MCLB Chapter 5 Summary

MCLB, Chapter 5: NCLB and the Effort to Privatize Public Education
--Alfie Kohn

No Child Left Behind keeps local communities from being able to choose their own educational policies and programs; it makes teachers choose between real learning and test scores; and it punishes the children on the other side of the racial / socioeconomic gap. The entire initiative is endorsed by people who are opposed to the idea of public education. Is NCLB a political tool of those who wish to privatize education?

When large numbers of students reach proficiency on standardized tests, officials raise the cut scores. The call for “high standards” (code for high-stakes testing) and “freedom of choice” (code for voucher programs) comes from the very people who would benefit most from the inevitable perceived failure of public schools under NCLB’s mandates—businesses and corporate interests. Desperate and “failing” schools use federal funds to buy curricula designed by private firms while panicked parents send their kids to Sylvan, Kaplan, or Princeton Review for (pricey) test tutoring.

It is not enough to say that NCLB needs to be reformed; “instead of scrambling to comply with the provisions of NCLB, our obligation is to figure out how best to resist.” (p. 96) Teachers—indeed, all citizens—should reject NCLB as a step towards the privatization (and de-democratization) of education.