The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, passed January 8, 2002 by President Bush’s administration, addresses educational reform. The law reflects four educational reform principles promoted by our President: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control (by states and local governments), expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work [Natriello p.2]. The reality of NCLB is that it acts as a smokescreen, designed to make people believe that the Bush administration has the educational systems' best interests at heart and intends to limit the federal government's control of our public schools. The true agenda of NCLB is to slyly gut the educational system of its remaining revenue and divert public tax dollars to other Bush agendas, all the while dipping federal government hands into the fates of schools nationwide. 

The 2004 education budget presented by Bush's administration requested $5 billion less in education spending for the first year then what was authorized by the NCLB act. Further, this budget is $100 million short of the 2003 budget and comes as the lowest increase in eight years. This poses the ultimate blow to the educational system. Chopping an already starved budget gives schools little hope to accommodate increasing numbers of school children or educational costs. It also diminishes the chances of “failing” schools obtaining promised funding entitlements under NCLB. Other blows to educational funding come from inaccurately publicized increases to special education spending, slashed funding to the Military Impact Aid (MIA) and from school vouchers designed for “school choice” programs.