Has No Child Left Behind Improved Public Education?

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While NCLB gives lip service to closing the racial “achievement gap”, in fact the NCLB regime of standardized testing is part of the New Jim Crow.   Socially acceptable catch phrases such as “low achievement” and “underperforming students” are used to justify the imposition of a second class curriculum, militaristic “tough-love” discipline polices and stripped-down programs on majority-minority schools.

A 2007 study by the Center for Education Policy found that in the elementary schools surveyed, time spent on subjects other than reading and math had dropped by nearly one-third since 2002, the year went into effect. Schools that serve poor and minority kids were significantly more likely to make such cuts.

In striving to reach the NCLB-mandated goal of proficiency for all students in reading and math by 2014, districts and schools have dramatically scaled back physical education, the arts, social studies, lunch, recess and other activities. And of course, Advanced Placement courses are in short supply at virtually every predominately Latino and/or black high school.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court (backed by the Bush administration) has outlawed the one measure – voluntary race-conscious, integration programs – that have proven to reduce racial and socio-economic disparities in achievement. In the western United States , 53% of schoolchildren are non-white and the percentage goes up every year. Separate can never be equal. Until, we grapple with that reality, and realize the promise of Brown v Board of Education, segregated black, Latino, and other poor and minority students will continue to receive an inferior education in our nation.