Who here, like me, thinks No Child Left Behind is an abyssmal failure?

Question

For the last thirty years, U.S. schools haven't been instilling many students with the basic math, writing, and reading abilities they need to succeed in our world. We obviously score below the rest of the industrialized world in math and science.

Oh sure, it might be helping "poor" schools bring up their test scores. But really, their not an honest, holistic assessment of students' analytical capabilities. I'm not against testing, per se. But, NCLB forces teachers to teach kids to know how to handle the test; NCLB hurts teachers even more from developing and strengthing the intellectual abilities of their students. The VAST majority of my new college classmates still DID NOT feel prepared for college at all! States and localities have had reductions in their control over schools; there is now so much federal oversight. Lastly, math, science, and reading: compared to the rest of the world, we're still suckin' and not getting much better!

Teachers and fellow conservatives: Agreed?

katydid: RIGHT ON! Here in Kentucky, teachers are not allowed to even incite very much intellectual class discussion or thought, much less instruct the class in their own creative way. I disapprove of teachers instilling their personal, social, and political ideology, but most teachers really don't do that. They have to teach cut-and-paste from the curriculum manuals bestowed upon them by Frankfort.

By the way, I DID vote for President Bush in '04. I don't hate the guy. His ideas for improving education just suck.

Answer 1

Teachers in general are not conservatives. We have a broken public school system and no national will to fix it. The Democrats have complete NEA support and the NEA is simply concerned about job security for teachers and maintaining its power over our public school system. Not a single one of the useless members of the NEA (which is a huge percentage of our public school teachers) gives a crap about teaching your kid.

When I retired from the Army, I wanted to become a school teacher. I quickly changed my mind. After listening to teachers and discovering the role of the NEA, I became totally disgusted. My experience is one of the main reasons I put my son through private school. The sacrifice ( I had to work 2 jobs) was worth it.

I like the "oh, so much paperwork and testing" whine of Carly who claims to have been a literature teacher. Maybe if you people had made even a marginal effort to do your job, programs like the NCLB would not have even been considered. The bottom line is that our public school system was a shameful failure long before NCLB.

Answer 2

As a teacher, I couldn't agree more. We are not allowed to teach anything but what the state mandates. We even have scripted lesson to teach by.
When a new curriculum was introduced into my district, the principal said "When I walk into ANY 2nd grade classroom at ANY specific time, I expect everyone to be working on the same task". He expects that every classroom, and every student will be working on the same problems and projects. This isn't unusual, it's becoming more the norm.
I have several teacher friends from different districts and they too, are complaining that we are teaching to the test, not the student.
"No student left behind" is a joke to most educators.
Jimmy J, your response is ill-informed and ignorant. Carly J sounds like she truly loved her profession. It's sad to lose teachers with passion. Being unable to teach each child as an individual and being unable to be creative in this profession is a sin.

Answer 3

Well, it's certainly far from perfect, but at least it's a start. I don't know about you, but I graduated from high school with a hell of a lot of functional illiterates. That is disgraceful and completely inexcusable.

My brother-in-law dropped out of school in the 9th grade. When I first learned that, I was stunned....for pity's sake, if you show up and make even a half-assed effort, you'll pass. But then I heard him trying to read to his little girl....it was so heartbreaking. I went from wondering what kind of person drops out in the 9th grade, to being amazed he made it that far.

I think school vouchers are the way to go, personally.

Oh, and FAR too many teachers ARE trying to "raise" our children. I know quite a few parents here in Alaska, where hunting and trapping are part of daily life, who have had to defend their decisions to take their kids moose hunting. Yeah, that's a good idea - ***** at the parents who actually spend TIME with their kids, but ignore the ones who plop Jr. in front of a television or video console all night. It's BS.

Answer 4

I cannot even begin to tell you how many excellent teachers were driven from teaching by NCLB. I, for one ,became so sick of testing and retesting and benchmark testing and post testing... and all the mountains of paperwork that went with it. I was a Literature teacher... and loved teaching the classic short stories and poetry units. When I could no longer teach, but just test, I bailed on a career I once loved dearly.

Answer 5

NCLB is a joke.. to MAKE it look good they actually only used the top 50% of the class to publish their statistics in the pilot programs in Texas.. when you apply the entire sample population it's astounding how bad it actually is for education... but would you like to know why it got the nod anyway? Because Bush's brother was a CEO in the company that got the contract to furnish all the new book under the program.

Answer 6

We have two professional teachers in our family each has been teacher in the elementary school system for more than 20 years. Both are intelligent, educated people who care about the teaching profession and the children they work with. I can state with absolute confidence that they both believe NCLP is a failure.

Answer 7

agree .. i remember being taught test taking strategies in school . the pitch was to be test smart . special workshops / weeks devoted to how to take a test .

there was no special workshop to actually teach the skill / subject matter

Answer 8

Yes.
Throwing money at Education never works.

Just wait until we get a Democrat President.

When it comes to "throwing money", we ain't seen nothing yet.

Democrats will point out that it is "All Free Money", just like their Welfare Checks.

Answer 9

I'm a Liberal and I heartily agree with you. I'm not learning a thing in High School. We're learning stuff I knew in the fourth grade.

Answer 10

NCLB is a dismal failure. But the entire term of Dubya has been a miserable failure so this shouldn't come as a surprise.