#nclb

INTRODUCTION

Since its passing in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act has pushed education development towards a Mathematic and English standard, devaluing art and developmental classes in favor of classes that served to boost the state’s education score; student education was transformed into pure quantitative data, leaving no room for qualitative representation.

Education is an extremely vital part of the developing mind, the United States prides itself as being a beacon of education, and NCLB was meant to establish the United States as a global authority in educational standards. NCLB was a federal act passed on state levels, where there was minimal enforcement and therefore not the same implementation throughout each state. As a result of The Act, students are faced with an increasing level of disinterest in their education as the process becomes more tedious than it does beneficial. Students are faced with an exceeding amount of expectations in relation to an increasing level of assignments and a decreasing level of educator engagement; the No Child Left Behind Act proves that education is a business, funding companies who develop state tests, prioritizing the flow of money over the growth of children. Pearson, a testing and education company based in London, developed much of the curriculum and standards surrounding education under the No Child Left Behind Act. In 2011, ten years after The Act was passed, Pearson had recorded a profits increase of about “175 percent” (Davis). While Pearson is not an educational authority in its own right, they are still responsible for developing and distributing tests. As students are made to take state tests, more tests are sold, printed, and shipped. However, an increase in student testing does not indicate an increase in student developmental growth.

Research Questions

Does the No Child Left Behind Act complicate education and de-individualize students and leave them with no confidence in their performance?

The No Child Left Behind Act marked a major turn from the government’s perspective on what they should focus on and subsequently fund; does the No Child Left Behind Act remove qualitative research from education management and force the government to rely in quantitative research when planning national funding? Previous research regarding The Act revolves around the level of federal funding

provided to schools, as well as how The Act has unfolded compared to the intention behind its passing. While previous research does overlap with my research - both are attempting to understand how students were greatly affected by the act - previous research remains quantitative, focusing on the test scores of impacted demographics, often excluding a teacher’s point of view.

Through my interviews, I plan on exploring and developing more insight as to how the No Child Left Behind Act laid the groundwork for a general lack of student interest in school as well as national education standards. While The Act is known as “dead,” the words have only been switched around. Shifting from NCLB to the Common Core, a newer method ofstandardized testing coming from the Obama Administration, testing is still a priority, and less money is being put towards nurturing student creativity, more towards funding testing procedures. The Act has changed, but it still carries essential items from the original NCLB act that serves to keep the United States as an educational authority, sacrificing what matters most - a child’s education.

With my research project, I will attempt to not only explore and develop the position of children in education, as well as exploring ways in which the groups that were meant to be helped the most were continually disadvantaged. By examining teacher relationships to The Act as well as a noted shift in student motivation and performance in schools, my research project will try to shed some more light on how students were largely demotivated and disinterested in school, mainly students who were intellectually disadvantaged or students of color. As generations are continuously placed under this speculation, there is an increase in student insecurity in education; since students aren’t participating and performing at expected levels, they are uninterested in school and therefore feel like another brick in the wall, another number on a sheet with no identity or agency.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Through my research, I hope to continue filling in a gap in the existing literature. Research around NCLB tends to revolve around how the education is not placed in the utmost importance. When NCLB was first passed, there was a shift from education to school performance, and students were placed on lower levels of priority. As more administrations moved in, there was a shift in education policies and studies focused on the impacted generations. NCLB was implemented as my generation began moving into higher levels of education, pushed through elementary and middle school without thoroughly understanding the material. As administrations continue to implement their strategy, there is little-to-no examination of the impacts of former educational legislation on growing populations. Students in college are not examined like those in lower levels, so there is very little information on how information is retained when students fly through school instead of ensured to understand what they’re studying. In adding to the discourse on the lasting effects of NCLB, I hope my research shines light on the lack of discourse regarding people of color and higher education, specifically the low numbers of enrollment. Many times, students of color (mainly male) are described as lazy, apathetic, and insufficiently motivated to succeed in school. The blame is placed on students themselves, expecting them to push through all while the school administration knows they need to follow guidelines to meet federal standards, removing the opportunity to improve student performance where it needs the most help.

