What do you think of the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT? Is it leaving MORE children behind?

Question

Do you think that State Standards and High Stakes Testing are forcing more schools to "teach to the test", thus leaving MORE students behind?

Answer 1

I have issues with the NCLB idea that kids with IEP's are to be tested at grade level when IDEA says they get tested at ability level. How can a student who reads on a 5th grade level or lower possibly pass as a HS level state exam? They would have a chance if ithe reading portions could be read to them so they could answer the comprehension questions, but that is only allowed for 1% of the SPED population. I have some kids with little comprehension, but good oral fluency and some with low reading fluency and higher comprehension. Gee, those test results we get back aren't an accurate representation of what my kids are capable of.

I also believe that one of Bush's committees that looked into education prior to the development of NCLB made the claim that they believe only 2% of learning disabilities are real. I was told that by a guy who works for the DOE. Isn't it ironic that only 1% of the IEP kids are allowed to qualify for non-standard accommodations?

I would also like someone to explain to me how Margaret Spellings, who helped develop NCLB, can tell me what it takes to be highly qualified, when SHE'S not even highly qualified to be Sec. of Ed. She's never had ANY experience teaching and has NO educational training of any kind.

I'll get off my soap box now. But to answer your question, YES, many are getting left behind. Some are getting more and more behind because teachers really can't teach multiplication facts to freshman and sophmores because it is not grade level curriculum. Yet we can't give them multiplication charts and calculators for their tests, when they are tested on their knowledge of how to solve for x, and not on basic skills. In real life they can use those accommodations to DO what they need to do as long as we make sure they know HOW to do it.

Answer 2

No Child Left Behind looks good on paper but in practice it has a lot of problems. It is causing schools to teach to the test and it takes any fun that was left out of teaching. It places unrealistic standards on poorer and less funded school districts. I know of several schools who are having to result to recycle bells as a way to bypass having to have low scoring children taking the state standard tests so that the schools can keep their accreditation. I am not saying that some children should be left behind because I believe everyone has a chance, but I do believe that a lot more children are being left behind now more than ever because of the fast paced standards that educators have to follow. Not all children can learn at such a fast pace and I don't know how it is for other states but in Virginia, we have to have the state standardized test about a month before school gets out. Once the teachers have crammed as much information as they can into the students heads and they take the test, they are burnt out for the rest of the school year. It is pointless to have teachers rush to teach to a test only to have a good month to teach all the other stuff that wasn't important enough to make it onto the test.

Answer 3

I couldn't find the original source material, but I do remember reading that the schools that NCLB was based upon faked their data. When an entire national program is based upon falsified data, it's pretty much doomed from the start. I posted a link from Wikipedia below, for what it's worth (second paragraph under background).

I agree with many of the previous posters; it's nearly impossible to meet these requirements. Our school has now made the School In Need of Improvement (SINI) list two-years running, and apparently year three heralds a changing of the guard...if the creative reclassification of dropouts doesn't do the trick.

I've never seen so much scrambling and administrative hand wringing in my life, unfortunately they seem to be more concerned about their jobs than the students. They have yet to implement any changes that will actually help these students, rather than just cover up or gloss over the facts. They wave a magic wand each June and these kids graduate with barely any skills and a diploma that isn't worth the paper on which it's written.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind#Miscellaneous_critiques

Answer 4

Lol, Lol!! Its a joke. There is no funding available. Schools have less and less. Students share books dated in the 90's. Classrooms are packed with more students and less teachers. Behavior problems interrupt other students learning. There are no aides available. Learning support children get left behind and forgotten about. Good students go unnoticed due to the behavior children. O yeah a teacher is suppose to teach each one of these children. Its a darn shame that illiteracy exists in the country. Now you have to be punished if you can't get children to learn the material and pass a standardized test. The public schools have bigger problems than No child left behind. Nobody wants to address the real issues. The problem is only going to get worse. There are less people entering the education field. What happens in 10 or 20 years when we all retire and the positions can't be filled? I love to teach and have fun with the students. Its hard to do that now.

Answer 5

I like this question so much better than those that ask whether the schools themselves "are failing our children." There are lots of good teachers and good administrators out there who have been given too many demands and too little support to realistically expect the kind of success we want.

The NCLB had some good points. There have been a few lazy, ineffective, or completely inadequate teachers. Something had to be done. There had to be some accountability. And we had to expect certain levels of success.

But NCLB is not progressive. It is unreasonable and harsh. To place the same demands equally on all school districts is unfair. Those with high percentages of poor, learning disabled, and second language learners face different challenges than the affluent white school districts. To allow exceptions for only a 2% special needs population across the board is simply ridiculous.

Answer 6

The NCLB Act is flawed because Bush signed it into law without any federal funding. That leaves the onus on the states to fund the programs necessary to bring failing students and schools up to standard.

The scope of subjects is too narrow. Important classes like the arts are relegated as unimportant.

Most school boards force teachers to teach to the test. Therefore, more students may fail because of language barriers or learning disabilities.

Answer 7

The subjects that don't make it on the test are automatically less important and don't get as much coverage time in the curriculum. That can be a really dangerous situation! And if the punishment for not making the grade is to take funding away from a school, would it not make sense that those schools are the ones that need the MOST funding to help them succeed? You don't see that many affluent upper-middle class suburban white schools on the failing lists, but you do see (sadly) many urban lower-class minority schools that are failing for a variety of reasons, and they historically get less funding. Are you going to take away funds from these schools to attract good teachers and buy supplies? And rewarding the higher achieving schools with extra funds is just as bad!

Answer 8

First of all, some kids need to be left behind. Teaching the test, which is what a good percentage of teachers do, is fine, but it shouldn't be all they do. But with this pressure of testing, and keeping scores up, it puts the kids behind. It seems to me that kids today know a lot about a little, and my generation knew a little about a lot.

Answer 9

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND is a political ploy to make everyone except the child feel good. It is suppose to save the childs self esteem and not make them feel bad about not being smart and push them on to the next teacher. Further more, it is more hurtful to the child than it is helpful, as the only one who is still suffering is the child as their education is still not being met, because although they may feel good, they are left behind academically. Lastly, it is leaving society behind because these students cannot read, write, or do simple math. Thus, leaving them to become unproductive members of society... I mean come on, do you really want someone who cannot add, subtract, multiply or divide working at your bank, someome who cannot read operating machinery, computers, or heaven forbid cooking!!! How about that person who cannot write, where would they work? It is creating a lazy bunch of people who will do nothing but collect Welfare!

Answer 10

I believe that NCLB has taken the imagination out of teaching and learning. My biggest pet peeve is that I used to work in a middle school helping at-risk students with life issues so that they could focus better on school. Well, my job ended because of NCLB because they wouldn't let the kids out of class for my program. So now, they have kids in class that have numerous issues such as extreme poverty, parental substance use, neglect, violence, etc. and they expect the kids to learn if they have been up all night being abused, listening to abuse, are hungry, etc. etc. There is no where anymore for these kids to get a grip and then they are expected to learn.