The No Child Left Behind Act - 1817 Words

In 2002, The United States Legislature passed the No Child Left Behind Act. The negative connotations of this act has pervaded our failing school system now for fourteen years. Students, parents, and teachers alike have all grown a resentment for the idea that, despite the effort, a student has the opportunity to fail, parents have the opportunity to bear witness to that failure, and teachers hold the considerable weight of believing it is due to their inadequacy. Individuals who possess the potential for something better are squandered and placed in the general education system that any academically unprepared adolescent can comprehend. The process of moving every child along through the twelve years that they are forced to endure the†¦show more content†¦Generally, there has been agreement that we as a civilized society educate young people for a single reason: to enlighten. According to James Baldwin, an influential writer and figure during the mid-twentieth century, edu cation is the ability to â€Å"create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions... to decide for himself whether or not there is a God in heaven or not† (Baldwin 124). Public education in America grew out of the vision that everyone deserved the right to be educated and have the ability to contribute to society. However, the beginning of the industrial revolution drove potential students out of the classroom and into the factories and farms in great numbers. By the mid-1800s the philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the need for change and suggested that the purpose of education should be to nurture the natural genius that resides deep in the uneducated souls of adolescents. The search for that individual genius became a trial. Students felt the unshakable need to find their niche and succeed as they’ve been told they would have to in order to thrive in a materialistic society where all that matters is how much money a person can make. The conflict begins when students begin to believe that all they’re being taught is the value of money rather than personal growth. The forced enlightenment on the young hoards of generations that enter the school system every year diminishes the