Because there were so many complications that were foreseen with NCLB, scholarly literature ranges from articles to journals and published books, one book in particular that explores the effects before and after NCLB is An Education in Politics by Jesse H. Rhodes, diving into the relationship between students and the government before NCLB became a bill.

What we know about NCLB is that education was slipping, as the twentieth century began wrapping up, holes in education were exposing American weakness. Student grades were slipping because students weren’t in school because they weren’t forced to be there as much as kids in the future would have to be. In the seventies and eighties, students were under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, focusing on developing a better educational lifestyle for those who were disadvantaged, disabled, or unable to speak English. However noble The Act may have seemed, there was a deeper intention on maintaining the United States’ authority as an educational power. This soon became the main (and only) intention, as NCLB came in as a revision to The Act, linking federal funding to student performance. What we don’t know about the effects of NCLB is the level of disinterest that has come about from both students and teachers alike. As teachers are forced to focus their attention on student test scores, there is a decrease in interest in lesson planning, as recycling the same information and strategies becomes easier. Every year has a template curriculum of subjects that need to be covered by the state tests in May. While teachers struggle to maintain student interest, students are finding themselves less personalized with education, and instead feel like another cog in a machine. We do not know the extent of student alienation from education, as students are not questioned about their responses to NCLB, some are not even aware The Act exists. Because students are not interviewed, they are instead spoken for, and students are depicted as lazy instead of acknowledged as disinterested, and much of student advocacy in regards to NCLB was tossed to the side in favor of standardized testing and corporate financial support.

Debates on the topic are divided across a strict line: teachers do not support or understand The Act, and the federal government hails The Act as a success, renamed and reformatted as administrations swap hands. Final remarks in regards to student satisfaction with NCLB are mixed, as statistics don’t specifically correlate with how students feel. With a primary focus on test scores, there is a disregard for the student who is a good test taker but a bad student, the student who cheats, the student who does better in class than on tests. Students who perform below standard are paid less attention to; Instead of being given a specialized education plan, they are shoved into a class with over-simplified lesson plans. Because the statistics are used to speak for students, there is a disregard as to how tests are actually being taken. Existing knowledge is limited in that it does not take students into account. Research surrounding NCLB is centered around statistics: researchers notice staggering test scores in regions throughout the US, and as they explore these scores, the use quantitative data that was already gathered through previous testing. Essentially, researchers have drawn comparisons between test scores pre and post-act. Existing knowledge is flawed because it’s so limited. With a focus on The Act’s effect on students and test-taking, there is a decrease in an examination of legitimate student motivation.

My research will address these limits by expanding on student development under The Act, primarily through teacher interviews as they are able to provide a deeper qualitative response to student development. Planning to address the level of student involvement through the years, my research will revolve around the blueprint left behind by NCLB: a blueprint that demoralizes students and builds the pockets of corporations.

What makes my research different from prior studies is the angle of interrogation. Many times, NCLB is studied in relation to the testing companies that have profited from The Act, and schools that have suffered or prospered as a result of. Studies on NCLB are mainly quantitative, schools are compared against each other, and those scores are what we study and talk about. Studies on NCLB oftentimes leave out the inter-personal aspect of the relationship between students and teachers - the reason why teachers haven’t quit their jobs and how they’ve managed to adapt under NCLB. My research project differs from prior studies in that it attempts to place the spotlight back on the initial inspiration for this act: the student relationship to education and how the United States has failed future generations.

METHODS/THE SELECTION PROCESS

The criteria for selecting my interviewees was not immensely polarizing, as I know it would be more important to have a diverse pool of teacher opinion to draw from, compared to a set of interviewees with a similar mindset, providing similar answers. The criteria used in selecting interviewees involved:

Their time in the NYCDOE Their teaching education Their personal education (growing up) Their relationships built with students Their connection(understanding and ability to adapt) to lesson planning Their time teaching Their level of socio-economic privilege

This criteria was chosen because NCLB was introduced in the beginning of the millennium. Since then, there have been several changes made as the Presidential Administrations have succeeded. NCLB is the mold that has shaped current curriculum expectations on a state level, and had come to define federal expectations for student development. The criteria I chose for my interviewees allows for an open pool when considering an interviewee’s age, race, and upbringing, most relative to where they went to school versus where they work now.

