Another day, another wasteful federal dollar spent. This time the
culprit is No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the massive federal education
program passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support in Congress and
signed into law by President George W. Bush in January 2002. NCLB was
intended to improve education standards in America's dismal public
schools. It should have been named No Bureaucracy Left Behind instead.
I opposed NCLB from the beginning. Why? Because education is a local
concern. There is simply no way that all public schools from New York
City to Alaska have the same problems that require a one-size-fits-all
solution. Our public schools are in desperate need of reform. Nobody
would argue with that except the teachers unions, which have a vested
interest in maintaining the status quo. But throwing money at schools
and requiring national testing is like cutting off a limb when the whole
tree is rotten and should be cut down. Money and testing will not solve
the root problems of our public education system, which in many cases
are too pernicious to be handled by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
In the years since its enactment, NCLB has done little more than add
another layer of bureaucracy to education. Has it made successful
progress towards assuring that every American child can read and do math
at grade level by 2014 and that all teachers are "highly qualified?"
The results are not encouraging.
The report from the Department of Education (DOE) states that NCLB is
fulfilling its promises because "all 50 states and D.C. assess students
in grades 3-8 and once in high school in reading / language arts and
mathematics; the percentage of classes taught by a highly qualified
teacher has risen to over 90 percent; nearly 450,000 eligible students
have received free supplemental educational services (tutoring) or
public school choice." This tells us very little about actual student
achievement. DOE says student reading and math scores are improving but
not that every child in America can read and write at grade level yet.
State test scores may be improving but what has happened is that schools
are teaching to the test and have lowered the standards for
"proficiency" because so much of their funding relies upon good scores.
Whether that means students are learning skills they will retain and use
for life is a different matter altogether.