Myth and Reality of No Child Left Behind

Students of education are aware of the story of public education, of legendary figures like Horace Mann riding from district to district trying to improve the American school by establishing a common school fund and developing teacher-training programs. Those who followed worked hard to broaden the mission and refine the institution. While advancing the distribution of textbooks, developing curriculum materials and employing testing tools, even as early as 1845, standardized testing was used to see if it all worked. Advocates used the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 to make accessible to all an education of worth for social advancement. Yet today's No Child Left Behind Act, signed in 2002 is, ironically so, a reform driven not by the advocates, but by public education's most ardent detractors. NCLB appears to be an attempt to change the public education system fundamentally, from the perspective that it is broken, its mission in need of radical revision.

This book shows how able and committed teachers who regard their profession as a calling are tragically transformed into technocrats fulfilling federal reform imperatives. This inside picture of the terrible price teachers pay to work in the system imposed by NCLB should be a call to action., Dr. Todd Alan Price and his colleagues contextualize the contemporary state of American public education, drawing upon its deep historical roots and philosophical underpinnings. This framework enables the reader to understand the turmoil engendered by current policy waves. These essays pose insightful questions about whether we can build on our historical strengths to meet modern-day challenges of the global era., Price and Peterson's volume should be required reading for policy makers nationwide, as it asks important questions that need answering before NCLB comes up for reauthorization. What is intelligence and how should it be measured? Who benefits from measuring intelligence in specific ways? How has NCLB impacted students, teachers, administrators and communities? I am particularly impressed with the historical and philosophical analysis contained in the early chapters, and I am equally grateful for the qualitative and quantitative work in the volume's later half. In an increasingly standardized world, it's important to have critical scholarship that approaches NCLB from multiple angles. This is a must read for everyone concerned with the future of public education and by default, our democratic republic. In an ideal world, that would be everyone.

Todd Alan Price, Ph.D., is an assistant professor, Educational Foundations and Inquiry, National-Louis University. He has published several articles on No Child Left Behind, and produced a documentary, No Child Left Behind Report: Public Education in the Crosshairs. Elizabeth A. Peterson, Ed.D, is an associate professor in the Department of Adult Education at National-Louis University. She currently teaches doctoral and masters students of adult education.