COMMENTARY | Ten states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee — have all received waivers from President Barack Obama for the No Child Left Behind Act that was signed in by the George W. Bush administration.
The No Child Left Behind Act was a concept that had raised a lot of serious issues with the education system instead of the intended purpose of repairing it. One of the more controversial issues what the focus on standardized testing, which focuses primarily on English and math, ended up dulling the aesthetic quality of learning and instead of schools, we had training facilities. Under No Child Left Behind, instead of teaching students, we were training them to one single-minded unified goal. The issue with that is diversity of personal interest was severely neglected in the most developmentally sensitive parts of their life.
With No Child Left Behind, schools were weighed one the populations educational level. Expectations of the school are pressed to the lowest common denominator instead of the highest. This then lowered the performance requirements of the class majority on average. Little to no expectations would be held for students under that standard and they would not be getting challenged to excel beyond the class.
The inequities of the No Child Left Behind are deep and extensive while the proven benefits (and here) are not even close to justifiable. What good is a student that passed high school with a lack or personal motivation and an average educational level of the lowest expectation of the class?
President Obama has made a solid decision that will likely facilitate the dismantling of No Child Left Behind. Because the bill was signed in as federal, the nation as a whole conformed it’s schools to the new policies. To be able to estimate what No Child Left Behind is doing to the education system, a control group needs to be observed to best gauge the future of our children.