I could criticize the No Child Left Behind Act. But almost all the people with whom I have spoken about it have expressed strong criticism of it themselves. Namely, they make note of the obvious flaws in taking funding away from failing schools, considering that those schools tend to need the funding the most. I do not want to beat the proverbial dead horse.
While I do think No Child Left Behind does not work and is often counter-productive, I do have some sympathy for the philosophy behind it. Offering conditional funding and threatening to take away funding is the main way the federal government influences local policies of local governments. Additionally, it can be hard to allocate funding for populistic purposes because the taxpayers and general public are rightfully afraid of government spending. So it is easier to get them to accept laws that place more restrictions on funding than laws that just wastefully throw more money at the problem. The problem, in this case, is inefficient, failing schools.
I do not have any clear-cut solutions.
I would consider suggesting making requirements based on methods not on outcomes. Instead of just taking funding away from schools that have too low of standardized test scores, I would suggest making requirements about what the schools need to provide. Namely, I would suggest requiring that all children and students under a local government receive complete healthcare for the schools to get education funding from the federal government.
The healthcare could be provided by a state government, by an even more local government, or by the public schools themselves. It could be provided to all citizens or only to those who cannot afford it on their own. (I would consider charging parents with child abuse if they can afford healthcare for their kids but choose to waste their money on non-essential purposes instead.)
Healthcare would help alleviate the poverty that causes public schools in poor neighborhoods to fail. Also, sick students cannot learn well. Even furthermore, psychological and psychiatric care would help neutralize students’ behavior issues which perhaps is the biggest obstacle for failing schools.
Requiring healthcare coverage for education funding would help alleviate both the education and healthcare problems in the United States without drastically increasing federal government spending and without further federalizing either education or healthcare. If a local government does not want to ensure that all children and students have complete healthcare coverage, then the local government can refuse the federal funding.
I am not dedicated to the idea. I am still thinking it through. So I would love for you to post your comments and replies on my idea of requiring schools to provide healthcare coverage to receive education funding from the federal government. I have decided to post the discussion for that idea in my philosophy forums due to the idea’s very theoretical state. So you can post your thoughts and comments on the idea in this thread at the philosophy forums.