Federal Level Education Pros And Cons

The most recent federal level reforms in education were No Child Left Behind and the Common Core State Standards. These two reforms were brought to American schools with a long-term plan on how to better our education system. With these plans to do so, it faced many critics and controversies with many people throughout America. The first reform, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was brought up by President George W. Bush in 2002. This plan focused primarily on the testing and test participation of students in the third grade up until the eighth grade. By testing throughout those grades, there was a report called, the adequate yearly progress, that was written up to keep track of the progress of schools and to see if they were meeting the standard. This changed the role of the federal government in education by expanding their control over public schools and it changed the roles of teachers and other members of schools to now try to focus on getting their students to reach the standard. If schools did not reach the standard it could end up in allowing students to transfer to better scoring schools and eventually closing the failing schools. Even though it was stated to measure all students, it
Both of these reforms put a huge amount of pressure on the students to reach a certain standard of learning and if they do not do so they will inevitably be affected by it. They put students into a more robust and rigorous learning environment raising the bar on test schools and standards that students must reach. This leads to putting a great deal of pressure on the teachers. This forces the teachers to get their students to a standard and if they do not they will be affected either by pay or their job. Teachers have to focus more on what is on a test and what the standards are instead of educating students. This does take away some of the freedom and creativity in the classroom for both the teacher and the