Source Note: “Who is No Child Left Behind Leaving Behind”

March 13, 2009 in Research Project

Title: “Who is No Child Left Behind Leaving Behind”

Summary: Education professor feels NCLB is actually disenfranchising more students than it is helping through one-track performance guidelines.

Topic: Should the Obama Administration reform the No Child Left Behind Act?

Category: Academic; Research Essay

Publication Information: The Clearing House, Jan/Feb 2008, Vol 81 Issue 3, p133-137

Author: Theoni Soublis Smyth

Location: EBSCOhost

Accessed: March 12, 2009

Support:

• “With equity for all,” K. Beers, Voices from the Middle (2005): Beers contends that underperforming schools often simply lack the administrative and curriculum resources to meet the requirements of NCLB. Smyth identifies this as a discrepancy in NCLB’s stated goal of elevating disadvantage students, as the law fails to take into account the day-to-day struggles that caused the school’s low performance, much less provide any financial support to remedy them.
• “Highly qualified special educators and the provision of a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities,” J.M. Jameson and D.S. Huefner, Journal of Law and Education (2006): Jameson and Huefner argue that NCLB unfairly burdens schools with special-needs students by not funding the “highly-qualified” teachers it mandates. Smyth feels this creates a double-bind situation for schools that are struggling just to retain the teachers they already have.

Audience and Agenda: The Clearing House is an academic journal covering education administration issues published by Heldref Publications (Washington, DC). Theoni Soublis Smyth is an associate professor of education at the University of Tampa, and holds a PhD from the University of South Florida.

Usefulness: Smyth’s essay highlights the discrepancy between No Child Left Behind’s stated goals and the harsh realities of many impoverished public schools. The law’s failure to take into account such readily apparent factors as lack of local funding provides support for the “reform” argument and highlights specific areas policy makers should address in future versions.

Works cited:

“Heldref Publications – The Clearing House,” http://www.heldref.org/tch.php

“University of Tampa – Tampa, Florida,” http://www.ut.edu/detail.aspx?bio=1&id=5932

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