No Child Left Behind Act (Act! Is there a pun intended?)

No Child Left Behind Act
In essence, the idea of No Child Left Behind sounds noble. In reality, it has created more focus for itself as a controversial law (Public Law 107–110), as opposed to investigating authentic reasons why targeted groups of students are in dire need of educational improvement. It has been stated that the primary focus of NCLB is to improve and equalize the educational opportunity for all children in the country. In an effort to do so, the government has placed emphasis on improving the reading and math scores of students. In order to accomplish this, the standards for teachers (credentials) have been increased, testing of students (for the purpose of accountability?) has become almost paramount, and an insufficient amount of funding has been set aside.
What I have seen of this law in action has caused me to be concerned for the students it is intended to help, then relief that NCLB exist. To be specific, this existence of this law has never been discussed, in my presences, by administrators, as something positive. Instead it is referred to with annoyance. The testing, which is supposed to measure the progress of students, which the government sees as reflective of teaching skills, has taken center stage to education. Teaching the test is a reality. Teaching the test undermines constructive learning. For exceptional children the test produces even greater stress than it does for general education students. Standardized testing is not authentic testing and not necessarily suitable for students that have already proven to be below grade level. What it has done is to validate what they do not know; instead of measure what they do know.
Also in regard to children living in poverty and those with learning disabilities, there are so many factors affecting their ability to learn that NCLB doesn’t take into consideration. It would not surprise me to learn that both States and Districts fudge testing results to appease the government. There is also pressure on internal Child Study Teams to classify students in order to separate their cores from the general education students. As a first year teacher I have seen practices that have given me pause. I will not even mention the lack of funding and how that has affected my class…..