In January of 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, which penalizes or rewards schools based on students’ performance on standardized tests. Nearly seven years later the questions surrounding this controversial legislation are as pressing as ever. Does No Child Left Behind make the grade?
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This is good in theory but fails miserably in application! It really means teaching to the tests!
No child , singular, was left behind, instead, all children were left behind.
and it doesn't work . The standardized test for our state is the TAKS test. This test is designed to cover the base principles of the given subject. The problem is that many of the teacher's contracts are based on the percentage of the students that pass this test at the end of the year...thus, the class spends a good part of the year taking "practice tests" to see how the class is doing as a whole and what areas still need work. My problem with this is that we spend the better part of the year drilling the basic principles of the subject and that is what we are passing on to the next grade level.....BARE BASIC ESSENTIALS! The students that have that under their belt are being held back by the kids that can't grasp the concepts or don't really care to learn, or aren't pushed by their parents to do better.
We did away with seperating children by their learning abilities to protect their little feelings, and have done a grave diservice to them all in the process.
The government has unreasonable exceptions.
how are schools suppose to live up to unrealistically high demands?
For example, check out this school : they said 25% of CA can't meet the standards!!
http://www.brentwoodgrove.com/2009/10/01/federal-no-chilibd-left-behind-program-sets-bar-to-high-for-lerty-school-district /
I am a high school student and I speak from experience when I say that NCLB is beneficial if you want to run your schools like a business, but not if you want to give your students a more profound, meaningful education . Standardized tests are wildly inaccurate means of determining which schools should and shouldn't be rewarded; this encourages schools to teach the standardized test curriculum which is extremely often an underestimation of a student's abilities. The specialized courses offered at most high schools, i.e. chemistry, Algebra II, trigonometry, English I, etc., are much more valuable in educating a student than liberal arts classes or comprehensive math/ science classes.
As an AP/gifted student I've been taking specialized courses since seventh grade, and my teachers always teach the course as normal and then within the month or three weeks or so before standardized tests, we'll review what will be on the standardized test that isn't covered in the class curriculum. My middle and high school base all classes like that and we have some of the best public education in the state of Florida and nationwide, so it isn't only effective for upper-level kids .
NCLB does indeed leave children behind.
I think basing how much money schools gets based on the standardized tests is a joke. Why not share the wealth equally between the schools. Are they saying that one kid deserves more money than another makes things better because of a score. Not as far a I can tell. I have seen where the teachers do not actually teach to a curriculum anymore because of these tests, the teachers know what is on the tests and they teach the tests. I do know that at one of my kids school, and it is actually one of the schools that does get one of the highest scores in town, that a good number of the kids do not even take the test, they use that time to make shapes with the little circles. I dont know how widespread this is, but good grief the kids do not even take these tests seriously. And then these tests are weighted so that the scores will be similar.....gimme a break.
I think the federal government needs to step away from education and let the individual states run their own school systems. When the feds get involved their rules and regs creates an umbrella that states fall under without any consideration for individual needs. They are all just grouped together in one big pot. The education needs for what works in Ohio may not work for Oregon, but with no child left behind someone is going to get left behind, its inevitable. Let the states run their own education programs as they see fit and what fits their needs. The feds need to just get out of the way, and quit making education all about the money, there is a little more to it than that.
States should control their own education system.
1. It is unconstitutional for the federal government to have a hand in education.
2. People can choose which state to live in to provide the best education for their kids . My parents chose MA, unfortunately extremely liberal but on the other hand, I got an excellent education (imo).
As a middle school student, I know a lot about the No Child Left Behind Act because it's affecting my education.
I am a talented and gifted student and I always get every question right, but not everyone does. There are as many different learning styles as there are students, so while one student may do well on a test, another student that is just as smart won't be able to. This act is leaving kids behind if their learning style isn't the one that Bush decided is good enough for everyone.
You can't measure creativity or character growth on a test, but that's what teachers give their students and what they should be rewarded for. I have amazing teachers who shouldn't be penalized if their students aren't as great.
NCLB has accomplished one thing: It has proven that no program can solve our immense education problem in the USA without committing adequate money to assure success. Around the world we have seen that strong governmental support of education can produce wonderful results. Unfortunately, in the USA we have seen that meretricious display without strong financial support can produce a failed education system.
We now have leaders coming who are bright, well-educated and motivated. Whether they can find the money is doubtful in this fiscal climate.
Spending more money is not the solution. Intelligent use of existing resources is the solution.
"Compared with that of the rest of the world, American governments' investment in education is lavish indeed. Although precise comparisons are difficult, because of differences in demographics and the varying ways countries organize their educational systems, figures published yearly by the United Nations reveal that the United States spends more on education as a percentage of its gross national product, 6.8 percent in 1986, than do most of the countries whose students outperform U.S. students on standardized tests"
(United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Statistical Yearbook 1988 (Paris: UNESCO), pp. 4-11 to 4-18.)
I live in New York State. We spend more per student than any other state yet lag behind many other states.
Don't tell me we need to spend more money because I'll argue you down to the end of time.
The answer, as well explained by President Elect Obama, is cutting spending where it doesn't work and spending wisely where it does. Throwing money at every problem without accountability is what got us to where we are today. I used to be a school teacher. Believe me we could cut spending and still have more than enough money for education if only it was used wisely. The big problem is the powerful teachers unions.
