How well is the "No Child Left Behind" Act taking care of educational needs of Students with disabilities?

Question

Any input on how the NCLB Act works in theory and in practice?

Answer 1

It is just agonizing to watch your student/child struggle to complete standardized test when they have a 3rd grade reading level but are required to take the 7th grade test! The data is worthless. I have one student who never even read a word but bubbled in 56% of the right answers..what does that show? The rest of them had every accomodation in the book, but still scored misarably. We have inservices to pressure us to "teach better" because obviously it must be our fault... never mind the child has ESY, tutoring and 2 hours of homework every night! The kids are a wreck, the parents and the teachers frustrated and the administrators clueless.
Kids who used to qualify for Special ed. don't anymore and there are a whole bunch of kids not quite special ed. yet not ready to move up a grade- those are the ones getting left behind. There are few public schools where I live that have full summer programs and we still don't have full day kindergarden and our K-2nd graders go home at 2:00pm, so if a kid is behind he/she isn't getting enough time in school anyway!

Answer 2

There are good points to NCLB, but there are also significant drawbacks. Special education has always been about individualizing education to meet the specific needs of the handicapped child, and NCLB "handicaps" a teachers ability to do that. It seems ironic that once we've taken the steps to identify that a child has a learning disability or a cognitive delay which necessitates special education services--because that student was not being successful in the gen ed environment--we then continue to expect that child to progress in the gen ed environment learning the same standards as the non-disabled child--and then give the children tests that compare their progress to non-disabled peers. I definitely agree that there needed to be some specific changes in special education. I just personally believe that NCLB took special education backwards several gigantic leaps instead of moving it ahead at all.

Answer 3

It is not helping anyone! All that it has done is increase state testing and create anxiety for children. We laugh and say"No child left behind = no teacher left standing!" I was a special education teacher for 11 years and then for the past 9 teach an integrated class where 7 of my 20 students are on IEP's. NCLB is an unfunded mandate by the federal government. It is there to make the politicians look good, but nothing is done to help the kids. I'd really like to know what NCLB actually means! If you are a teacher, you'd never leave a child behind. Sadly, some kids really struggle with learning while in school, but then go on to lead very productive lives that have nothing to do with taking state tests! Sorry, I just spent 3 mornings watching my kids struggle with a test and some of them took an entire day to finish! It's just not right!

Answer 4

Not at all. Asking special educators to make sure each child reaches proficient or advanced levels on standardized tests is like requiring every doctor in America to give each of their patients the ability to walk (proficient) or run (advanced). No matter what their physical condition or health status. And this must be done by, what? 2014 I think.

Bottom line, NCLB ignores that disabilities exist. Yes, a certain percentage of students can take alternate assessments. In my district that percentage is taken up by the special needs school run by our county. It still leaves students at the public schools high and dry and feeling worthless.

As someone else said, NCLB is a DISASTER.

Answer 5

Its working about as well for children with disabilities as for those who don't have disabilities. Which is to say--it isn't.

The only thing the NCLB is doing --beyond a scattering of isolated programs used for political photo-ops--is redirect money into school districts that "meet standards." That sounds nice until you look at the facts. The NCLB reduces funding in problem areas--where its needed to fix the problems--and sends that money to schools which already have good performance and funding (and thus don't need the help).

Since minority schools have traditionally received less money and had more problems as a result, the result of this approach is to worsen the problem by shifting even more money into prodominately white, middle class schools..

Meanwhile, based on the most current information (look at the most recent "national report card"--acheivement levels and literacy rates continue to decline. So much for "No (White) Child Left Behind"

Answer 6

NCLB is basically a one-size-fits-all approach, which doesn't work well for most students, and especially not for students with disabilities. Both in theory and in practice, NCLB is a disaster. It shows what happens when politicians think they can fix what is wrong with education.

Answer 7

I think NCLB is one of better educational policies developed in a very long time.
It hold schools accountable to teach all children not just white, blue eyed blond hair, general education students.
It requires research based instruction to be used to teach children to read. It required that teachers are "highly qualified" in the subjects they instruct. No were in the federal policy of NCLB does it REQUIRED high stakes testing in order for a student to go the next grade. The individual states add that requirement. The test required in NCLB were designed to "rate" quality of instruction being presented by the teachers.
The problem is the bad P.R. educators give it because they don't like being accountable for making sure all children learn..... not just the white, male,rich, non- disable students!

Answer 8

No Child Left Behind left my son far behind. He was an eight-year-old third grader with high-functioning autism and bi-polar disorder when the law first hit our elementary school. Because his disorders cause various behavioral challenges, it was best that I act as his aide in school. This meant that I attended with him every day, and saw first-hand the problems with the law.
Too many tests, and teaching to pass the tests, was one problem. The school gave an initial essay test at the beginning of the year, but instructed the graders not to give a score above a middle point, no matter how good the essay, so that there would be room to show improvement on the essay given at the end of the year. In the middle of the year they gave another essay test--this one just for practice--then another at the end of the year. In between the teachers were instructed to give practice tests to prepare the kids for the final tests.
Yes, it's wrong for schools to try to fix the results of the test. But learning is a complex matter that can't be made to happen by governmental fiat. And schools badly need their government funding to implement good programs, hire good teachers, buy good learning aids, etc. A program that threatens to cut those vital funds if a school can't show "improvement" in student test scores is almost begging to be cheated on.
Furthermore, what sense does it make to cut funds from a school whose test results show that its students and teachers are struggling? Those are places where money needs to be added, not subtracted. Statistically, the populations that suffer the most under this law are once again minority and/or special needs populations. The law allows schools to disregard the test scores of portions of the student population, if that portion is statistically insignificant to the whole. In mostly white areas, the "statistically insignificant" populations are the children of color--the same ones whose test scores are often lower for various complicated social/educational reasons. Not reporting those scores--as the law allows--once again ignores the needs of these children, who are certainly not insignificant in any other way, and does nothing to encourage schools to help them.
The testing finally became too much for my son. The pressure of tests makes him anxious, angry, and depressed. The law allows special needs kids to have certain accomodations, but they must still take their grade-level tests, regardless of what level their actual skills are. This brings down the school's average scores, and puts even more pressure on the non-special populations to perform even better.
In the middle of fourth grade, shortly after the mid-year onslaught of practice tests, we pulled our son out of public school and began home-schooling him. It was a relief for both of us to work at learning again, not at test-passing. He now attends a couple of classes at Junior High, but we have retained homeschool control over most of his education so that we can insist he not be included in the NCLB testing, without penalizing the school.

Answer 9

It really, truly sucks for gen. ed. and special ed. It's what happens when gov't tries to interfere in education....educational reform should be led by educators, not lawmakers. NCLB blows....it's Bush garbage...he's trying to privatize education like he's trying to privatize everything else...blaming teachers for things they have no control over like children's home lives, poverty, non-English speaking, etc......he hopes parents will blame teachers and schools and get upset and take the vouchers to private schools............OK, so what parents are gonna do that? Ummmmmmm, not the poor or uneducated ones.....those will still be left behind....in the schools with no money and the worst teachers...the good teachers will go to the good schools for the $$. It's a BAD, BAD thing.

Answer 10

As a mom of a child with nonverbal learning disability I think the no child left behind act is not good for my child. She does very bad on the mastery tests and gets compared to average kids her age. I think these kids should be able to take tests on their level or be exempt from them. Of course this is just my opinion.