Impact of No Child Left Behind

Have there been huge changes seen in overall education since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act? No not really. In the post Many Children Have Been Left Behind my colleague David discusses the problems of the act and also proposes possible solutions. Like many states, Texas is facing underfunding for the standardized TAKS test, of which teachers have to year after year create lesson plans preparing students for the test. These state-issued tests are often not a very good gauge of comprehensive high school knowledge, but passing is a requirement for graduation in Texas. The majority of teachers see the test, and preparing for it as a joke, therefore students can't be expected to take the test very seriously.

Like David proposed, instead of pouring the money into state wide tests I think that the money would be much better put into SAT or college prep programs. The benefits of programs like this would be seen very soon, because for a lot of kids when they take the SAT they have no idea what they are in for. As it is, not a lot of kids can pay for the prep classes because they usually cost several hundred dollars which isn't exactly pocket change. It's a lot better to get the students prepared for college; because on one hand the SAT is a major admission factor while on the other colleges usually don't care about performance on a much easier state administered test.

To me another crucial piece that has been left out of education reform such as NCLB is the issue of financial aid. This part of our education system gets me unbelievably frustrated and there simply have been no answers. Nobody should have to be discouraged from applying to their dream school just because they're unable to pay the 50k a year astronomical tuition at many out of state universities. Partly I blame the schools with the huge endowments that aren't willing to budge much unless family an income of less than 30k. I also blame the government who can give massive bailouts to struggling corporations, but can't help out the kids who are the backbone of our future economy.

With a country so advanced, America should not have to settle for second rate education policies and as David proposes, maybe we should look to other countries to better structure our system. Loopholes including a state’s ability to make up for bad results by setting low standards or making the tests unusually easy just defeats the whole purpose. The act itself has really done very little in solving the core issues of our education system, and something that initially sounded promising, has since turned into a dud.