NCLB has Failed Its Fundamental Purpose
By Dennis Van Roekel, a 23-year teaching veteran and longtime
activist and advocate for children and public education, Van Roekel is president
of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. As NEA
President, he leads the nation's largest labor union and advocate for
quality public schools.
NCLB has failed its fundamental purpose – to raise student test scores and close achievement gaps. Reading and math test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress confirm a faster rate of improvement in student achievement before NCLB than since its enactment. According to a July 2007 article in the Educational Researcher “progress in raising test scores was stronger before No Child Left Behind was approved in 2002, compared with the four years following enactment of the law.” And the Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that “the No Child Left Behind Act’s current accountability system provides insufficient evidence that the law has succeeded in raising student achievement levels or closing the nation's racial achievement gap.…”
NCLB is also narrowing the curriculum by limiting the time that school districts spend on non-tested subjects. In a 2007 report [1] from the Center on Education Policy, 44 percent of school districts reported cutting time from one or more other subjects or activities (social studies, science, art and music, physical education, lunch and recess) at the elementary level to devote more time to reading and math.
Ironically, recent research by a University of Maryland professor [2] finds that NCLB’s focus on high-stakes testing “has actually undermined the quality of teaching in reading and math.” The research further found “…declines in teaching higher-order thinking, in the amount of time spent on complex assignments, and in the actual amount of high cognitive content in the curriculum.” These declines were attributed to “…the pressure teachers were feeling to ‘teach to the test.’”
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We in Texas got NCLB first, it was such a monumental flop here that G.W. implemented it nation wide. It now messes up the entire country.
Sounds a little like the monumental flop of my state's mandatory health insurance being used as the example for why we should adopt universal health care . I hope people are smart enough to prevent messing up the entire country with this mess of increased insurance prices, fees, and lack of doctors .
due to one of the following reasons.
A. That the NEA has gone to the extreme level of condoning hypnosis on students in school inorder to help improve their overall performance and as a side benefit ( not really a side benefit more like the main reason) to help them be more tolerant of homosexuality ? Ask NEA how many complaints of hypnosis on students they have heard and reported to authorities?
B. That the reason student test scores are so bad is because teachers are so bad.
C. That NEA has put to much emphasis on tolerance teaching of sexual acts such as fisting and wearing opposite gender clothes that they have neglected the whole reason behind school in the first place, not that pornography and illicit sex dont have its place ( over the rainbo in never, never land), just maybe teaching kids these things is not only immoral, but highly illegal and in doing so has lost their direction. http://www.massresistance.org/docs/issues/fistgate/index.html
D. ALL OF THE ABOVE.
PS THE RIGHT ANSWER IS D.
I read the article and I believe you are a little bit paranoid. There is no evidence that this happened IN a SCHOOL or during school hours.
Yes, it is disgusting that this is funded by the state. (my state actually, puke) It is not the reason of our failing school system and the decline of education .
The answer is B. And the reason the teachers are so bad is because they're underpaid and nearly impossible to fire.