NOTE: I have included a short profile of each interviewee, in their own words. All quotes in this paper have been edited for length and clarity.

Case 35 is a math teacher in Manhattan, New York City. They grew up in Long Island, have worked from the South Bronx through Manhattan, and are now working in Lower Manhattan.

[I am] an interracial adoptee growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood of the suburbs. I was one of four Asian students total, in my entire school district. I would describe that with education, I was also in a challenging program. I was actually a year younger than every person in my grade, I skipped a grade going from kindergarten to first grade. And I scored the highest on the state exam given in second grade. And so I was put into an accelerated program, where twice a week I was pulled out of my regular school, and I attended a special school where I learned Middle School material at a third grade level. I went through high school, I continued to do well, never studied, did well, I had the highest score of my incoming class at my college for the ACT's. And I was all honors and AP, graduating fifth my class of 421 students.

Case 38 is another math teacher in Manhattan, born in Westchester, having worked through the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. They grew up in the private school system throughout the United States, then went into the public school system. They now live and teach in NYC. They grew up in a bunch of places, but from primarily since sixth grade on they went to school in upper Westchester County, in the area known as Portland Manor, in Lakeland school district.”

Alright, I'm a white male. My relationship to education and going to school was something similar: my early grades from about the grade of kindergarten through fifth grade. I was really good at school. I was an advanced reader and I was able to pick it up very quickly. One of the things I noticed that affected me was is we had a lot of movement. And I noticed my motivation in school started to lose a little bit when I was in fifth grade. And that was the time when my father retired from the Air Force and we were in our first permanent place, also my first experience going to school in New York State and going to a public school that wasn't part of a Department of Defense. So the schools I went to before that were known as DOD schools, Department of Defense schools that were specifically geared towards kids whose parents were in the military. So like, I started losing my motivation in fifth grade, . . . especially in fifth grade, you're starting to develop your identity a little bit too. So I was trying to like, kind of give off a persona of like, not necessarily “too cool for school.” But like that, like, I guess Too Cool For School is a good way of putting it here. So like, I always did kind of well, and I was bright, but I'd never like excelled. That kind of was like the trend through sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade and so forth. Going into high school, like, honestly, I was well enough, so my parents would get off my back. So like my grades were about in the 80s. I didn't have the motivation, where I was actually offered to take some advanced classes, and I turned it down because I just didn't want to do it. . . . And I really started picking up my game in school about my sophomore year in college, when I realized that it matters. And that's why I started to take more of a vested interest and I cared more about my grades overall.

Case 42 is a graphic arts teacher in Manhattan, working here after a career in Broadway Playbill design. They started working after NCLB and are a part of the arts field, which is receiving less attention and funding. They grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and had a very inclusive education.

I grew up in Utah, just north of Salt Lake City. It was a kind of a religious community. I went to public high school, but public high school was for your area. So everybody, my area went to the same schools. So you know each other from almost the time that you're born. Then I graduated high school and went on to college. I had wanted to go to the University of Utah, but my parents, I majored in theater. And my parents basically said no, and they shipped me off to Brigham Young University, which is the Mormon University and I was there for four years. And and then when I left Brigham Young, I actually left without graduating, I was going to transfer to the University of Cincinnati, and ended up just finishing up my degree from Brigham Young through homestead. I was just a few courses away. And I finished that up. And then I graduated, I got my MFA from FIT about five years ago. And I wanted to get the MFA so that I could move from teaching at a high school level to a college level. And then the arts, the MFA, as high as you can go. There's not a doctorate in a lot of fields, which is why I wanted to do MFA.

Case 45 is a paraprofessional from the South Bronx who is now an assistant principal. They have grown up in NYC, and have worked through the education system before, during, and now after NCLB. They have grown up in the NYC public school system and have always paid a keen eye to education and attention to students.

