Is it because of the No Child Left Behind Act or is it just laziness?

Question

I have recently discovered that my daughter's teachers allow her 3, 4 and even 5 opportunities to turn in late work with NO penalties. I have also learned that the policy at the schools if a child fails a "core" class (English/Math/Science etc.,) they can take a test at the end of the year and if they pass THAT test they move on to the next grade. If they don't pass the test they can take summer school! What happened to getting a ZERO for late work and flat-out failing a grade when you didn't do your work? Are the schools scared of getting a failing grade with the No Child Left Behind Act that they are doing everything possible to pass kids now or are our schools getting lazier? My daughter is learning nothing but enabling behavior from this so tell me what good it really does?

Also, these are some of the best schools in my state!

Let me add this, my daughter is an artist so she is extremely creative and not organized. Her late and missing papers end up being shoved into her backpack or into her locker and forgotten. I have talked to all of her teachers about policies and this is the norm for her school. I highly respect teachers and feel they are not paid nearly enough for what they do but many parents expect more out of them than just education. I used to homeschool my daughter and I am a big supporter of homeschooling for many reasons but I allowed her to go back to public school because she wanted it. The counselors agreed with me to just let her fail the 8th grade instead of taking tests and passing her. A child MUST learn consequences for their actions (or inactions) and if the teachers won't teach that by giving zero's I will by letting her fail.

Answer 1

I think this practice has some thing do do with the state having to much control over our local schools, and the state making the local school meet certain standards. And this is the way the schools have to meet those standards, by giving the students too many chances. I don't think it is the schools fault or the teachers fault. It is the state's fault and the Federal Government's fault from which the states get a certain amount of funding. Give the schools back to the local community, and you would see a big improvement.

Answer 2

I don't think No Child Left Behind is causing teachers to accept late work without penalty. It depends on your state, as each state gets to choose how assessments are done. In the states I've lived in, however (Texas and Kansas) children were given yearly assessments at certain grades.

In most states, as far as I understand, children are given a standardized test. The results of those tests are what is used to determine proficiency and whether or not students are improving, not their report card grades. Therefore, it doesn't really seem logical to me that the teacher is allowing late work in order to help keep the school in good standing with NCLB.

Don't get me wrong. I think NCLB is one of the biggest mistakes the education system has ever made and that we're going to be regretting it in fifteen years, I just don't think that it's at fault in this particular case.

Most teachers I know don't accept late work without penalty, but even when I was in highschool we had some who did. It's more likely an overall teaching philosophy of the school or of that teacher individually. Some teachers feel that it's more important to make sure the students do the work and show progress and learning than to penalize for being late. Personally I think students should have to be held responsible for not doing their work, but that's just me.

If you're concerned about it, I'd go to the teacher and ask the reasoning behind it. I agree with you that it's not teaching her responsibility and discipline and what not, but schools have their own philosophies, and if this is working for them (you said it's a best school) then maybe it's not so bad.

Answer 3

that is part of it but also principles don't help. My parents are retired teacher even before no child left behind. My mother did not fall into this she kept good records and she did not allow late homework. She did allow you to revise if it was in on time She was senior english teacher. When she would fail someone the parents would come in and make a big fuss she would show them the record and say your child miss this many days and these assigments. They would then got to the principle who would force my mother to give them a test because they were afraid of the parents. My mother would say ok but i can't give them the test everyone else had and make a new hard essay test to make sure they failed. The principles are afraid of lawsuits and parents today so they bend over backwards for them and undermine the teachers. Some teachers don't want to go up against them

Answer 4

NCLB means standardized testing and higher expectations, not lower. It means overtesting and sometimes teaching to the test. It has nothing to do with handing in work late and getting zeros or not. The teachers are being too lenient, who really knows why.

Schools get failing grades for NCLB by having too many kids not pass standardized tests. It has nothing to do with handing in homework or giving zeros or not. That said, the more they let kids get away with not working, the less they will learn and the poorer they will do on the test. So it's actually making the school more likely to fail than the other way around.

Answer 5

I totally agree with you here. Its the No child left behind act. Political correctness is infesting society. Teachers are afraid of hurting any bodys feelings or stepping on any toes by failing kids. If the work is not done, perhaps one second chance is appropriate, if not a zero. Kids arent being held accountable, which breeds a lazy, irresponsible pool of future workers. Its the same way with sports teams for kids. Now, every kid makes the team. I dont even know why they have try outs because every child makes it and is guaranteed a certain amount of play time. Back when i was young if you werent good enough, you didnt make the team and you got dissappointed. That dissappointment was ok, because it left you feeling like you needed to try harder next time. Kids shouldnt be handed everything, they should have to work for it. When they work it, and succeed they gain a little something called self esteem. Its basically a law that defeats its own purpose. Basically, we pay our taxes so teachers can be paid to baby sit.

