The current No Child Left Behind legislation hurts schools, tests and categorizes children unfairly, and holds teachers hostage to teaching to the test.  It is a punitive law which uses flawed ‘standardized tests’ to label schools as failures and punish them with counterproductive measurements.  The legislation must be reconsidered and rewritten, particularly in the areas of assessment and accountability.

Under the current law, teachers are required to ensure that students pass a test.  Hence, teachers teach for the test.  Since the test is a ‘standardized test’ or a one-size-fits-all, different learning styles and experiences among students are not addressed or considered.  Just because a student scores poorly on a test, does not necessarily mean that a particular student is poorly educated.  The dilemma of standardized testing has plagued education forever and continues to disadvantage a significant number of non-white minority students.  Likewise, teaching to the test, only waters down the concentration of education necessary for students to advance.

No Child Left Behind is legislation that is bias, unfair, and harmful in its current state.  It needs to be repealed immediately. 


Sources:


hhttp://www.associatedcontent.com/article/288677/the_no_child_left_behind_legislation.html?cat=​

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/darling-hammond/3
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/nclb181.shtml