In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was created to get every child to read and do math at their grade level by 2014. That may sound great because, of course, people want their children to be well educated. The problem with this is that you can’t force a child with a disability to reach this goal. Kids were put in special education classes, so everyone got to the same level. In fact, this is exactly what failed me in school. Teachers were rushed to get every single student at the same level despite each child’s unique self. The burden was put on them, and if they didn’t get the student to this unrealistic goal, then it was their fault the child failed (Whitney & Candelaria 2017). It created a terrible cycle of teachers giving up on us in my school because there was no point in getting all of us to the same level. I vividly remember getting answers to standardized tests in a small room with other students in special education. If the standardized tests scored were terrible enough, the school could be put on probation or even forced to close (Whitney & Candelaria 2017).
NCLB’s idea was to fund schools to help every kid get to what they thought was reasonable. Even if they were two years behind, the teachers needed to catch them up on two years of work. All the children were put into subgroups, such as their disability, race, and even socioeconomic status (Turner 2015). I was placed in special education, something very stigmatized, causing other students to see us as the “dumb kids”. It created a dynamic where we were being compared to the students at normal reading and math levels. Looking back, I could see that social comparison was created, making it seem like it was us against them (Gruman 2017). They were better than us, and the teachers had to scramble to ensure our test scores matched theirs. No wonder some teachers called us disgusting names when the entire class didn’t understand and test the same way.
Putting us all in one class, all 4-grade levels, for us to get to the same level also failed. The schools were forced to do better or face the consequences from the state (Turner 2015). You can’t teach all four grades English all at once, which is why for three years we read the same books and took the same quizzes. I have read Beowulf 3 times, but I never read Romeo and Juliet or How To Kill A Mockingbird. They were considered too hard, so instead, they often gave the answers to kids who were falling way behind. Another stigma was created from that and made me feel even worse about myself. My perceived behavioral control was that my failed tests were simply because I was put in a group that usually failed (Gruman 2017). I wasn’t taught how to study or how to take tests, just that we had to pass them or our teachers would get in trouble. If they got so frustrated because we weren’t where we needed to be, it would be taken out on us. It created this severe anxiety where I was always afraid of failing tests because teachers would get very upset. It turns out I wasn’t the only one, several studies have found this type of link between teachers and students in the NCLB act (Whitney & Candelaria 2017).
Over the years, I learned to self-handicap myself because this is what was put in my head, I wasn’t smart, so of course I would do poorly. I didn’t have to feel bad about failing because it was already known that I would fail. It was comforting knowing that I was barely passing like the rest of my peers. We had homeroom together, several classes together, even study hall was done together. We were the “Retard” group, the “SPEDs”, the idiots who can’t learn basic math. These were stigmas that students created and also some teachers who didn’t want to deal with us. If teachers didn’t do well, they had a chance of being fired to save the school somehow (Turner 2015). Making the teachers fear for their job could cause them to push their anxiety and questioning self-competence into us (Whitney & Candelaria 2017).
I realize now that I severely lack knowledge from other subjects because math and reading always came first. The NCLB act created this dynamic for many kids who were forced to study hard on only two subjects, math and reading (Whitney & Candelaria 2017). It took my first year of college to realize that I was smart capable. My professors noticed it, and I thrived in psychology classes. I fell in love with science, which I would always fail. For the first time, I was intrinsically oriented because I wanted to do well for me. I didn’t care about looking good for others or to get a fantastic GPA for grad school. I wanted to show myself that I do enjoy learning and that I can do well. I may have learning disabilities, I may suffer from physical disabilities, but never should I have been set up to fail. I hope any student struggling with a disability knows that they have the chance to thrive. That they are worthy enough to try their best, even if their best isn’t what people are demanding.
Turner, C. (2015, October 27). No Child Left Behind: What Worked, What Didn’t; NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/27/443110755/no-child-left-behind-what-worked-what-didnt
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0 (E-Book Option Available)
Whitney, C. R., & Candelaria, C. A. (2017). The Effects of No Child Left Behind on Children’s Socioemotional Outcomes. AERA Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858417726324