Free No Child Left Behind Act Essay Sample

Summary and Commentary

Hanushek, E.  A. and Rivkin, S. G. (2010). Quality and Distribution of Teachers under the No Child Left Behind Act.  The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(3), pp. 133-150.

In this article, Hanushek and Rivkin, examine the no child left behind laws on the major bench marks that are expected to be achieved. They note that the main benchmarks of thi9s act is the examination of two major issues, which are, the test scores that the schools must maintain to ensure that they do not receive sanctions and the quality of teachers that this schools have. Hanushek and Rivkin, notes that for all they children to achieve this desired quality of education as outlined by the act, there must be a good distribution patterns of quality teachers to the public schools. this is based on the fact that it is the teachers that determines the outcome of the students, a key reason that therefore ensures whether a child moves concurrently with the rest of the class or not.

 
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With the question of quality having been introduced, Hanushek and Rivkin, examines on the possibilities that the act may end up making raising the cost of education to in America. Although they are quick to add that so far there have no been major areas of tougher assessment in the process of recruiting teachers, they cannot fail to see that the pressure for better performance shall force the schools to compete for more effective teachers which may eventually cause an upward shift to the general pay rates for teachers while at the same time, the demand for an improved quality of materials may cause an upward push for prices of materials that are associated with academic provision.

This article gives the topic f no child left behind a new outlook altogether. In analyzing the requirements of the act, the author notes that the act demands that special measures be put in place to ensure that there are no learners who are left behind when the issue of result delivering is concerned. The article poses some questions on the practicability of the act since learners may be diverse and thus may automatically have a rate of conceptualizing the taught materials differently. The article therefore questions the mechanisms that have been put in place to ensure that no child is left behind in education services.

The article dwells more on what the act says concerning the topic of measuring whether the students meets the proficiency. Rohlfsen, asserts that the act somehow fails to recognize that there are many individual differences to learners which mean that the learners can be poor in one area but remain overly good in another area. Since the act only measures the proficiency on specific areas, the act may lead to teachers coercing the students into what they were not meant to be as they may have been having feelings that whatever they are required to do is not out of their own volition, but a product of coercion from their teachers. Rohlfsen, therefore faults some areas of the act and assert that what the act purports to bring can only be recognized if there are a multi faceted ways of evaluating the students.

Naomi C. (2008). Many States Have Taken a "Back loaded" Approach to No Child Left Behind Goal of All Students Scoring "Proficient". Center on Education Policy, Washington, DC. 2008.

In this research based article, the issue of the progress towards the achievement of the targeted score as outlined in the no child left behind act which seeks to achieve a 100% score by 2013-2014 in state exams is examined. The article looks at the gains that have already been achieved while looking at the steps that have been taken to ensure that the targets of the act are realized by the set time. The article notes that most of the states have "back loaded" their approach to the No Child Left behind Act of 2001. What is meant by this term is that many states have focused on little gains at the beginning stages of the entire process and schedule for greater achievements at the last years of the implementation period.

The importance of providing checks to ensure that the act is achieved as it was intended to be achieved should not be underscored. As noted by Naomi, all the stakeholders in education provisions should ensure that their are enough trajectories to spread through the entire period to ensure that the education change that that is intended to be achieved is both sustainable and achievable. This approach borrows heavily from the retention theory which assumes that what is already learnt is retained by the learners, but some percentage is usually lost. The proposed approach therefore is based on the assumption that there is as learners acquire new knowledge, they build upon better performance that shall ensure that they achieve the targeted objectives.

Yamamoto J. (2010).No Child Left Behind. Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration. 6(3), pp166-188.

With new objectives of the entire learning process, there is a need to examine they quality of teachers that are mandated to oversee the achievability of the act. This therefore means that it is important for various persons to ensure that they remain focused towards delivering quality work. The article focuses on the need to have a better training approach that shall oversee the achievement of the targeted issues of the act as proposed in the No Child Left behind Act of 2001. Of particular interest is the issue of disabled learners who according to Yamamoto, must also be incorporated into the new system under the ac t. he article therefore focuses on the nature of pedagogies that are required to ensure that they disabled students are also reached by the act. 

It is agreeable that there is a need for improved pedagogical approach for learners with some forms of disabilities. There is a need to ensure that this group of learners benefit forms the bill and that they attain the set 100 percent mark that that has been put forward as per the No Child Left behind Act. To ensure that the teachers are given this invaluable training, there is a need to ensure that they get trained with special emphasis on various abilities and capacities of children with disabilities. Yamamoto, therefore dwells on examining the training needs for teachers that are to work with this category of learners especially due to the effects of their disabilities.

Capps R., Fix M. E., and Murray J. (2005). The New Demography of America's Schools Immigration and the No Child Left Behind Act. Non partisan economics and social policy research. 8(4), pp 162-185.

