Proposals to Alter No Child Left Behind Will Affect Early Childhood Education
The No Child Left Behind Act is the primary statute governing the United States federal government's role in early childhood education. The Johnson Administration passed the act as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This act was overhauled when George W. Bush joined with Democrats to emphasize its focus on standardized test scores.
George W. Bush made early childhood education reform a major part of his domestic platform, stating that he wanted to end the continued low expectations that are placed on minority students. He called for test based accountability, which appealed to many Republicans, but ran into a lot of opposition from conservatives due to the fact that the proposal called for a vast increase in the role of federal governing in an area that had been traditionally left to the state government. With the help of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other leading Democrats the bill was passed and became law.
The Obama administration has proposed another sweeping overhaul of the nation's signature early childhood education law. The administration has called for broad changes to how schools are deemed to be succeeding or failing. They have also called for the elimination of the act's 2014 deadline for the achievement of academic proficiency by every American child.
The current early childhood education act calls for states to set standards in math and reading, and for all students to be proficient or above proficient at math or reading by 2014. Students in 3rd through 8th grade are tested yearly, and based on the results of the testing reports are issued regarding whether students and schools are making adequate progress towards achieving that goal. The scores of groups like disabled, non-English speaking and minority students are broken out separately. The schools that fail to meet the required annual progress face a variety of sanctions, from the threat of state takeover or the shutting down of a particular school to being required to provide poor performing students with tutoring.
During the presidential campaign of 2008, Barack Obama praised the early childhood education law's goals but also criticized its weaknesses. However, Obama and his administration does not plan to abandon the act's commitments encouraging teacher quality to narrowing the achievement gap between white and minority students. The administration reportedly wants to alter federal financing formulas so that rather than apportioning money to districts based on the number of students money would be apportioned based on academic progress.
Under the Obama administration new proposals to the early childhood education act, a revamped accountability system would segment schools into more categories. These divisions would offer recognition to those schools that are succeeding and provide large amounts of money to improve or close failing schools. Additionally, the early childhood education act would receive a new goal. The new goal would replace universal proficiency deadline of 2014 and would be for students to graduate high school "college or career ready." These new standards would also detail what students need to learn in lower grades to successfully advance toward high school graduation. Congress must approve these proposed changes before they take affect.
About the Author:
Bill Jenkins is the Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Advancement at Grand Canyon University, College of Education. For more information about our early childhood education, visit our website.
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