So, I always had a good relationship with schooling. My only year that I really didn't have a good relationship with schooling was when they put me in the Gifted and Talented class, mid year, my seventh year. And then they kept me there. until mid eighth grade. I struggled, because I didn't have a lot of the background. I guess a lot of the background math skills, reading skills and things like that. But overall, I did do well in high school, particularly. And I have to say that in my high school years, I didn't have a connection with any adults in the school building, which was, you know, now thinking about my position now. That that should be atypical, but it's its not across New York City schools. But overall, I did have a good relationship with education.

I interviewed each participant in the school of their employment, in their office or empty classrooms. I came after the school day was over and spoke with them in an enclosed room for as about an hour and a half. My interviews were recorded as well as notes I took relative to their body language and additional thoughts that were unspoken. A difficulty in collecting participants was establishing contact with them, as professionals within the school system are usually averse to speaking with strangers. A way I combatted the difficulty in communication was in obtaining teacher recommendations. When I finished one interview, I would ask for an additional recommendation to add to my list of potential participants and reach out to them in addition to my base list. Because I had a rather diverse set to begin with, ensuring differing participants did not prove to be as difficult as I first thought.

FINDINGS

Throughout my research, I found my questions did not cover the full extent of NCLB’s coverage. I realized my interviews were only halfway fleshed out, where I needed to ask students the same questions I was asking administrators. However, the deadlines in my research timeline did not allow me to work with minors as fast as I can work with adults. As a minor, I would have to seek out high school students, as I don’t know any; I would have to wait for the teachers I was in contact with to ask students, wait for volunteers, gather permission slips, and then I would have to schedule an appointment. This was one area where my research lacked a full fundamental backing, as I was only able to gather half of the discussion.

As I conducted my interviews, there were a few central themes that emerged, relative to educators and their relationships with students. All of my participants grew up in different lifestyles, but there seemed to be a consensus on an educator’s role and the participating factors inclusive of providing a beneficial education, and while under NCLB.

THEMES

THE IDEA OF TEACHING DEGENERATED OVER TIME. TEACHING IS VIEWED AS ANOTHER FORM OF BABYSITTING INSTEAD OF AN ACT OF GUIDANCE FOR THE FUTURE GENERATION.

As teachers grew up in their respective communities, they were aware of the relationships teachers had with their students, and ruminated on the effect it had on their attraction to teaching. Educators believed education is a job valued less as the years pass. Many role models in their life did not pay much positive attention to educators’ grades, as long as they were performing well in school. As this translates through generations, there is a focus as an educator to reach out to children and highlight their importance as to remove any feeling of non-importance, leading to low performance.

NOTE: some of my participants were a referral by another participant, which creates a sort of “echo chamber,” educators surround themselves with other educators who share similar core values.

35 - No, actually, I’ve been wanting to teach since I was seven. . . . I don't think [Educators] quite understood what it meant to educate a child. I think they just thought about teaching, like just disseminating information. They would make a lot of comments about, you know, well, ‘that's the parents job.’ Or ‘it's not a choice to go to school.’ . . . I knew very well, it was a choice to go to school.

Case 35 has felt a lifelong connection to teaching, and so there is a heightened level of scrutiny as they move into the teaching profession and concern themselves with building enough student rapport for a developing relationship. Compared to their colleagues, case 35 values education and knows the standards children are faced with; students can choose to cut class and forego an education, but case 35 recognizes that a healthy relationship with your students can foster an increase in attendance.

42 - [P]arents were very active with the kids and with the students. . . . But as a result, though, I feel like I did have a really good education, I was able to take advanced classes, I was able to excel in the music program, and also in student government. [T]he community was all pretty much Mormon. NOTE: Mormon communities are closely knit. Aside from school, neighborhoods and communities were small and news traveled relatively easily.

Case 42, however, has had an enriching relationship to education. Inclusive of his home life, there is a tight-knit relationship between families and educators in rural, midwest United States. Growing up in a small town, adults in 42’s life were very entwined in the things he did. As such, Case 42 was kept on his toes by his parents an educators, as both parties were continually in contact with each other. Parent-Teacher Associations ensured students were heard at home and at school, leading to an improved sense of stability and independence in students growing up.