I don't disagree with tbcass. I don't see where he disagrees with any of my statements either. As a teacher in a family of teachers, we've seen this obfuscation argument often since the 80s. My conclusion is that we need the money at the classroom level. Basically to decrease student/teacher ratios. This bottom line correlates with better students. The myriad political manipulation of education monies began with Reagan in California. What was once a fairly direct pipeline to students (my BS at the Univ. of Calif. cost less than $200 for 4-years!) became the Kafkaesq money eating bureaucracy that the politicians love (e.g. one way to reduce the welfare state is to bankrupt the government). I think it's something about "Educated people don't vote our way." Anyway, the bottom line remains the same. Unfortunately it's not easy. Sometime tbcass sounds like Don Quixote.
I guess I jumped to the conclusion that you thought more spending was the answer. Sorry but it got my dander up. We need a better classroom environment not bigger fancier sports stadiums (which is what they are trying to push in my local school district). What I'm not so sure of is reducing the student/teacher ratio as a solution. When I was in school in the 50's and 60's 35 students in a classroom was common yet we did extremely well. The problems lie elsewhere. Student attitudes are a lot different now than when I was young. This problem starts in the home. We respected teachers. If we acted out in the classroom the parents backed up the teachers and any punishment doled out in school was then reinforced by our parents.
Q: If the problem is not enough parental involvement, then what was the cause?
A: As government has absorbed more and more of the responsibility of childhood education, parents have assumed less and less. We've heard about the moral hazard produced by welfare, the way in which it corrodes the work ethic of the lower classes. We've also heard about the moral hazard produced by government bailouts of industries, the way in which it sets industry executives free from the necessity of making rational risk assessments. There is also a moral hazard in public education.
In the first half of our nation's history, public education was almost nonexistent. As a consequence, education was seen as a valuable commodity that parents had to strive to give their children, and the children had to strive to achieve.
As public schools have become the norm, though, education has become an entitlement, like a welfare check. It is something that parents expect the state to give their children, and the children expect to have handed to them. The notion that anyone should have to work for his education has gone completely out of the equation.
Education is not like money though. It can't simply be taken from one person and handed to another. The child must work for it, and the parent must work hard to make the child want it enough to work for it. We can bleed the taxpayers dry, and pump billions of dollars into the public education system, but until we cease to think of education as an entitlement, the downward spiral will continue.
As tbcass notes, the problem in education begins in the home. It begins with the family succumbing to the moral hazard of looking at education as something they should only have to reach out their hand to be given. The solution is to get the government out of education completely, and make parents 100% responsible for their children's education.
Back in the day poor performance had consequences. If the teacher did poorly they were out the door. If the student failed they were held back to repeat the course. If you did poorly on core courses you didn't graduate. Now we are so afraid of hurting the child emotionally that there is no incentive for the students to do well. To prevent hurting feelings we are doing a far greater hurt by failing to educate. No child left behind was an attempt to restore those consequences and that's why everyone whined about it.
There are four views on this page ranging from "It's good in principle, but has poor planning, funding, and principles" (so much for being good in principle I suppose) to "It's the worst thing ever."
Is there no one defending it? Or is this "argument" just a facade to say "see 100% oppose NCLB" when they were never given a positive view point.
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One of the largest problems today is that classes are not segregated. And before you lose your mind, I mean in the sense of skill level, not race or anything else. When I was in school in the late 70's and early 80's, we had different level subclasses for several subjects. Math, reading, spelling, etc. This allowed the student to learn at a rate that fit their individual skill set, rather than being forced to what on the least skilled child in the room. Now, everything is dumbed down to ensure all kids can pass the test. Rather, we need to raise standards and seperate the kids who need additional help. Mainstreaming differently abled kids or kids who have just arrived from over seas is detrimental to the entire class. Further, we need to allow teachers to retain some authority in the class. It is too often they spend 90% of their time on the one or 2 kids who act out. Again, this is detrimental to all and no one learns. According to the left, we can't have someone feel bad because they are not in the mainstream class. Therefore, feelings determine the path, rather than sound teaching philosophy. And, no, more money won't help, the other mantra of the left.
I am dumbfounded that the same people who defend exorbitantly high compensation for CEOs on the basis that "if you want to attract good talent you have to pay for it" will, out of the other sides of their mouths, claim that teachers should do it for the love.
If you want to attract the best teaching talent you need to pay for it. It is obvious that in the US we don't actually value education enough to fund it.
CEO's are not overpaid. They're salaries are determined by the market. AKA by what other people are willing to pay them to do their job.
Most teachers in the public education system are underpaid. They're salaries are based on town taxes and speeding tickets. Why is it that private school teachers are better? Because they are paid directly by the people who control their salaries, same as CEO's. (For the most part, I am generalizing).
"It is obvious that in the US we don't actually value education enough to fund it."
You're right. As individuals, we don't care enough to treat education as a service worth shopping around for. We see it instead as a given right. At least the college education system hasn't been shredded yet but that's only because public schools also get funding through research grants which luckily still depends on the school doing well at research.
I certainly don't defend the undeserved high CEO salaries but generally speaking those salaries amount to only a tiny fraction of 1% of the operating cost of a large corporation so opposing those salaries is more out of frustration than any practical sense. You also can refuse to buy the products from that company but I can't refuse to pay my property taxes if the schools are bad! Teachers are well paid as it is especially when you consider all the benefits that go along with it. When I was young teachers taught as much out of the love of the profession as much as anything else. Now that salaries are high you get people in it for the money who don't give a crap about educating the students. What must be done is hold teachers accountable. In the business world if you don't produce you either don't get paid well or you get fired. The same should be with teachers. This means the elimination of tenure! Another thing to think about is the teachers are not CEO's. The school equivalent is the superintendent. I think most school superintendents are over paid. The superintendent should be a business person, not an educator. Educators don't know how to run the school system in a cost effective manor.
It's improved most test scores, but that is completely different from actually improving education as a whole.