Mock Essay

Statement: The United States Congressional No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which is founded on the notion that high standards and goals made measurable by tests can improve individual performances, has done much to hurt the American education system, and German educational policymakers should learn from the U.S.’s experience with NCLB and avoid taking similar action.

The question of how to structure the education system fuels an ongoing debate that has led and will lead to a number of potential solutions. On such solution is the United States Congressional No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This specific attempt at improving the students’ performance and therefore the effectiveness of the U.S. education system as a whole planned to implement these changes by setting high standards and goals. These can then be evaluated and measured through testing. But rather than improving the performance of students the NCLB proved detrimental to the U.S.’s education system. Hence its policies should not be adopted by other institutions. Particularly German educational policymakers should view the NCLB as a bad example and avoid taking similar action.

The reasons to avoid the notion the NCLB represents are multiple but the most prominent one is that they are faulty. The NCLB tried to establish uniform standards and goals and tests as a measuring tool to determine the level of success in achieving said pre-set goals. This proves to be problematic as especially standardized testing implies a homogeneous pool of children which simply does not exist in schools. As they are individuals they cannot be expected to cohesively learn, comprehend, and retain information at the same speed or through the same form of teaching. For that reason, a student’s individual performance cannot be improved by imposing uniform teaching or measuring methods. While it may seem efficient to rely on tests as an assessment tool it is discriminatory to every child not responding well to the only examining method available. Not all students have the same proficiency and consequently the same demands cannot be fulfilled by everyone simultaneously. While it may be possible for many students to reach the pre-set goals, they will not achieve them in the same time frame or in all topics. Yes, all students should aim for the best competence attainable to them, and it is to be preferred that a certain standard is reached by everyone. But a stifling, anonymous, and homogeneous system is not a suited environment for learning.

Even more troubling is that there have been similar developments in Germany over the last few years. Since the introduction of “Stadtteilschulen” instead of the previously separate “Realschule” and “Hauptschule” the education system shifts to a more uniform approach to teaching. Even in “Gymnasien”, which are promising the highest educational standard and are still separate from the “Stadteilschule”, there is more and more standardized testing. Consequences include more children getting discouraged and lost in the masses due to too diverse learning aptitudes that are not being properly attended to, and parents try to push their children into “Gymnasien” even though it may not be the best learning environment for them, out of fear that they won’t get good enough education should they fall under the radar in a “Stadteilschule”.

All this suggests a different solution to the one provided by the United States Congressional No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is needed to structure the education system for it to reach its highest potential, in the U.S. as well as in Germany. The German educational system should use the U.S.’s negative experience with NCLB and their own recent problems with similar developments to make positive changes away from standardized testing and the disregard of the student’s individuality and towards addressing their individual needs and talents.