Ill conceived, fatally flawed piece of legislation.  In fairness, there's a whole whack of pols on both sides of the aisle who had a hand in this cluster-f*** of a bill, not just Bush.

Only an idiot would think this was a good idea. Standardized tests have been dumbed down so that schools meet federal mandates. . .ah yes, the further reduction of public literacy thanks to the gov't. . .nice job.  The Church was briefly confused- they thought it read "No Child's Behind Left."

Why am I now thinking about the ignorant scion of  an ultra- blueblood  clan who should have been kept back about five  times?  Would've saved a lot of lives and money...

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was signed in 2001, with the strong support of President Bush and liberal Democrats like Ted Kennedy. The law's original intent was to reduce "the soft bigotry of low expectations", as President Bush put it. NCLB has instead created lower standards in our schools. When this law is reauthorized, as it will likely be, the states should be empowered to ignore it, as some states like Utah are doing.

NCLB is nothing more than an attempt by the federal government to extend itself into elementary and secondary school education, an area which was traditionally governed by local and state governments. There are a few problems with this new aggressive form of federalism: one, the federalization of education policy increases the chances that mistakes can be made at a national level, thus magnifying their intensity; secondly, it bypasses the localities as an incubator of good policy--after all, what might work in the inner city of Los Angeles might not work as well in rural South Dakota. One size fits all doesn't work.

The crux behind the NCLB is testing. The law was supposed to generate information that would allow the schools to be held accountable for low math and reading test scores. Districts that score low will have their funding cut, thus "shaming" them into reforming. Those measurements however are fundamentally flawed. The law requires the states to identify "persistently dangerous schools", but of course no state wants that embarrassment. Out of 94,000 schools nationwide, only 46 were rated as such! What happened? The states defined the meaning of "proficiency" downward. Essentially, the law encourages the states to lower educational standards for everyone, rather than raise the bar higher! If they don't do that, the state risks losing its federal education funding. Instead of standards becoming more rigorous and uniform, they vary more wildly today. Some states have become more demanding, but many more others have reduced their standards. NCLB encourages schools to concentrate their efforts on the lower end of the proficiency scale; those that can help them meet their "yearly progress" requirements.

This is an issue that best belongs with the states and the localities. States should be allowed to opt out of NCLB. Residents of the states that decide to opt out of the law should instead receive tax credits equal in the amount that they would have gotten from federal funding under NCLB mandates. That law reflects nothing more than coercive form of federalism, where the state and national governments share responsibility over domestic policy. Governments that are more local tend to be more responsive to the needs of the people. Education must be a local issue because needs vary from area to area. Federal mandates in this area arent effective.

The education budget under the Bush administration has nearly doubled, and for what? Have we gotten increased test scores, better educated children or better performances from our inner city schools? Not really. What we absolutely did get was a hugely bloated bureaucracy, rich administrators and union bosses, contractors and local politicians who've lined the pockets with the increased gravy train from Washington. In the mean time teachers have done their best to circumvent the standards and evade any of the stringent restrictions Bush sought to implement. This is one of the huge mistakes of his administration- a waste of time and money.

A more accurate name for this act would be Leave Every Underprivileged Child Behind.

This initiative is laughable.

The single most fascinating of all the initiatives, as it steals from the opposition party the solution they rightly should be held accountable to effect, but never could, given the duress under which the teacher unions hold them. Bush proposed this at great risk from his base as conservatives eschew government meddling in such a behemoth social program, but might be placated if it can be turned into a more efficiently run system with measurable results and teacher accountability. No democrat could ever have proposed it, I would not have thought a republican could, and expect to be re-elected. Now comes the hard part, funding it and making it work.

This initiative is just about the only thing that I've agreed with the Bush Administration on (with the possible exception of taking out the Taliban.) It makes sense to me in theory. If schools don't deliver a quality education (as measured by standardized tests), they risk losing students. I don't claim to be an expert in education, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

Motives were good, implementation was bad, but the motives are the important thing.

