No Child Left Behind seemed like the beacon of hope to solving all our nation’s education woes when President Bush signed it on Jan. 8, 2002, but, six years later, educators and legislators are shaking their heads at what could have been.
Today, this law faces prospects for renewal, but such chances seem slim when dissecting the very nature of No Child Left Behind. It is a law that provides a lot of bark with no bite, as it establishes lofty goals for K-12 schools across the board but does not provide sufficient financial backing to reach such standards.
The U.S. Department of Education introduced its report, “Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act,” to outline the pros and cons of the law, as well as to discuss strategies for its renewal this year.
“The No Child Left Behind Act recognizes what truly makes a difference in providing a quality education,” the publication stated. “It calls for a highly qualified teacher in the core subjects in every classroom … and timely information and options for parents.”
It is indeed an inspiring motto to woo the hearts of America’s concerned parents and teachers, but it is hardly enough to allow fancy words to compensate for a lack of financial planning.
No Child Left Behind establishes academic goals for our nation’s elementary, middle and high schools. Schools are increasingly held accountable for student academic performance, and if students are still lacking in progress, schools must pick up the slack by providing services such as free tutoring.
The problem is that schools that do not meet Bush’s and the U.S. Department of Education’s standards must scrape together their own resources to provide said services.
Currently, 98 school districts in California fall below the outlined standards.
The pressure is high for schools to maintain a certain degree of academic quality, but often, fiscal support for improvements is not provided by the federal government.
Which is why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has had to intervene in order to help pull those 98 K-12 school districts out of muddy waters.
But Californians are not the only ones complaining about No Child Left Behind’s standards and the fact that state and local resources are being spent in order to appease the legislation’s criteria.
In 2005, school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont joined the largest teacher’s union, the National Education Association, to file a lawsuit against U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and No Child Left Behind.
The lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of the legislation.
No Child Left Behind requires that states and school districts spend local money to administer standardized tests and meet other U.S. Department of Education measures. But the Constitution outlines that no state or district can be forced to spend money on expenses the federal government has not paid.
Indeed, this lawsuit has proven to be the biggest opposition to Bush’s No Child Left Behind, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled in the school districts’ favor against Spellings and the legislation.
And, while Bush has made plans with Spellings to strengthen and reorganize his K-12 educational reform baby, the renewal of this law in Congress this year looks bleak.
It is too idealistic of Bush to provide a piece of legislation that promises greener pastures of educational bliss without fully outlining the financial resources for such results.
It is also absurd to expect our nation’s schools to reach such ambitious goals by digging through state and local school districts’ wallets in order to compensate for missing federal funding.
Bush can continue to defend the original integrity and so-called “success” of No Child Left Behind.
But the rest of the nation can rest assured that this fiscal black hole for state and local funding will be put to an end.
And though we cannot provide future legislative promises of K-12 educational heaven, we can at least hope for educational reform that provides reasonable and obtainable standards.
Was your high school hurt by No Child Left Behind? E-mail Chung at lchung@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.