Is "No Child Left Behind" Good Law?

The Short Answer: No. There are, as you can imagine with a 1,200-page monster like the 2001 reauthorization to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which has become known as No Child Left Behind, both positives and negatives. The negatives of NCLB outweigh the positives.

The Longer Answer: No Child Left Behind is fundamentally flawed. Its very length is prohibitive for what is espouses as its stated goal, which is "To close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind." It fails miserably.

Before launching into a diatribe against the promulgated monstrosity, there are some positives to point out. For one thing, passage of NCLB has shone a light on a very serious problem in America, as fully one-third of our teenagers (nationwide) are not making it through high school. We should note that the present Kansas State School Board claims a 90 percent graduation rate; this statistic is probably inflated.

Another positive is the law's protection for the marginalized student; fewer at-risk kids are falling through the cracks, so to speak. This is a very good thing, indeed. And one more very important positive of the law is that is has forced the fifty States of the Union to take statewide measurements of their education services. This latter point is the greatest achievement of the law.

Now, having spoken of the positives of the law, let us consider the failings of NCLB. While it asked states to take measurements across their width and breadth, it also asked the states to decide their own rubrics - their own measuring sticks - for determining their own progress. A classic "fox guarding the hen house" situation, if an employer tells someone that they will lose their job if they don't measure up, but then allows them to determine just what measuring up means, then you won't be getting rid of very many bad employees. The same logic has been applied to NCLB.

The law encourages teachers to teach to tests, and the law has fostered a climate where testing prevails over true teaching.

The law has lowered the bar. Overall, the general dumbing-down of our educational standards has been exacerbated by NCLB.