Yes, Beanocook the NCLB bill was supported by both parties, proving again that legilators don't actually read what they vote on. The bill has good points and bad. Not surprsingly, the good elements were already in law. If you need to steal a slogan from an organization like the children's Defense Fund, what are you hiding in the bill? Can we stop accusing our highly underpaid education professionals of working for what can barely be classified as a paycheck and have a real discussion about schools? They are problems, but NCLB just rearranges the money and fixing no issues.

You are the dumbest republican ive ever met, and I happened to live in a lily white republican nieghberhood.

As an employee of a mental health facility I work with many schools on a regular basis. To say that most teachers just show up for a paycheck is bullsh#t. Watto doesn't have a clue. Teachers devote their lives to their kids in class and they definetely didn't choose their careers based on money. But that doesn't surprise me that a republican what assume that. After all, republicans only care about money. I would like to know where watto gets their information? No child left behind is a joke. Demcratic resistence has nothing to do with this policy not working. It doesn't work because it's a sh#tty plan. Just like everything else that Wubya has put his grubby little hands on; ie patriot act, tax cuts for the rich; I could go on and on.

Teachers unions hate NCLB because they are in the pocket of the Democratic party, and would never allow a Republican policy to solve a single problem. They hate NCLB because it holds them responsible for their actions; most teachers (there are shining exceptions) just want to show up and receive a paycheck whether the children are learning anything or not. Schools are receiving more federal funds than EVER before in our history. The plan is not perfect, but it is an adequate one - the problems that plague public schools cannot be solved from the federal end.

Oh yeah, this plan has worked out just great. More and more children are being left behind every day. Education in this country is suffering and our children and our educators are bearing the brunt of it.

This is just another one of Bush's reductive and simplistic solutions that merely gives lip service to the problem, provides only half-way measures, and, in the final analysis, entirely misses the point. There is an overreliance on testing in this program at the expense of covering subject matter and shoring up intellectual skills, as teachers have to instruct to the test, which has repeatedly shown, in other contexts, to be a quest for failure. In essence, teachers should be focusing on the development of a student's conceptual, reasoning and logical prowess, addressing basic skills and presenting subject knowledge to students, not just primping their classroom charges for an arbitrary test that only has evaluation merit within its own insular criteria. In this, if a teacher is successful, his/her students will be quite accomplished at taking standardized tests, which is a narrow skill, while being shortchanged in much more important and applicable educational concerns. Furthermore, the results of these tests are not being used for any positive or palpable educational purpose, rather merely serving as a touchstone for determining which schools and school districts should be financially punished by the federal government. Standardized testing should be used as a diagnostic tool to determine a student's weaknesses and the areas in his/her development that need improving so that proper remediation can be applied. Instead, the moronic Bush plan is to subvert this very important function of standardized testing by using it as a means to reduce funding to the very underperforming schools and districts that need extra instruction and remediation, larger and more specialized staff to address underperformance, and such measures require sound, solid and consistant funding. In this, underperforming schools and districts are punished under the suspect fiat of a standardized test, which is illogical and counterproductive, as there are myriad mitigating factors that contribute to educational underperformance besides any given teacher's competance. In addition, this program, which is budgeted at something like $18 billion a year, which is peanuts in terms of the entire federal budget, has been underfunded to the tune of about $6 billion/year, which means this initiative is close to $20 billion short during its lifetime. Hence, only 2/3 of the money promised was actually delivered, which is a pretty cynical reality when one thinks about it. The clueless Bush administration's educational experts, headed by former gym teacher and overseer of the fraudulent and intellectually dishonest Houston school district, Uncle Rod Afro Bagboy Paige, should be addressing issues like national educational standards and curriculum, classroom size, physical plant of our schools, increased remediation, reduction of school district administrative staff and increase of instructional staff, replacement of public school tenure with longterm teacher contracts, utilization of the form and stream educational model that works well in the U.K., etc., if they really want to be serious about attacking the serious problems we have in public education in this country. As these aforementioned are the truly important, obviously recognizable issues to be addressed, Bush's NCLBA falls way short of the mark as it doesn't consider the critical problems at all, is negative and punitive at its core, and serves only to assuage the ill feeling of conservative soreheads who really don't give a rat's ass about educational issues at all, but want somebody, anybody to twist in the wind about this.