45 - well, my parents, grandparents, they didn't really value education. They, you know, they, like my grandmother. She was in Puerto Rico as a child, and she was pulled out of school in sixth grade. And she never finished. My mom dropped out in 10th grade and my dad dropped out in ninth. So I was the first to graduate high school in, you know, kind of my lineage. So, yeah, and the first graduate college. So I would say my family didn't value like some of my family members immediate to me didn't value it, but I had other family members who did, and they're the ones that kind of got me into education.

Case 45 has a relationship to education completely independent of educators or parents. Growing up around general disinterest in education, case 45’s parents and grandparents have all dropped out school and did not pressure 45 into doing their homework or going to class; school was a choice. Case 45 recognized the importance of education, but did not have educators helping them out, leaving them to their own devices. Case 45 grew up without healthy educator relationships and recognizes the importance of nurturing relationships with students as an educator.

While some educators have had positive, or neutral, relationships with their educators, there was an average recognition for the importance of the role that is teaching, which is a profession some educators, like 42, stumble into, while educators like 35 have been waiting their lives for the privilege to call themselves an educator.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND REMOVES CREATIVITY FROM EDUCATION AND PUSHES TOWARDS STANDARDIZATION

Some teachers were new, while others were veterans before NCLB went into effect. As the act moved along, there was a noted decrease in interaction with the students, paired with an increase in expectations and time spent in school. As NCLB took over, class time shifted from developed lessons fostering student critical thinking and independence (lesson plans with group work, textbooks, and independent work time) to an environment where there is an ongoing focus around preparing students of end-of-year standardized tests. These tests revolve around a standard set of information, and is used to grade schools, which in turn dictates the amount of federal funding they need for their students.

35 - I noticed that . . . when I student taught, they had expectations of what your classroom should look like, they expect there to be a ‘Do Now’. They expect there to be a mini lesson and they expect there to be modeling - that's the ‘I do, we do, you do’ part - and that seems to be the big focus. . . . They wanted every lesson to be that way but some lessons you just need to . . . Take some time figure them out work with them. And I felt that that was something that was if they came in to observe you they didn't want to see that.

Teachers are recognizing a fundamental flaw in education where they aren’t given a chance to educate. Part of being a teacher is gathering and developing your student’s thought process. This is rather difficult if teachers are expected to teach to a classroom and not to individuals, there is more time spent on everyone and less time spent on individuals. As NCLB settles in, there is less autonomy for educators in working with their children, and more of a focus on dispersing the information. Classrooms become environments were educators spew information to students and they’re expected to understand everything being told to them, even if they may not be keeping up with the material. Classrooms become less of a collaborative effort and more of a lecture as students are fed information, during their formative years, and not given the help to completely understand what they’re being told.

38 - [W]ith No Child Left Behind is federal funding was allocated to schools, and they had to do X, Y & Z to get that funding. If you didn't do X, Y and Z, they would take away that funding. All that happened was as you're moving kids along, who shouldn't have been moved along. So you're having kids here in eighth grade, who are getting 20s and 30s [grades]. And there's pressure on you to move them along.[T]here’s this sort of expectation where you get about 80% of your kids to pass, and if you don't get around 80% of your kids to pass here, then you have to meet with your principal meet with people have people observe your classroom, find out things you can do differently.

Teachers are left with little choice as they need to protect the federal funding in schools. As students struggle in classes, they ostensibly do not show an understanding of the material, and are left needing more attention in order to succeed. However, classroom time does not allow for individualized teaching. Students are placed into a classroom with their peers, regardless of class standing, and taught the same information. While others move ahead, some stayed behind and required extra help. That help would not be provided, however, as there is a focus every year to cover the material which is known to be on the test, with no time left to revisit any information left in the balance. If students are held back, and there is a noted decrease in student performance, federal funding through the next year will decrease, and the following year would be even less funding. If schools do not show student/curriculum progress, there is the expectation that the administration will work towards a higher ranking or remain stagnant. If an educator is unable to prove their students are able to reference the material, then they are pulled into meetings with principals to determine a method of action moving forward. NCLB’s shift to standardization removes the ability for educators to provide their children with individualized education without removing them from their classroom experience completely. Students who needed the extra help were placed into special education classes, which were still held under the same expectations as other levels of learning.

