No Child Left Behind:No Child Gets Ahead

The White House web page states, “In America, no child should be left behind. Every child should be educated to his or her full potential.”  I think that few people would disagree with this statement.  The question, however, is whether or not schools actually are educating children to their full potential.  Most public schools currently focus on lower level students in an effort to bring them up to the necessary level.  While this is a noble goal, schools are catering almost solely to these lower levels and leaving brighter students unchallenged, and, ultimately, not allowing them to reach their full potential.
         One of the main problems with No Child Left Behind and other similar programs is that they cater almost exclusively to the lower level students.  In trying to create assignments and lessons that these students can understand and learn from, brighter students are ignored and often feel bored.  This, I know from personal experience.  Repeatedly I was forced to hear lectures over the things that I had already been taught in my high school career.  The lack of challenge led to my loss of interest in school altogether.  This is in no way beneficial to any students.  The curriculum was almost entirely based around competency tests such as the Gateway and End of Course.  These tests are created to be passed by the lowest level students, and focusing on them for an entire semester gives no benefit to those that are more than competent.
         While government officials tend to blame teachers for poor performance in students, this is not normally the case.  The teachers are usually wonderful and seem to enjoy having intellectual students in class, but they often have to practically ignore them.  The mandated curriculum is so far below them that the teachers do not have to actually teach to them, in a manner of speaking.  Thus, their attitude seems to be that these students are smart and responsible.  Thus, they can be left to their own devices.  If the work isn’t hard enough for them and they finish early, they get free time.  While all students enjoy a little break from the tedium of a long day of work, the problem is that there is too much free time for the higher level students.  In my experience, entire class periods were given for one assignment that took brighter students all of ten minutes to complete.  The teachers almost always waited for the students that take longer to catch up.  While it is important to keep these students on track, the waiting usually led to entire class periods being wasted.
         These smart students are forced to do work far below their academic level, and they rarely need to study.  This keeps them from working hard and paying attention in class.  Often, these students simply choose not to try because they soon realize that they can make above average grades without effort.  The outcome is significantly lower scores on test when these students are perfectly capable of doing the easy work and excelling.  They have no motivation to try harder.  In the end, there is a general loss of interest in learning altogether.  The lack of rigor is severely detrimental to students who would otherwise go on to great feats if simply challenged. 
         Throughout high school I waited for challenging assignments and rarely got them.  I was bored and felt that even attending school was a waste of my time.  I rarely paid attention, and I remember hardly ever studying for quizzes and tests.  There was no need to.  The work was simply too easy.  I could learn far more when left to my own endeavors outside of class than I ever could in school.  I took to studying on my own the things we were not taught because we were held back in class.  I enjoyed this, but I know that most of the other students who felt the same way did not do this.  They simply did their homework during class since the lecture was irrelevant, and they dedicated no time to learning.  How do students such as these ever feel motivated or challenged?  They simply don’t.
         What is the purpose of going to school then?  Some people I knew personally decided not to go when they just didn’t feel like wasting their time in class.  They learned nothing and felt no motivation to attend.  Even if they missed class, they could quickly catch up with little effort.  The lack of challenge creates feelings of frustration with school altogether.  The frustration makes students have a negative view of the entire learning process and makes school feel like a chore.  Why should they be forced to attend when they receive nothing from it?  These bright students face nothing more than the most severe cases of ennui. 
         Critics may argue that lower level students do need to be brought up to the average level at a minimum.  While I do agree that these students need help, I do not think that it should come at the price of the most intelligent minds of the country.  Why should we choose not to expand the knowledge of the intellectual because we have to spend so much time helping others reach the bear minimum?  It would be far better for the students to be separated even more than they are now.  My high school “phased” students to help us work at our own levels.  They separated all of the students in one grade level into academic levels in each subject.  The problem was that even with phasing, the brighter students still were not reaching their academic best.  Even in advanced classes I was bored and rarely felt challenged.  Many other bright students simply chose not to take more advanced classes because they could learn the same things with less “busy work.”  Phasing is simply not an adequate solution to this problem.
         Another major problem with the way schools function today is that few students are actually prepared when they arrive at college.  Teachers need to learn that busy work is not the answer to students’ boredom and lack of interest.  Students need harder work.  Students who were rarely challenged develop no study skills because studying does nothing to benefit them.  They do not learn time management because the assignments take little time at all, and they are almost never beneficial to the student.  This leads to a big shock when they are dropped into an environment in which everyone fends for themselves.  Bright students often become discouraged when they are unprepared for the challenges they face in college.  While they could do the work with an improvement in study habits, they do not know how to form these.  How are we to get our best students to excel in challenging situations if they have never learned how to handle them?  We cannot expect these wonderful students to do well in life if they never face a challenge.
         If the goal of No Child Left Behind is to, in fact, help each student grow and reach their highest potential, then isn’t it ironic that the smartest never do?  I feel that many students could gain much more from tougher programs that challenge them.  If given an opportunity, their mental capacities would grow almost exponentially.  Why is it acceptable to let these students waste their intellect on menial tasks?  It is no wonder that America is falling behind other countries in the realm of academics.  We put so much emphasis on catching up that we rarely push to excel.  How can we function as a society when our brightest minds are stifled?  This is a problem that severely needs a solution.  Our current system of education is simply inadequate to meet the needs of brighter students.  Although it is wonderful that they devote the time and energy it takes to help struggling students, the best minds of our country are left out in the cold.  I do no see this benefiting our society in the long run.  Mediocrity should not be the standard.  Our education system should push everyone to excel and to reach their full potential.  There is no single act that can fix these issues, but I do think that our current system needs a significant amount of work.  While I do not think our entire system of public education needs an overhaul, I do believe that government officials need to make vast changes to the No Child Left Behind program.  I believe that if they took the time to add provisions for brighter students, our country would greatly benefit from the abilities of these children.