intercity school have been doing marginally better. Even though the test score of 4th and 8th graders have increased by a small margin, 8.1% of all students will dropout. "the average high school graduation rate in the nation’s 50 largest cities was 53 percent, compared with 71 percent in the suburbs."(Dillon) Students are just not interested by school or they cannot afford to go to school. Our test score ay have increased but what is that increase compared to the amount of students that will never finish high school?

"in urban schools 50 to 60 percent, and sometimes up to 80 percent, of the kids are “high-needs,” Robert Balfanz, associate research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center on the Social Organization of Schools says, "We're (urban schools) not set up to respond when that many kids need one-on-one tutoring, monitoring of their attendance on a daily basis, [or] people calling up to say, 'Glad you came today,' " These students, instead of learning what they need to for the next test, should be learning what they need to succeed in the future.

Learning valuable life skills are important for the future of all students. Mayor Douglas H Palmer of Trenton, N.J., president of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors says, “You don't have to be rich to talk to your child, help her build vocabulary and learn to reason and negotiate." Why should parents be the only ones burdened with teaching students these things? It takes a village to raise a child.

"The principles underneath No Child Left Behind -- standards, accountability, transparency, and choice-- are a major step in the right direction; taking away power from education bureaucrats and returning it to those on the front lines of education -- the local schools, the local teachers and the local parents."(McCain) McCain believes that no child left behind is the solution for our country. I disagree, it is a start but it is. I the answer to the issue of our education system. In order for progress, we need to ensure children finish school and are prepared for the future, no child left behind is not doing this for the students of the American education.

I love the ancient African proverb I used earlier one, "it takes a village to raise a child" and I wonder, why can't our society be like this? Instead of leaving parents to teach our children all the skills they need to know, our schools should be able to help. We can keep teaching students content that will aid them in passing standardized tests, but these tests should not be the final goal of our students education. With a skilled based education, students would have a more engaging and rewarding education experience. With the support of our community, this is possible, not only possible, but also highly likely.

Bibliography:"John McCain." The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company, n.d. Web. 30 Apr 2012.The Washington post is a reliable source that reports on today's issues. This was an interview with John McCain from the issues of the day. I used it because it holds John McCains on No Child Left Behind. Dillon, Sam. "Large Urban-Suburban Gap Seen in Graduation Rates." New York Times. N.p., 2009. Web. 25 Apr 2012. This article is a secondary source published by the accredited new paper, the New York Times. It is an article about the dropout and graduation rates of Urban city schools and suburban schools. U.S. Department of Education,. "Dropout Rate Facts." National center for education statistics. U.S. Department of Education, 2010. Web. 25 Apr 2012. The National Center for Education Statistics is a primary source that provides information on things such as national test scores and graduation rates. Jost, K. (2001, April 20). Testing in schools. CQ Researcher, 11, 321-344. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/This included the opinion of Robert C. Robert C. Scott, who is a Member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. It's a secondary source that gives an opinion on Bush's standardized testing. Koch, K. (1999, May 14). National education standards. CQ Researcher, 9, 401-424. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/Kathy Koch is an assistant managing editor, specializes in education and social-policy issues. She has freelanced in Asia and Africa for various U.S. newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor and USA Today. Clemmitt, M. (2005, October 7). Academic freedom. CQ Researcher, 15, 833-856. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/Marcia Clemmitt is a veteran social-policy reporter who recently joined the CQ Researcher after serving as editor in chief of Medicine and Health, a Washington-based industry newsletter, and staff writer for The Scientist. Mantel, B. (2005, May 27). No Child Left Behind. CQ Researcher, 15, 469-492. Barbara Mantel is a freelance writer in New York City whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and Mamm Magazine. This article is a primary source that offers background on the issue. "Barack Obama: State of the Union message (2011)." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.This is the president's state of the union adres and is a primary source. It details the Race to the Top act and offers a 'con' side to the No Child Left Behind act. "George W. Bush: State of the Union message (2004)." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.This is the president's state of the union adres and is a primary source. It details the Race to the Top act and offers a 'pro' side to the No Child Left Behind act. Hamilton, Justin. "Archived: President Obama, U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan Announce National Competition to Advance School Reform." ED.gov. Department of Education, 24 July 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. .Justin Hamilton is the Deputy Press Secretary and he wrote this article as a review of the Race to the Top act. It offers information on the new act and supports President Obama's opinions.

Clark, C. S. (1994, March 11). Education standards. CQ Researcher, This article is a secondary source by Charles S. Clark who is a senior editor at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. I am using this source because it is about the education before the No Child Left Behind act and it supports the act, it is the pro side of the argument. Mantel, B. (2005, May 27). No Child Left Behind. CQ Researcher,  This article is a secondary source by Barbara Mantel who is freelance writer in New York City whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psycho pharmacology and Mamm Magazine. This article was written during the time that the No Child Left Behind act was signed and offers an inside view on it.