45 - I think, as far as, like, my special ed classes [and] differentiating curriculum, those were awesome courses, and we did a lot of hands on projects [before NCLB]. We did a lot of developing tools, developing curriculum, developing kind of like a little teacher toolbox for all of us, and we will share it. But I think where they lacked some of an area where they lacked was, say, writing an IEP, developing the IEP, you know, all the things that go into writing an individual individualized education plan for a student with disabilities. You know, they taught us how to adapt and modify, you know, the coursework for the student, but they didn't really teach us all the all the paperwork that goes behind it.

As special education classes adapted themselves to NCLB, there was a removal of individualized education in lieu of federal standards. However, students still received Individualized Education Plans (IEP) if they still needed them. An issue with these plans was that there was not any formal training, the IEP was introduced as a way to hone in on special needs students and what they can use in order to succeed. The IEP, however, was not given to teachers with any formal training. As NCLB worked to standardize education, there was a lack of attention placed on the development of students with special needs, as there is a higher level of attention that needs to be paid. Students with IEPs were left to whatever devices teachers had present to them, and penalized for whatever information they were unable to comprehend.

While there was still some time and effort placed towards how NCLB should work for special education students, there was only so much time placed into it. Educators were given one template to use for all students with special needs, removing the independence in an Independent Education Plan. Education becomes less creative in all factors, as one approach becomes the reluctant choice because it is the easiest.

BUREAUCRACY STANDS IN THE WAY OF STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS; STUDENTS ARE DEMOTIVATED BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE EXPECTED TO ACHIEVE STANDARDS.

Although administrations move away from the act, students still went to school and were taught under NCLB, affecting how they think growing up. Students on both sides of the intellectual spectrum were subject to different forms of educational injustice as they were faced with curriculum to which they could not adjust their level of difficulty. As students deal with their unstable relationship with education, educators are left unable to do, or enjoy, their jobs as they’re sometimes haunted by bureaucratic issues with their administrators, hindering their ability to work under the act.

35 (when asked if there was a negative student response to her being a friendly teacher) - It did [hurt]. It did, especially- and that's why when I left the Bronx, I felt like a traitor. I felt horrible. Because so many of those kids had already seen their teachers not stick around elementary, middle school, high school. And for me to do it to them again, I felt like I was only perpetuating the idea that they weren't cared about. . . . First opinion was that it was just going to make things harder for the high school level. And that it was just another way of blaming the students and teachers, for things that are out of their control. This was even more developed as I became a teacher and actual teacher, and I saw the bureaucracies and I saw the things that were holding us back. And it just felt that, you know, they were trying to say that we were not doing enough to support students, when really especially working where I worked in the South Bronx, we didn't have the funding to do these things, we didn't have the means to support the students in the way necessary. And so this act was just a way of trying to push the blame without actually making changes. Notice, again, Common Core shifting again to- I forgot what they're calling it something excellence, or Excelsior, something, again, another shift, right. So when I first started teaching, and they switched to Common Core, in the 24 years that I was alive, they had changed it six times. Which says something, right, four times every six years. . . . When they started public schools in the 1800s, they wanted every kid to know all 50 states and the capitals. And if your kids didn't know all 50 states, in the capitals, you weren't doing the right thing by them. And then it shifted all of a sudden, now they needed to know x, y, and z instead. And then all of a sudden, if you didn't know something else it was so every so many years, they shift it, but none of it is ever critical thinking. It's always memorization, and rote learning. And if you notice, a lot of these acts are supported and lobbied for, like textbook companies and big businesses. So how much of it is really for the kids and how much of it is to keep money flowing in the wrong direction? Because I can tell you after I left that school, and after that supervisor was eventually replaced, they got a $2 million grant from the city. And that school changed $2 million for the school change. Suddenly, they had more kids who were engaged, they could have programs and host programs for the kids that would be enrichment programs to help support them. They were able to bring in more teachers and more more like outside support staff. All of those things that build a community that helped the students feel loved and important. They now had $2 million to do that with- We don't even know how they got it. To be honest. I just remember Carmen Farina was the chancellor at the time and she awarded them $2 million. NOTE: This quote is ostensibly longer than the others, but for a reason.

