The No Child Left Behind Act is a piece of
legislation passed by the Bush administration. This legislation has received a lot of scrutiny over the past few years and has been questioned by many if it is a positive working piece of legislation. Even our two canidates for president agree that something else must be done. As I have mentioned before, this piece of legislation was created in order to help improve the
learning of children in schools throughout the country. The legislation called for students in public schools to have to take yearly test in math and reading, and receive a "proficient" or higher on the tests. In this
plan, teachers were required to become higher certified than the original minimum. In this plan schools received sanctions instead of more funding if they failed to meet the marks required. There even exist a checklist, or a list of
field precentages that have to be made in order to pass. In the intial test one quarter of public schools around the nation failed to meet the
requirnments and were given heavy penalties. States caved in to this legislation and did not challenge the obvious negative impact the act was causing. Not only are penalties given out, but schools lose credibility with this plan. Students are given the choose to transfer to another public school if the school they are attending doesn't meet their requirnments two years in a row. After the original toughness of the legislation, many of the the penalties were not given and the
bill became diluted without funding. States eventually stood up to the bill and said enough is enough, we want to have more control in our public schools. The federal government was given all this
power, but was only giving 7% of the total funding. It was becoming evident that the bill was an imposible feat, as can be seen by the
percentages of states that passed the certain criteria set by the bill. The bill was a good idea, but is much to tough, lacked funding, and hurt the schools that needed the help.
When one looks at a
chart of those in favor of the bill, one can see that people who have been in education support the bill a lot less, because they have seen the negative impact. As can be expected both political parties want change. McCain has said that bill needs to be changed, but throughout his
campaign he has been
unclear on how he wants to revamp the No Child Left Behind Act. Many think he will give more power to the states, but he has not been clear to the public what he feels needs to be done. He did vote for this legislation and has been supportive of it throughout. As I said, he does feel that it needs to be changed, but he belives in No Child Left Behind. The schools I mentioned earlier that needed more funding, John McCain wants to continue to let them lose funding and create
competition for those failings schools to "compete against.
Obama is also guilty of not being as
clear as he possibly could be on this issue. If one were to read both of the canidates website it is actually very clear on what their positions are. Most Americans do not go and look at the canidates websites. The reason I have marked the canidates unclear on this issue is because this issue has been put on the
back burner. When it comes down to it both canidates do have a
plan. Obama wants to fund the project more and follow it while McCain wants to raise federal spending to uhold it.
This information is a lot to get at one time, it may even seem contradicting; the canidates don't have a plan, but they do. Sadly, this has been the confusion with this issue. The canidates are giving conflicting ideas when they say on a website how important this is, but fail to even mention during a rally. In general both canidates really just want this project to be
funded so that there can be benefits gained from the act. Since they are from two different parties their method of changing it is going to be different, but they do seem to see this legislation as problematic the way it is. The methods that the canidates have for going about changing this legislation are what is important to voters and anyone affective by this plan. It has been rightfully argued that it is
ineffective to teach just to
a test. This, the way the project is going to be better funded, and how schools who are not meeting the requirnments are to be delt with, are forks in the road where the two political parites differ. The Democrats believe that there should be some other way to determine progress instead of teaching for certain test, use taxes and reach into the private schools and take money away from low preforming private institutions, and give incentives to teachers who do well. The Republican party wants families to be able to
choose the public school their child goes to by giving them a cetain grant to send them there. In general they beleive in compeition and choice. That has been the centeral theme in their campaign. It would seem that there could be a problem with space if parents choose the public school their child goes to. The schools were created for a reason and have to be used. This is why they are called public schools.
The canidates for president do have views and plans for this subject regardless of how upfront and clear they make these plans seem to the public. No Child Left Behind must be reformed, and must be changed to where everyone involved benefits instead of creating a greater problem in our education field than we already have.