Supported by a wide margin within both parties. Providing hope to student in the inner cities of America by forcing schools to improve. The teachers unions only support the status quo. That works in the white areas but unfortunately that pisses on the poor. The union doesn't get it.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, passed by the Congress and signed by President Bush, has long been hailed by the leaders of both parties as a step in the right direction towards raising student achievement levels and fixing the crippled education system. Indeed, for the last 20 years, real education reform has been scarce and the typical answer from liberals (and even now conservatives) is more funding. Even the majority of Americans believe that the answer to truly reforming the education system is MORE funding. George W. Bush, who in 2000 campaigned against the increased federalization of the education system, has placed his signature on the largest education federalization plan in 25 years. As a student, and as someone who is very interested in policy matters, I have mixed feelings about the No Child Left Behind Act. I think we can all agree that Congress and President Bush had good intentions with this law. However, as my friend irishgit likes to say, the greatest harm is done by those who seek to do the greatest good. Of course we all agree with the law's stated purpose: demanding accountability from teachers and school districts. There are several components of the NCLBA that are actually useful and with some modification could be put to use (i.e. teacher accountability and Special Education Reform). However, the NCLBA throws federalism out the window with regards to the education system, and signifies a more forceful federal role in the education system. States and local districts (even those that are performing well) are now expected to comply with loads of federal mandates. Let us approach this issue logically. The average school budget is composed of roughly 8% federal funding, with the remaining 92% coming from the states and local districts VIA state and property taxes. Logically, should an institution that only funds 8% of a school's budget be solely responsible for setting accountability and testing standards? Should the federal government have complete control of an education system in which they, in a very broad sense, pay very little money into? Writing this as a student, I personally have felt the ramifications of the No Child Left Behind Act. The emphasis now placed on standardized tests as a result of NCLB is unprecedented. Teachers will now spend an average of 3 months (January-April) doing nothing but preparing for the tests, while ignoring the cirriculum. Most disturbing is that a special provision of NCLB requires states to not only test their students, but to actually test the tests. That's right, Texas students take an average of 4 BENCHMARK tests a year. Furthermore, the testing system itself is flawed. For instance, here in Texas, we take Integrated Physics and Chemistry as High School Freshman and Biology as Sophomores. However, we take a standardized science test as 10th graders that covers Integrated Physics and Chemistry as well as Biology. In fact, roughly 75% of the standardized test here in Texas is composed of very specific subject matter that we were taught a year or two ago. Keep in mind, these tests are very specific and do not focus on a more basic subject matter. Furthermore, the wording of the tests is such that the student cannot truly comprehend what the question is asking. Honestly, prior to 2002, when NCLB was signed into law, the standardized test here in Texas covered a much more basic subject matter (after all, the purpose of standardized tests is to ensure that students have a MINIMUM understanding of the subject matter). However, due to NCLB, Texas and many other states were forced to overhaul their entire testing systems even though they were quite efficient. Prior to 2002, my district was one of the highest performing in the state. Now, we have fallen from a Class A school to a Class C school, a significant drop in performance rating. Has NCLB been good for Magnolia, Texas or anywhere else? NO. As a result of the Bush tax cuts, less funding is being distributed to states, and thus, states are picking up the tab. School taxes in my district have increased $500 since last year in order to comply with NCLB. Sure, federal spending on education has increased 60%, but that's not nearly enough to cover the costs of NCLB. What I have listed thus far is just a small sample of the terrible mistake that is NCLB. It is one step further towards the complete federalization of the education system, and is essentially an unfunded mandate that is placing a terrible burden on the average American.