Case 35 has dealt with bureaucratic points of concern as they have navigated through NCLB and student relationships. As NCLB develops, there is less fostering available for student- educator relationships and more of a focus on school performance, which does not sit right with all educators. Case 35 has repeatedly noted their belief in a healthy relationship between educator and student. As such, they have continually run into problems with administration in a past school for refusing to follow certain parts of NCLB. Case 35 noted the increase in funding directed towards the school as they made their exit, as students were taught what was in the textbook, but not paid attention to or given the opportunity to nurture a relationship.

This quote was not edited for length because of the connection 35 makes between NCLB and textbook companies. Because education reform happens with the induction of every administration, there is an understanding the textbooks will change to reflect the new standards. As a testament to the levels of funding available after schools are found to be complicit with NCLB, the school Case 35 first worked at was the recipient of a large sum of federal funding as they complied with federal standards, meaning students were successfully understanding and reciprocating test-taking strategies.

38 - Cherry pick your curriculum. And what I mean by that is, you know, that there's these key areas that you have to do, you're not going to do any more than that, even though you want to, if you have like a cool activity, that's going to take three days, that takes too much time. Because you know, then then if you take three days on solving, that should only take you a day, then you have two less days to either get through more of the curriculum, or two less days to test prep these students. So you have the Pre-May (Test-Taking) and the Post-May in your mind about what you teach. And a lot of times you only taught what you knew was going to be on that test. And if you knew something was too hard for most of the class to grasp, you just didn't teach it. And that's like one of the things you focus on there. [Y]ou don't have time to be creative. You don't have time to do things that you want to do because you have such a regimented way of getting through what you need to get through so these students get a good enough score, so that you're in good standing as a teacher and these students are in good standing and move forward because it matters.

Federal expectations mandated certain parts of the curriculum should be taught to students before they take their final exams in May, a cumulative exam of everything students learn throughout the year. Teachers are not allowed to foster education around child experiences and instead must focus on mandated education. Teachers are made to ration their time throughout the ten months students are in school to prioritize learning, re-learning, and practicing all units noted on their curriculum, while still having enough time to review the entire year’s worth of materials before the end of April.

As teachers ration their time across all topics, they also need to ration their time across students. NCLB requires all students be on the same page before moving forward, but not all students have that ability. Teachers needed to revolve their focus around one subject for the students who had a difficult time understanding what was being taught. As a result, some topics are an even able to be discussed because teachers don’t have enough time. There was so much time spent getting the other students to catch up, and some students understood the material and were ready to move forward, but are forced into stagnancy because the entire class needs to be on the same page, but not everyone was on the same level. Education becomes a hassle, because it is stop and go. While some topics are easier for students to understand, other topics require more attention and end up derailing class attention. By the end of the year, students are mentally drained and disinterested, stressfully regurgitating information before forgetting it all; the only reason why they retain the information was to pass the test.

45 - Yes, and I'm going to be honest, I felt like the administration at the time would have students that were not on track, If the student was not on target to graduate, if they did not pass certain exams by 10th grade or 11th grade, they were given the options of transfer schools or community schools, or they were moved somewhere that was not here. . . . they were just pushed out, thrown away. They weren't given opportunities. They were no interventions in place. There were no support in place to even help them to be successful. You know, people made judgment calls based on a student's attendance or, you know, the the failing grades, but I felt like there wasn't enough intervention done so that maybe the student could be successful and could graduate.

