How No Child Left Behind Fails Principals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

How No Child Left Behind Fails Principals - Essay Example Just how this is to be done is still unclear. The law has created strict penalties if highly qualified teachers are not hired for high poverty areas. The law assumes that the educational institutes will under this mandate be forced to hire better teachers. The law does not consider the fact that while the principles may want to hire the teachers, the teachers may not want to work under the unstable conditions of schools in such areas. The law does focus on accountability and testing and it does bring to light the groups in society not scoring well on tests. It does to an extent create the need to score better within the school systems. Yet, as the law completely ignores the external factors affecting the scores in schools it has not proven to be effective. The law sees the problem as regulatory while it is actually one based on societal factors. Schools within neighborhoods where poverty is high, have a number of external factors that affect the test scores students achieve. The students come from low income families and usually have low attendance rates, they have crime issues, instability within the family structure and all this combines with having students moving away, causing an unusually high mobility rate for students within the school. Similarly, teachers who are highly qualified and have the ability to some extent reach these students do not want to work in such an unstable environment and tend to move for a better opportunities somewhere else. While theoretically the Act seems to be a step in the right direction, for it forces the parties involved to take action for improvement, it is practically not very effective for it provides no law by which this can be achieved and seems inflexible in understanding the various perspectives involved in the problems faced by the teachers, students and principals whilst trying to provide an education and trying to attain it. Data Analysis The teacher's survey was conducted for two school districts [the Fresno (CA) Unified School District and Richmond (VA) Public Schools] which asked the teachers there opinions of the Act and its effectiveness. Both these district schools catered to low income and minority group students. Findings: The teacher's response was that while the Act was suggestively effective and while they agreed that some sanctions or form of accountability was necessary to ensure that proper education was being imparted to the students, by asking that test scores be monitored and become the basis of the accountability was not the right step. They suggested this would limit their curriculum as the teachers would begin to focus on the test requirements rather than a more critical form of education. The Act requires that teachers be motivated by fear of punishment but the fact is that is not much of a motivator for the teachers surveyed suggested that they see their current position as temporary and within five years they would opt for a change. Limitations The Act is definitely correct in its assumption that the educational standard for the low income area schools has to