The U.S. government’s central idea driving NCLB is the desire to close the achievement gaps among different groups of students. In passing the NCLB legislation, the government sought to benefit disadvantaged students, with the expectation that they would make better progress under NCLB. However, NCLB has not worked as the government intended and has actually made disadvantaged students suffer. The main issue revolves around the AYP measure of progress. When most schools avoid being labeled as a “failing school,” the disadvantaged students face a serious crisis. For example, in “The Anti-Black Order of No Child Left Behind: Using Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Critical Race Theory to Examine NCLB,” Connie Wun states, “Black youth make up 18 percentage of the student population … 35 percent of the population of students suspended…show more content… NCLB’s use of assessments allows the government to track student performance and ensure that all students are improving progressively. Even so, English language learners (ELLs) who have not mastered English are still subject to standardized assessments, leading to several negative consequences. In “NCLB and English Language Learners: Challenges and Consequences,” Kate Menken states, “Nationally, ELLs score an average of 20 to 50 percentage points below native English speakers on state assessments of English language arts and other content-area subjects, and thus the majority of ELLs fail to achieve a score of proficient or meet adequate yearly progress goals” (125). Standardized test scores do not accurately reflect ELL performance. Although they may have not reached the proficiency of native English speakers, ELLs may have made significant improvement in English that standardized exams cannot measure. By labeling ELLs as not proficient, NCLB utterly fails to recognize their effort and academic
