Amanda Oquendo
Justin Scully
Noelle Corbin
21st Century Urban Educator
5/9/2012
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) vs. Impaired and Disabled Children
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed into law by former President George
W. Bush. The reasons for the NCLB Act were to innovate children to do better and achieve
given any circumstance they may be in. Children with disabilities or impairment’s often have
trouble taking test. The NCLB Act agrees with the idea that teaching to a test is beneficial to
children, when in fact it’s the opposite. Many people think of Disabilities and they think of
people who are disabled physically. There are different types of disabilities and impairments
such as, physical, psychological and both physical and psychological.
Disabilities/Impairments:
Psychologists interpret the word disability to mean that there is a large gap between a
people’s Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and their abilities. Meaning that if your IQ is 150 you lack
the abilities that a person with that IQ should be able to perform therefore having a dis-ability.
To be impaired according to the dictionary is being in a less than perfect or whole condition as
disabled or functionally defective. Some synonyms for the word impaired include diminished,
lessened, weakened, and dysfunctional. How could a child possible be responsible to adequately
preform in school with such measures? There are many disabilities and impairments that affect
children.
A psychological disability is something like ADD, attention defecate disorder, ADHD,
attention and hyper active disorder, Autism etc. a type of physical disorder is something like
being hearing impaired or visually impaired , anything that can deals with the outer body. Then
you have a category of children/adults who have a combination of both physical disabilities as
well as mental impairments. “Autism has increased at an unprecedented rate in recent years. The
U.S. Centers for Disease Control (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], (2007) reported in a
prevalence study of autism that one in 150 8-yearolds have been identified with the disorder. The
2005 U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO, 2005) Report to the House of
Representatives on Special Education reported a 500% increase in the number of students aged
six to 21 identified with autism in the past 10 years”(Moores-Abdool). There is an increasing rate
of students that are being born with learning disabilities such as Autism every day; don’t they
deserve the same education as any other child? “Because of variability in manifestations of their
disability, students with autism need curriculum modifications or instructional accommodations
to access the general curriculum” (Moores-Abdool). These children need extra care that is not
being efficiently provided to them.
A child who is hearing impaired would most likely go to a school or the deaf, but what
about those kids who still have the ability to hear but just not as good as the other children?
“NCLB began with the goal of 100% of students reaching proficiency in all content areas by
2014. Over the past several years of school report cards, schools for students who are deaf or
hard of hearing have shown very little progress toward meeting those goals”(Cawthon). Just
because an Act is put into effect and a child goes to an efficient school doesn’t mean they don’t
struggle. “However, given the fact that fresh cohorts of students are continually enrolling in
schools, is it ever realistic to expect all students in a school to be 100% proficient? Even if 20
years were given to reach this goal, it still might not be feasible for a school to ensure that even
students who had just enrolled would be able to meet grade level benchmarks” (Cawthon).
Vision vs. Reality:
There’s a clear point that the NCLB Act hasn’t really been effective. Their vision is to
close the achievement gap, promote rigorous accountability, and ensure that all students are on
track to graduate high school, then college, and are career-ready. The reality is that children are
not improving and the gap in expanding and graduation rates have not been up to par. “Put
simply, the adequate yearly progress, AYP provision of NCLB requires school districts to
demonstrate each year that students with disabilities are making progress toward proficiency in
the general curriculum. The goal is laudable: ensuring that such students catch up with all other
students within twelve years. As momentous as that promise seems, though, the structure of
NCLB's mandated performance will likely force school accountability systems to subject
students to unreasonable high-stakes threats-e.g., having to pass an exam to move from one
grade to the next or to earn a high school diploma”(Allbritten).
There is the vision that “all” students, all includes disabled children, will be equally
taught and lead a successful future. There are schools that are really good schools that offer
many advantages for children but, they don’t offer any of the things that a disabled child may
need like an IEP, Individual Education Plan. “Therefore, NCLB expects students with disabilities
to graduate within 4 years of entering high school; IDEA permits students with disabilities to
receive services in high school through age 21. The reason for this discrepancy of expectations
has to do with the different foundational intentions of the two pieces of legislation. IDEA serves
students with disabilities through the provision of individualized services. NCLB, in contrast,
serves all students by holding schools accountable for student performance. These different
policy mechanisms generate differing expectations for the graduation of students with
disabilities”(Schifter). NCLB lacks a certain personal bond that the IDEA Act, The Individuals
with Disabilities Education, provides.
References:
Allbritten, D. (2004). Will Students with Disabilities Be Scapegoats for School Failures?. .
NCLB:
Failed School- or Failed Laws?, 82(02), 153-160
Brohpy, J. (2004). Motivating students to learn (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
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Cawthon, S.W. (2011). Education of Deaf and Hard hearing students and Accountability
Reform: Issues for the Future. American Annals Of The Deaf, 156(4), 424-430.
Daniels, P.R. (1983). Teaching the gifted/learning disabled child. Rockville, MD: Aspen
Systems
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know and what do we still need to learn? Topics in Early Childhood Special Education,
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Take?. Exceptional Children, 77(4), 409-422.
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Margate: ComteQ.