The nature of the American population is dynamic. Recently, the country has experienced huge dynamism as far as the issues of ethnic and racial disparities are concerned, especially due to immigration of non native speakers into America. This new immigrants poses a huge challenge to American schools as some of them have to learn English as a second language. Due to the complexities of these classes, Capps Fix and Murray have examined how the challenges of new immigrants affect the implementation of the No Child Left behind Act. They argue that it may be hard to have the final target achieved due to the huge immigration trends that are in turn affecting the quality of teaching in the American schools.

To some extent, the assertions made by Capps Fix and Murray holds water due to the challenge that comes with new students who have to learn the new language. The No Child Left behind Act title three is clear about the desired levels of English. Title III of the act holds states accountable for annual improvement of the standards of English among the learners. Whereas it should be the responsibility of the state to ensure that all students learn English and excel in the subject, whether the students are natives or new immigrants, there are forces that may prove hard for states to crack. The issue of immigration is not controlled by the education departments and thus some states may be forced to take children whose performance in English is below the preferred average. This therefore may jeopardize the score of the language and thus the achievement of the act. It is this issue of new immigrants and how they may make the process hard that Capps Fix and Murray chooses to address. 

Information Synthesis

From the analyzed articles it is evident that there are many issues that surround the No Child Left behind Act. Hanushek and Rivkin, examine the quality of teachers and how this is meant to affect the entire process of achieving the proposed measures of the 2001 act. Hanushek and Rivkin argues that the implementation process of the No Child Left Behind Act demands that schools be supplied with adequate quality teachers to make this issue achievable. This is because according to them, the quality of teachers is of great essence to ensure that there is a general continuous improvement to the point that there is an agreed performance that the act refers to as the one hundred percent mark.

Similar sentiments have been echoed by Yamamoto, who examines the issue of quality of the education providers. Yamamoto, asserts that for all learners to be given an equal treatment, it is of great importance that the entire process of training teachers be looked upon to ensure that there are enough teachers effectively trained to deal with children of special needs. Focusing his research on disabled children, Yamamoto, argues that the learning needs of this category of learners demand that the children be assisted in a special way to conceptualize the needed material. This is what the act calls for where all children shall be educated on a platform based on equity.

This shows that to some extent, the authors of these articles have an agreement that the quality of training that the teachers need to have is of great essence. It adequate training that determines the productivity of the teacher as hinted out by Yamamoto, and Hanushek and Rivkin. The two articles focus more on the global trend of education especially due to the rise in the importance of knowledge in any economy. The knowledge based economy has layer a lot of emphasis to the required training approaches, a fact that forces the education providers as well as the policy makers to lay a lot of emphasis to quality of training. Despite the fact that the issue of training of trainers is a current global issue, the article majorly focuses on the outcomes of the teachers in the United States of America where the No Child Left behind Act is being implemented.

As far as research methodology is concerned, Yamamoto, gives his work a more secondary research where most of the information is obtained from the existing secondary sources. The article is rich in analysis as well as explaining various policy issues that affect the implementation of the No Child Left behind Act. Similarly, Hanushek and Rivkin, gives there article the same methodology where they dwell on analyzing issues on the ground by utilizing the available secondary sources and looking the main ways that this issue affects the entire process. However, Hanushek and Rivkin, critically analyses the current distribution of teachers on the ground and how this affects the entire process. This makes this article of great importance as far as management of No Child Left behind Act is concerned.

Capps, Fix and Murray article is more of a review of the situation on the ground and how policy issues are seeking to address such problems. The three assert that the act may fall to materialize due to the huge influx of immigrants who have to take English as a second language. With this in mind, Capps Fix and Murray examined how the issue of the increasing immigrants can be accommodated to the education systems of the United States of America. Of great importance is to ensure that the new learners who take English as a second language are incorporated into the new system and ensure that they are brought up with similar sentiments such as those of the No Child Left Behind Act.

On a similar note, Naomi, gives his paper a similar research approach as Capps, Fix and Murray. This paper that examines the success of the No Child Left behind Act as state wise takes a closer look at the approaches that this state applies. The work done by Naomi therefore helps to show the approaches that have been taken by various states as far as the implementation of the act process is concerned.

Naomi, and Capps, Fix and Murray, have a lot of similarities. To begin with they focus on issue of policies and their implementation, making them to gain an important aspect in the entire process. For instance, the issue of emigration into the United States has the capacity to quality of teaching English in such areas. This is because as new students report to school, some of them have to be taught to communicate effectively in English, and since the act demands that this students be helped to a level where they are of similar standing with the rest of the American students, there must be ways of ensuring that the students are given the attention that they deserve and thus ensure that they are able to improve and hit the one hundred percent mark.

 

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