The Issues

Why is NCLB failing students? There is no one reason for the law's current failure. For one, the NCLB law has created an inflexible, one-size-fits-all grading system in American schools. Every student must take the same tests which attempt to measure what all students know and can do. But the variation that exists from state to state, school district to school district, and school to school makes it unlikely that an equitable educational system will ever be established in the US. Even those who are not completely familiar with English are required to test at the same level as English speaking students.

Such tests are “only one measure, one snapshot, of student achievement,” (Hobart), and when the government judges students based on these tests, it may not get an accurate diagnosis of a student's quality of learning. When a school's students score badly on these tests, the school itself is often labeled "failing". Such a rating suppresses the school's ability to improve, as incoming teachers tend to turn away from schools with such score assignments. “Is anybody going to want to dedicate their life to a school that has already been labeled a failure?” asks Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommon Professor of Education at Stanford University. As if these crippling policies aren't enough, the actual funding allocated by NCLB to schools is next to nothing, only accounting for about 10% of most school's budgets. Such pitiful funding along with suffocating restrictions and unfair assessments makes it unlikely for many schools to meet their AYP (i.e., adequate yearly progress).