No Child Left Behind It Research Paper

McDermott and Jensen point out another contradiction in NCLB. The law requires that states and localities enact policies and build curricula based on the evidence of scientific research. While it is a good idea to do so, the legislation itself is not based on any science, nor does it offer any body of good scientific literature to schools and teachers, nor guidelines for selection the kind of good science to use for this purpose. Moreover, the legislation contains loopholes that exempt some states from complying in some ways and it allows for some practices that distort the test results in some situations. These loopholes and exceptions are themselves impediments to any good science that might come from the testing regimes required (McDermott & Jensen, 2005).

The authors of "Dubious Sovereignty" describe yet another of NCLB's contradictions. The proponents of the law say it protects individual students rights by enforcing a uniform standard for a high quality education across the country. However, the legislation allows the individual states to set up their own standards and create their own tests, and therefore there is not a true uniform standard nationwide (McDermott & Jensen, 2005).

Camille M. Mayers's article "Public Law 107-110 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: Support or Threat to Education as a Fundamental Right?" examines how the law impacts the populations it was designed to help. Mayer's view of the law is negative. She demonstrates how some states use various methods to discount the test scores of subgroups whose scores can hurt the school's ratings, even though those groups are the supposed beneficiaries of NCLB. The author illustrates how the standardized test required of the law can pose difficulties to students who come from backgrounds where formal English is not spoken or accessed regularly. Still, such students are the ones lagging in achievement. Mayer's research points out that poverty is the greatest factor undermining student success, but NCLB doesn't address that underlining issue.