Teachers with struggling students were not given a chance at redemption. Struggling students were given essentially one option: transferring to a credit recovery school where they could work for their credits at a slower rate, removing them from graduating on time and further placing the blame on students as they are made to think they’re at fault for their grades. After being pushed through the curriculum for 12 years, and passed through grades, students are then penalized for not being able to follow instructions. Plainly, students aren’t only being penalized for the information they aren’t able to convey, they are penalized because they are also unable to follow “test-taking strategies” to ensure their success, and therefore the school’s success. Students are moved to credit recovery schools that already receive little funding on the students they take in; students are further removed from an enriching education and more toward standardization as the entire school day becomes about getting students through the system.

DISCUSSION

Throughout my interviews, I found teachers had a difficult time gathering their thoughts on the effects of NCLB. The teachers I interview come from diverse backgrounds, telling stories of their time growing up in private school, away from parental supervision, or in public school, right under parent’s noses. While my participants, on average, all relayed positive experiences with their educators growing up, there were mixed responses on their relationships with students. While educators are interested in building relationships with their students, students see these relationships as transactional: Students perform well in class and therefore teachers are doing their jobs, and no one is getting into trouble.

My findings enrich our knowledge on the effects of NCLB because there is a discussion revolving around higher education. Often, research around the effects of NCLB are centered around childhood development. Older students mainly receive testing reform, and are not examined as much as younger cohorts. By beginning research with older kids, discourse around NCLB will be able to develop ideas on how future administrative reform can better address failing test scores. NCLB was only one of a number of federal education reforms, and an understanding around how older generations are affected can help shine some light on ill- thought-out initiatives, as well as gather more information around how classroom curriculum has been reduced to test-taking coverage and not much else.

However, there are several limitations with my study, starting with the gravity of the topic up for discussion. First, to be considering legislation on a federal magnitude, a scale of only four interviews does not provide enough information to make general assumptions for the City of New York, much less for the United States. Because we’re in a pandemic, I had some difficulty recruiting interviewees across a wide spectrum of diversity; Most of my interviews were referrals and they all worked in Manhattan, which is considerably removed from the rest of the city. Additionally, all of my interviewees were white. One was Hispanic, another was Asian, but they both present as White.

A big limitation with my study is the interview questions I designed. The questions I provided interviewees were not as immersive as they should have been, and so I did not use my interview time to the most of my ability. As such, my research findings are limited and there is not a complete set of information as there is still so much to be said about student relationships and performance; each case is different.

Future researchers should center their research around older classmates rather than developing generations. There was a sociological study conducted throughout the twentieth century (The Up Series) where students are followed up with starting at age seven; The last installment in The Up Series was in 2019. Following in these footsteps would be a good start for future research, as students should be examined throughout and after school in order to completely understand the ramifications of the changes students go through.

Because educational standards vary by state, this class of research should be conducted in small groups throughout the country, and researchers should recruit their subjects at a young age. I should note that NCLB has since been repealed and replaced with incoming administrations’ legislation. A project revolving around national student educational reform should begin with a national group of children who are checked on intermittently; The development of student education cannot be examined and summarized in just four or five years, students need to be consistently followed up with in order to decipher the lasting effects of temporary legislation. If there are no follow-ups, legislative authorities are left to build new, temporary plans every four to eight years.

The research method that would be most appropriate could be long-term, qualitative research paired with interviews and diagnostic tests/surveys. Given the magnitude of my research question, there should be a mix of participant observations and focus group interviews of growing children, as there needs to be a consistent monitoring as they grow up. Educational reform is one of the toughest actions for any administration to achieve, but it is not impossible. Through an involved, in depth examination of student relationships with educator restraints is an involved topic to discuss, there is a necessity for this discussion and its effects on student development and future performance. There is a possibility for future presidential administrations to evolve past reform instead of a complete overhaul, tweaking parts that don’t work instead of throwing the whole thing away.

REFERENCES

Davis, O. (2016, December 19). No test left behind. How Pearson Made a Killing on the US Testing Craze. Retrieved November 1, 2021, from https://talkingpointsmemo.com/ features/privatization/four/.

Rhodes, J. H. (2014). An education in politics: The origins and evolution of no child left behind. Cornell University Press.