In contrary to the strong criticism of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) in the article “Testing the Joy Out of learning”, I personally think that even thought the NCLB has many shortcomings, it also has many benefits as well. It is important to remember that the NCBL is a work in progress; it was established with the intention of improving the literacy standard of students and to decrease the literacy gap between the the upper and lower class. The NCBL had a noticeable positive impact on “student achievement. There is ample of data indicating that the NCLB significantly increased the math performance of students. In a research conducted which compared students performance post and pre NCBL implementation, they found an improved performance of students post NCLB with a “ 0.19 standard deviation.”(19 percentage improvement.) However, the research mostly indicates a significant improvement in math scores amongst socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, which has narrowed the achievement gap between the Upper and lower class students .

“The below table indicates the effect of NCLB on the math achievement of Hispanic fourth-graders was roughly 6 points larger than the corresponding effects on white students, implying that NCLB closed the white-Hispanic achievement gap by 19 percent.”

Another flow in the article, “Testing the Joy Out of learning is that a major portion of the research presented is based on teachers and students self-reports, which is at best subjective, and hence always open to bias. Also, a lot of the questions conducted during the research presented in the article, “ask respondents to retrospectively assess whether certain practices have changed over time.” This makes the data presented very questionable and unreliable. (Bradburn and Sudman 1988).

Also even though school budget and spending has increased in response to NCBL, this increase has brought about many favorable side-effects. The “NCLB led to increases in teacher

compensation” and increases in the number of graduate teachers as well, which off course has a positive impact on enhancing students learning.

There is another independent research conducted by Cecilia Elena Rouse ,2007, which found that the pressure accountability policy puts on schools and teachers has a positive impact, especially “on low- performing students (through grade retention, summer school, and tutoring, for example)”. Cecilia found that the accountability policy also “reduced principal control and increased the resources available to teachers.” So over all the the accountability policy of the NCBL , enhanced student achievement.

NCBL also led to increased teachers’ compensation from an average of 75,000 dollars per year to 80,000 dollars per year. So basically as a result of the NCBL, teachers salaries increased. In my opinion that is a very positive step. This will increase the value of teaching as a profession, and make it more valued by society and the educational institution.

NCBL accountability policies has brought about other positive changes as well. It brought about an increase in the use of the diagnostic assessment(Hamilton and others 2007). For example, “school and district administrators reported that NCLB increased the use of diagnostic assessment (exams used by teachers to determine a student’s areas of strength and weakness)”. This is very powerful tool to gauge students progress, strengths and weakness, and helps teachers identify and focus their classes to meet the students needs. In RAND research , it was found out that under the NCBL, teaching practices have significantly been improvement , which lead to improvement in student achievements (Hamilton and others 2007).

Another improvement brought about by the NCBL is a significant enhancement in student “behavioral engagement”. NCBL decreased students “tardiness, absenteeism, and apathy”. (22 percent improvement).

Hence its quite obvious that the NCBL has brought about many positive changes in the educational system, especially in improving Math performance and closing the achievement gaps between the higher and lower class students. However, research indicates no improvement in reading achievement. The NCBL is constantly evolving and further changes will be done by the federal government to ensure, that also reading performance is enhanced, other sciences and arts as well. NCBL is a work in progress and what we are witnessing today, is just the beginning of a positive reform in the educational system.

Reference:

Dee,T., Jacob, B. The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Students, Teachers, and Schools . Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2010