Comments on: No Child Left Behind: a study in unintended consequences

By: Nazzia

Nazzia — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 12:09:24 +0000

Although the No Child Left Behind Act generally did seem to improve test scores of students, even those of minority students, it has been a topic of controversy. The strict qualification requirements for teachers made the teacher shortage situation worse. Policymakers should therefore not always focus on numbers and try to look at the holistic picture when deciding on policies.

By: Rajendra Prasad Kandel

Rajendra Prasad Kandel — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 11:44:50 +0000

Even in the advanced democratic countries like the USA, Australia, the government, legislation and the stakeholders do have lapses in formulating the education policies, especially with regard to addressing the issues faced by the students coming from bilingual /multilingual backgrounds. Countries indirectly or directly promote one language even if they appear inclusive and critique of any kind of discrimination and marginalization in their policies. Because of that, students from marginal language backgrounds are weaker in the language of the medium of instruction in schools and universities; they can not effectively share their content knowledge to the class neither they do have a sound understanding of the content delivered by the teachers.
Even in Nepal, the constitution has guaranteed that every citizen do have the legal rights to have a basic education in their mother language but practically almost all educational institution use Nepali or English language as the medium of instruction. As a result, the academic success rate of the students coming from linguistic backgrounds other than Nepali is very lower than the students who speak Nepali as their mother language.

By: Irene Nguyen

Irene Nguyen — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 10:30:03 +0000

Thank you for this sharing on the negative aspects of the NCLB policy in the United States towards students of multilingual-language and immigrant background. It seems to me that as the policy places its stress on suiting the national educational standards, it has dramatically neglected the real aim of recognizing these students’ language learning difficulties. This alarming experience is calling for the revolution of the nation’s education policy to be able to truly support these language-privileged students in their academic development, particularly, their second language acquisition.

By: Teufeld

Teufeld — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 09:32:25 +0000

The purpose of No Child Left Behind is good for children and has set high golds for teachers and learners. However, for ESL teachers and learners, they are ignored. While ESL teachers are overlooked, ESL students are treated to achieve same golds as native speaker learners. As a Public Law, it may push ESL teachers and learners to change something to meet the low’s needs. These changes may affect ESL rules, then affect the education of whole country, so it is hard to say whether this low is good or bad for the United States; the initial purpose of it is good, at least.

By: Yongqi

Yongqi — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 03:48:39 +0000

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your sharing on the NCLB policy. It is absolutely good news that it drew the government’s attention on improving the quality of education. However, the effectiveness of the policy is likely to be reduced as the policy tended to mainly focus on the needs to improve education for mainstream students but neglected the importance of multicultural and multilingual backgrounds of the students and the sufficient support to be provided to the ESL teachers. I personally think that it would be a shame if education improvement was only being treated as a political means to gain political advantage rather than truly considering the education improvement itself.

By: Mia

Mia — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 01:08:53 +0000

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your sharing. Although the NCLB policy has good intentions, it does have many negative problems. I think the policy makers ignored the diversity of the society and the diversity of the language. For English learners, it is difficult to reach the similar level of their mother tongue. Also, this policy certainly raises the requirement for ESL teachers. In my view, education policies should be enacted after adequate consideration of the current situation and feasibility of implementation.

By: Saichon

Saichon — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 12:22:57 +0000

Hi Emily,

Thank you for sharing this.

This is the first time I have heard about the NCLB policy. I think I agree that the policy can be a huge problem, especially the US have a wide spectrum in diversity. This can discourage students in the US to multilingualism and it effects to all students who are not mainstream students. The thing you mentioned about the ESL teachers is a insightful point. As I used to be an ESL student in the US, I have realized that ESL teachers are special and different from other academic subjects. They need to be more trained since the language teaching is different.

By: Xin Zhang

Xin Zhang — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 10:10:49 +0000

Thank you for sharing negative effects of NCLB policy. Although this policy tends to improve the quality of education in America. However, it ignores a number of disadvantages for ESL students and teachers. Diverse cultures and different language are not considered in the policy. For these students, it is important to improve their literacies and think about different learning background. The native language also can be negatively affected by the policy. In addition, the policy gives too much pressure for English language learners for improving grades of examinations. This is more likely to cause that ESL teachers focus on methods to improve students’ grades instead of values of learning the second language in diverse cultures. Teachers need to acquire more professional knowledge to develop English curriculum in order to help students to learn English.

By: Jasmine

Jasmine — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 13:45:10 +0000

Hi Emily, thank you for sharing the disadvantages of NCLB policy in emphasizing all students’ academic achievement standards in English tests. Although its intentions seemed honorable, I agree that the NCLB policy could negatively influence language education, which inflicted pressure to improve the test scores of English language learners and neglected diverse language backgrounds, overlooked the requirements for the ESL teachers who serve ESL learners, and failed to facilitate students’ native language and English. It ignores the required time and effort to ensure ESL learners and mainstream students are can have excellent language skills, which overemphasizes the importance to achieve higher test scores.

