No Child Left Behind: Noble act still has problems

Aristotle put it best when he said, "all men by nature desire knowledge."

This statement is true of almost every child enrolled in the public school system of the United States: Essentially, kids want to learn. But how can we ensure students are really learning the material necessary for a successful future?

On Jan. 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. According to the U.S. Department of Education's Web site, the goal of this act is to "help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers."

After meeting with Mike Watty, Carson City's associate superintendent of education and Superintendent Mary Pierczynski, I learned many important facts about the No Child Left Behind Act.

The premise of this act is a very good one.

First of all, schools are responsible for demonstrating adequate yearly progress as determined by test scores among third-, fourth-, fifth-, eighth- and 10th-grade students. If the scores do not meet the national standard for two consecutive years, there are consequences.

This all sounds well and good until one dives into the specifics of the act, especially in the areas of the sub-group dilemma, student and parent accountability and the lofty goal of the No Child Left Behind Act.

All schools must demonstrate adequate yearly progress, or AYP. AYP does not refer to the school as a whole, however, but to each racial and economic demographic within the school.

So each demographic, or sub-group, must have a certain percentage of students pass the competency test, rather than the entire school being required to have a percentage of its students pass. For example, in all elementary schools about 33 percent of Hispanic students, Native-American students and students from low-income homes must pass the English Language Arts test.

Although I understand that the goal is to ensure that no child is left behind, the act has, as Mr. Watty put it, "the potential to be detrimental to schools." It is unfair to have one sub-group cause an entire school to fall into need of improvement status.

Once a school has this label, parents are given the right to transfer their children to a different school. This can be hazardous for school districts because of the propensity to overcrowd schools.

Another problem is that immigrant students are included in testing after only three years of enrollment. How can these students be expected to test as well as their English-speaking classmates?

The second major issue with the No Child Left Behind Act is that students and parents are not held accountable.

If students don't take the test or their parents don't allow them to be tested, neither party can be punished.

However, 95 percent of the students enrolled must be tested before a school's results are even taken into account. It is ridiculous to impose these strict regulations on schools but have no way to force students to take the exams.

Third, the No Child Left Behind Act has a very lofty, and probably unattainable, goal. In 12 years, all demographics in American public schools will, in theory, reach a 100 percent proficiency rate.

Considering this year the proficiency goal for English language arts in elementary schools is 32.4 percent and mathematics is 37.3 percent, reaching a 100 percent level of competency in 12 years seems pretty far-fetched to me.

I do believe that all children have the desire to learn and it is important to hold them to a high standard.

But the No Child Left Behind Act has many problems in the form of the sub-group dilemma, student and parent accountability and its lofty goal to be successful.

The intent of the act, however, is noble. In Pierczynski's words, "It forces the schools to step up and be more accountable."

Jessica Smallman is a senior at Carson High School. She is writing a regular column for the Nevada Appeal as her senior project.