Answer 6

I think a lot of it is laziness. I've noticed a lot of teachers now don't care as much about homework and things like that. The only thing that matters here in New York is that their class passes those tests but they're not testing the kids. I believe they're testing the teachers. They just don't teach the basic fundamentals anymore. My daughter had to do a book report, when i saw the format I was appalled. I asked her why didn't she follow an outline she asked me what that was. When I showed her how to do it she realized how much easier it was.
The NCLB Act is a bunch of hooey if you ask me. It's just a way to put programs into schools that don't actually help. I notice certain programs they push more than others. I think some states and cities use to give money to unnecessary programs. In other cases it just defines which schools need more funding. What they need to is raise the standards of these teachers and push more creativity and free thinking. New York City is churning out a bunch of drones who can't remember how to spell their names. If they want it to work they need to reform it.

Answer 7

I read 'Freakanomics' and learned that because of the no child left behind act the teachers were correcting wrong answers given on tests so they would recieve a higher test score, therefore making the School appear to be a better School than it really is and recieving more money from the State.The public School system has failed us and is now in jeopardy of causing our children to become failures in life always expecting life to be easy with very little if any expectation from them.Also it use to be that if a child couldn't keep up in class they were removed and placed in a class that could accomidate their special learning needs so the other childrens studies wouldn't be interrupted while the slow one caught up.Now the slow ones take priority over the average students and the students who keep up have wait while the slow ones catch up.Also the teachers are Union and everyone knows that Union workers don't have to really apply themselves to keep their job.It practically takes an act of Congress to fire someone in an Union.The teachers keep their jobs no matter how much they fail at teaching and the Schools continue to recieve funding as long as every child makes passing grades.I think we need a complete over haul of our educational system and shake things up a bit.First of all get rid of the teachers unions,make english the only languange spoken to students in school,do away with the no child left behind it is a failed system and will never achieve anything positive.Make teachers teach only educational material and nothing which applies to a religion of any kind or a life style of any kind.Bring back physical education and drop classes which teach them such things as puting a condom on a cucumber.Get the perverts out of the schools systems and replace them with teachers who have a genuine desire to teach.Bias teachers and College Professors should also either be replaced by unbiased teachers or they should by heavily fined if they insist on promoting their biased agendas in order for the students to recieve a passing grade.Also get rid of the calculators and every other prop they use and teach them to think for themselves.There's just too many things that have gone wrong and have changed for the worst in our schools to discuss here.I'm in California and most of the schools here no longer give out homework especially on the weekends and holidays.Instead the children are taught homosexual awareness and how to be a muslim for a day and where to get free condoms and free medical care for std's.My son will be starting school this year and I'm very concerned about what they'll do to him to try and change him.Will they undermine me as a parent and teach him innaprotriate material?Will they demand I have him placed on Retalin in order to continue to attend school?I will be keeping a very close eye on what their doing to my son and teaching him and if I find they are doing something awful I will work around the clock to afford a private School,one that I feel is better for him and won't make a failure out of him.

Answer 8

It is laziness on the part of the teachers and an Educational Industry that makes money by just moving kids along no matter what they learn in school.

Even before the No Child Left Behind act I watched as family members children were simply passed from grade to grade without learning much. I have now adopted one of these kids and was astonished when I learned that teachers will not even return your phone calls. The only employee at her High School that tried to help was a counselor. Even she was frustrated at the level of indifference of the teachers. It took her weeks to arrange a meeting that 4 out of 6 teachers would attend.

My girl is now in a continuation school. LAUSD absolutely failed her.

Answer 9

the no child left behind is a JOKE... my son was having problems in school in kindergarten and they passed him to first grade then decided to test him and placed him in extra(title 1 special education) classes for 45 min a day. he still was not reading at end of first grade but they passed him on to second grade. and continued the title 1. half way through 2nd grade we moved and I pulled him from school and now homeschooling ...Found out that once they go into extra classes or are labeled with a learning disability they CAN NOT hold them back a grade.

Answer 10

I don't think it's laziness. We ask our teachers to do an awful lot of work for a low amount of pay and the risk that some angry student will take retribution on them. But some parents got upset that their children's self-esteem was suffering from getting poor grades or being singled out in class for not turning in assignments, etc, and the school districts caved. Now we don't praise the exceptional children either for the fear of giving someone else low self-esteem. What a load of crap.