By: Summer Dang

Summer Dang — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 17:25:04 +0000

Thank you for your useful sharing of the negatives in NCLB policy in the United States towards multilingual students from immigrant background. The tension of striving to meet the national education standards seems so huge today, especially when the educational policy fails to comprehend these students’ linguistic difficulties and support their academic development. It is so true that the efforts that ESL students must put into studying English as a second language is enormous and allowing a certain sufficient time for their English competence to grow to the point where it could accurately reflect their academic knowledge should be taken into careful account. Besides, instead of viewing these students based on their English skills and national standards, their multicultural values should be evaluated and raised within schools. From my perspective, to countries whose large population is of multicultural background, improving ESL students’ literacy proficiency is extremely necessary, therefore, the roles of ESL teachers and developing English language curricula should be given more focus as a cornerstone for fostering the whole country’s academic performance.

By: Thi Thanh Huyen Do

Thi Thanh Huyen Do — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 13:17:47 +0000

Since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law took effect in 2002, it has had a sweeping impact on U.S. public school classrooms. It affects what students are taught, the tests they take, the training of their teachers and the way money is spent on education. NCLB has goals set and philosophy behind. The law targets overall achievement for specific categories of students, such as English language learners or economically disadvantaged students. In my country, Vietnam, the Ministry of Education introduced the National Foreign Language to comprehensively renovate foreign language teaching and learn in the national education system, and implementing new foreign language teaching and learning programs at all educational levels and training levels. It can be said that this is an important milestone in the history of foreign language education in Vietnam.

By: Pramanandra Joshi

Pramanandra Joshi — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 04:33:52 +0000

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001 was introduce by Bush administration to improve the education quality in the United States of America, but it has negative impacts on second language learners and teachers as well. As NCLB impacts American education policy, political decisions impacts on the education policy in other countries as well. In my country Nepal there are changes in education policy which impacts in teachers, students and other concern authority. This kind of changes in education policy must be taken after long research, because it impacts whole life of students. Country like America has to make education policy to second language learners as well. It is also important that government has to consult with education experts when it changes in education policy, then it will address all problem in education field.

By: Katy D

Katy D — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 05:15:55 +0000

This interesting reading signifies the paramount importance of considering, analyzing and comprehending contextual elements prior to imposing any regulations. Without thorough consideration, proposed regulations can not go fas as policymakers expected and even lead to unintended consequences. Initially, I found a little surprised of the inadequate consideration of American policy composers because I often assumed such powerful nations such as the U.S, or European countries had thorough, effective and practical regulations. Now, I realize every country can make mistakes during the process of mandating law and policy. Vietnam also has ineffective and unpractical rules with the aim of enhancing educational quality. Apparently, the reality is more complicated than policymakers expect and such rules when applied in the large scale seem to impinge on children and young learners’ education and academic performance. Every individual should be literate and educated; it is true but to make it real, the policy-making needs more investment, consideration and effort

By: Chi Tam Nguyen

Chi Tam Nguyen — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 06:25:59 +0000

I think the context of NCLB Act could be similar to some education regulations in my country. The government introduced a regulation that requires students to reach a certain proficiency level of English to graduate from their university. This regulation seems to intend to motivate students to learn English as their second language. However, as far as I observed and experienced, this regulation gives students pressure rather than motivation. Even worse, some students have to delay their career journey because their lack of English proficiency to graduate. I hope the regulation composers should put more consideration to the impracticability of their piece of work. They should test their rules in small scale prior to publicly introduce it.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Sun, 20 Oct 2019 11:21:21 +0000

Hi Emily, thank you for sharing this article.
I have not heard about this policy before. It is surprising to know even the US, a multinational country, when making educational policies, would fail to pay enough attention to non-mainstream students. However, students with different language background should be given a level playing field to compete. In my country, China, although there has been some new policy to “reform” the education system, true reforms of standardized tests are difficult to be realized as long as the political system is not changing.

By: luwen huang

luwen huang — Sun, 20 Oct 2019 09:15:52 +0000

It is a trend that more and more parents expect their children to become bilingual children. In addition, many governments have also developed related policies for bilingual education. Considering the impacts of these policies on language teaching, teachers and learners should be considered firstly. On the one hand, good policies should support teachers’ work including teaching language, training support, career, and so on. On the other hand, many aspects of the students including learning needs, special needs, and so on are both should be involved in the policies. In addition, in the teaching practice and the learning process, the development of learners’ mother language and second language should keep a balance while the excessive emphasis on one of these languages.