Leaving No Child Behind?

Résumé du document

Education has been one of the biggest priorities in the American political debate for the past few years. As schools and education have faced tremendous difficulties in certain areas and failed to provide rightful opportunities to every American kid for a long time, the federal government ran various policies and passed laws in order to solve education problems. In 2000, the Bush Administration decided to contribute to this process by proposing new radical measures. Voted in 2001 by the Congress and promulgated in January 2002 by President George W. Bush, ?No Child Left Behind' aimed at deeply reforming the American school system in order to impart education and improve the performances of children to ensure a holistic development. The book ?Leaving No Child Behind- Options for Kids in Failing Schools', Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn Junior discussed the implementation of this law. They published this study in 2004 and conferred that it was still too early to evaluate the efficiency of the measures proposed and enforced by NCLB (No Child Left Behind). In thirteen chapters of the book and through various contributions, the authors have studied the law in general and paid heed to aspects like how it has been implemented in different areas, the problems faced during this process and how it could be improved. For instance, the book uses specific examples to address its topic from different places like Florida, Michigan, San Diego, Worcester (Massachusetts) or Montgomery County (Maryland).

Extraits

[...] NCLB aimed at favoring competition between public schools by allowing parents to choose where their children would study. This competition is supposed to give incentives for better performances. Indeed, the public schools that do not make the AYP are more likely to lose students to the profit of public schools that make the AYP. They would subsequently lose the credits related to the children who have decided to move. Moreover, the label need of improvement” is not very good for the image of the school and is thus supposed to give it incentives to do better. [...]

[...] Options for Kids in Failing Schools, Palgrave Macmillan, New York p.249 Frederick M. Hess, Chester E. Finn Jr Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools, Palgrave Macmillan, New York p.177 Frederick M. Hess, Chester E. Finn Jr Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools, Palgrave Macmillan, New York p.177 Frederick M. Hess, Chester E. Finn Jr Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools, Palgrave Macmillan, New York p.292 Frederick M. Hess, Chester E. [...]

[...] The federal authorities refer to this extra-help as “supplemental educational services.” The Act contains other potential sanctions but the authors of Leaving No Child Behind? have decided to concentrate their study on those two very important measures. Schools that do not manage to make the AYP are labeled as “failing” or need of improvement.” This label allows them to receive supplemental funds during the first year in order to make the AYP. If they fail two years in a row, the district will allow their students to move to another school making the required AYP. [...]

[...] The authors see NCLB as a successor of Lyndon B. Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act enacted in1965. The Johnson Administration aimed at increasing funds for disadvantaged districts in order to give more to areas that needed it the most by redistributing the available money. Its efficiency has not been completely proved but President Bush's Act is said to be much more ambitious. The NCLB plan relies on the careful evaluation of every public school. Indeed, each school must be tested each year in order to check that it is making “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP). [...]

[...] They had therefore not enough time to enroll their child in NCLB. For the year 2002-2003, only 24 families took advantage of the opportunity to choose the school of their child by transferring him (or her) to another school of the district of San Diego. This number has increased a lot the second year to around 300 students and reached of the population eligible to transfer. This low percentage can be explained by various reasons. Indeed, even though they often have a bad image of the national public school system, parents are very likely to find that public school perform well. [...]