No Child Left Behind

"Under AYP, the only thing that counts is the number of students who score above the passing level on the state test. So on a test like New Jersey's High School Proficiency Assessment, where a passing score is 200, helping a bilingual, special education student from a low-income household raise his/her test score from, say, 50 to 199 counts for nothing. In fact, such a score counts as a failure in four different subgroups. Moving a student from 199 to 200 is success. This is just one example of the ridiculous ways NCLB uses state test scores as the sole measure of school and student progress" - Some Gaps Count More Than Others by Stan Karp

This quote by Stan Karp is quite alarming to me because I did not know how incredibly unspecific No Child Left Behind (NCLB) really is.  The fact that students who could have significantly improved, say from 50 to 199 as Karp stated, are still considered as "failing" whereas a student who improved from 199 to 200 is said to have succeeded.  It does not take a considerable amount of knowledge to know that the student who has jumped from 50 to 199 should not be considered anywhere near failing; if anything, he or she is surpassing more than a great majority of children/youth.  Karp goes on to explain in his article that NCLB is imposing an impractical mandate that no other institution has to abide by.  The idea that students must receive 100 percent on test scores by 2012-14 is extremely unrealistic and if they do not reach that goal, teachers, schools, and the state must deal with the consequences.  Although NCLB was a good attempt to resolving the education-crisis, assuming there was/is one, it certainly has not proved itself to be feasible.

Equality of Opportunity

In the article "Education and Equality of Opportunity", written by Joel Spring, he states that, “Most parents choose housing based on the quality of education offered by the local school district. There is a direct relationship between the cost of housing in a school district and the amount of money that school districts spend per student. School districts are primarily funded by local property taxes. The more expensive the property, the more money local schools can raise in taxes to support their schools.”

The other day I was watching a show called "Property Virgins" and the couple who was looking to by a home had a specific wish list; on the top of that list was that the home had to be in an area where the schooling was good.  I noticed that the neighborhood where they wanted to buy their house had large lawns, a big driveway, the homes were very large, the streets were clean, the neighborhood was located in the suburban areas, and the average price of a home in that neighborhood nearly $700,000.  It made me think, "No wonder the schooling is good because the homes are so expensive thus the school district must make a fortune from the local property taxes."  I then knew neighborhoods in the inner city, where housing costs much cheaper and schools can barely fund for basic supplies, are unable to compete with the suburban areas.  Since school districts are primarily funded by local property taxes, those from wealthier neighborhoods will always have the ability to invest more money for each student in their community compared to a poor neighborhood.