10 Sep 07 No Child Left Behind has no place in conservative politics

Here we sit in the midst of debate on the re-authorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.  The passage of any real changes in NCLB is unlikely, and therefore we are set to continue on with a broken law.  When Bush signed NCLB into law, he implemented the largest intrusion of the Federal Government into local schools that has ever been implemented.  The law threatened and in many cases took away much of the control of local school districts.  No Child Left Behind goes against the very heart of conservative principles, and yet we see many conservatives are singing the praises of NCLB.  Besides the intrusion of the Federal Government in to what should be under local control this law has many inherent problems.  It sets up schools for automatic failure at some point, which then starts a chain of events that effectively puts the federal government in control. 

Following are inherent key flaws in the NCLB.

1.         When fully implemented 100% of students must pass a test that is graded on a bell curve.  Many of the state standardized tests are norm referenced   which means that a certain percentage of the students must fail, if they do not they adjust the scores needed to pass that some students fail.  They do this to adjust for the change in questions that may make one test easier one year than the other.  You can do the math all you want, but it is impossible to have your entire student pass a test that is graded on a curve.

2.       No Child Left Behind does not account for differences in ability.  It is nice to think that everybody can succeed, but the fact is that all men are not created equal.  Some people are not genetically blessed enough to be neurosurgeons.  Maybe it’s biased to suggest that some people are smarter than others, but that is the way life is.  That doesn’t mean that we just let students who are less intelligent drop by the wayside,  It is up to the local districts and schools to ensure that they receive the best possible education.  But setting unrealistic Federal standards is not the direction we should be going. 

3.       NCLB Rewards failing schools, and punishes succeeding schools.  Schools that fail receive a mass influx of federal funds, and as soon as success is mad the funds are pulled.  I understand that we believe that if we through enough money into something that is failing eventually they will succeed, you would think that after all of the years of failures in our Federal Government that we would learn that this doesn’t work, but I guess that they are slow learners.

I was going to discuss that the increased standards have encouraged cheating, and teaching to the test, but that is the fault of the individuals involved, and not the law.  NCLB is a step in the wrong direction for the American Education System and we need to encourage our senators to make significant changes in the law, if not repeal it entirely.