No child left behind
By tiamat
@tiamat (113)
United States
December 23, 2006 1:21am CST
I am curious to here peoples thoughts on the NCLB act. Every single teacher that I know (and my mother is a highschool teacher so I know quite a few) believes that the act is bogus ie, No child left behind, no school left standing. In my gut I believe that the thing is awful. It forces schoools to rely far too heavily on standardized tests, It removes the teacher even further from a role in constructing the curriculum, and it deprives federal funding from schools that need it the most. If the US department of education had to hire a PR firm to sell this schlock to the american public, then it can't be good.
3 responses
@juls2me2 (2150)
• United States
25 Dec 06
It's unfortunate that Teachers now have to be accountable to actually TEACH students at least for the basics of reading and math. Teaching isn't just a job that you can slack on, its a job with a great responsibility. Most people that are truly called to be Teachers don't have a problem with anything that the NCLB law has in place. It's mainly the teachers that have slacked off on their teaching methods and don't really care about their student's success. I feel NCLB is a great law to have in place, yes some bugs will have to be worked out, but doesn't anything. If teachers would actually test their students weekly or bi-weekly and keep up on whose failing to help them, I don't believe this would've had to be put into place. If students aren't learning enough to pass the competencies, which is basically 8th grade level of knowledge, how can any teacher feel like they've really helped their students. I'm finding out the reasoning of some teachers. They feel that 10-20 students out of 100 students aren't worth the time to make extra efforts. Right now, most teachers give out assignments, they don't correct them, there is basically no way to know a student is in trouble til its too late and the semester is over. I really do feel things need to change and NO student should be left behind no matter what the reason. It could be as simple as getting organized, or having accountability, or getting Parents involved, or just having a plan and goal for success. I'm also finding teachers are coming up with behavior problems, that are normally handled differently at class level, a bigger problem just to get rid of faililng students from their class to not have to deal with them. What good is that?
@GardenGerty (160696)
• United States
23 Dec 06
I work in education. The pure idea of accountability is good, the method is awful. I have seen schools that abused the idea of Federal funding, but they are not where I live. I see us spending the whole year mostly teaching to the test and/or how to take tests. I work with mentally retarded students--do they get an exemption--no,BUT ethnic groups that do not count over a certain percentage get their averages removed from the schools statistics. I do not like the idea of the Federal government being able to take over all the schools.
