Solutions to Problems with the No Child Left Behind Act :: Teaching Education Essays Schools

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) deals with student achievement standards by holding schools accountable for the achievement of their students (Implementation 11). The NCLBA uses standardized tests to chart the success of students. If students are not meeting standards, the school is required to offer tutoring, which is funded by the state with Title I, the education mandate passed in which granted all public schools access to federal grants, money (No Subject 7). The Act itself is not the problem; the problem is that the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standard which is a big part of the NCLBA is not being met. The AYP standard is not being met because schools are not changing their methods quickly enough. It was said in the NCLBA that schools nationwide were to have 100% proficiency of the AYP standard within 12 years (Implementation 9). Since the passing of the NCLBA in 2001, most public schools, nationwide have not improved at all. Solutions There are a number of ways that this problem can be solved. To start, teachers could have to have higher credentials, thus giving them a better understanding of the subject areas in which they teach, and giving the students more and better sources (Facts). Right now teachers are only required to have a bachelor’s degree and be certified to teach, have a teaching certificate. Also, schools could require a minimum amount of studying per week for each student (Implementation 8). As of now, the only schools that require a certain amount of study time are private schools. In each class, there is scheduled time each day/week set aside for studying. Basically, it is a study hall. A lot of schools have study halls already set in place, but, for example, Aransas Pass High School is one of the many schools across the nation which do not enforce studying during that time (Crenshaw). There is one very obvious, but extremely flawed solution to this problem. Schools need to change their curriculums and start focusing more on the