| A Help or A Hinderance??? |
 Hello, Everyone.
I read this article this morning about the No Child Left Behind Law, and it’s current progress. After reading this, I had to add my two cents into this.
If you go to the link, http://www.whitehouse.gov
/news/reports/no-child-left-behind.html there is a foreword from President George Bush. Here is the section I would like to point out that the No Child Behind Law is intended for.
• Increase Accountability for Student Performance: States, districts and schools that improve achievement will be rewarded. Failure will be sanctioned. Parents will know how well their child is learning, and that schools are held accountable for their effectiveness with annual state reading and math assessments in grades 3-8.
• Focus on What Works: Federal dollars will be spent on effective, research based programs and practices. Funds will be targeted to improve schools and enhance teacher quality.
• Reduce Bureaucracy and Increase Flexibility: Additional flexibility will be provided to states and school districts, and flexible funding will be increased at the local level.
• Empower Parents: Parents will have more information about the quality of their child’s school. Students in persistently low-performing schools will be given choice.
It also states at the priorities of the law are as such:
I. Improving the academic performance of disadvantaged students
II. Boosting teacher quality
III. Moving limited English proficient students to English fluency
IV. Promoting informed parental choice and innovative programs
V. Encouraging safe schools for the 21st Century
VI. Increasing funding for Impact Aid
VII. Encouraging freedom and accountability
This morning I read the article, New Study Finds Gains Since No Child Left Behind By SAM DILLON in The New York Times. The link for this article is: http://www.nytimes.com/
2007/06/06/education/06report.html?
ex=1338782400&en=c645e1eb7b72c695&ei
=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This is a direct quote from the article itself.
Student achievement has increased and test score gaps between white students and black and Hispanic students have narrowed in many states since President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, according to a new survey of state scores in reading and math.
However, here is another direct quote from the article.
Those results have been mixed. For example, on the national tests given in 2005, fourth-grade math scores showed an important increase over the previous test administration in 2003, and eighth-grade math scores rose slightly. But fourth-grade reading scores were the same on the nationwide test in 2005 as in 2002, and eighth-grade reading scores declined.
Here are two more direct quotes I would like to draw attention to.
Merely collecting the test data from 50 states proved to be a complex and frustrating task because many states’ education departments are overworked and their test archives are flawed by missing or inconsistent data, the report said. “The house of data on which N.C.L.B. is built is at times a rickety structure,” it said.
In analyzing state scores, the researchers who carried out the study did not consider all recent data from all states because, the report said, new tests and other factors in some states made it impossible to compare scores from one year with others. But Professor Fuller said the researchers appeared to have eliminated testing periods in some states that showed predominantly falling scores after 2002.
So, my question is simply this. Is the No Child Behind Law being a help or a hindrance to our children?
I have no idea what your experience with this law has been, but this is my experience & the experience of other parents I have spoken to about this law in the past.
Due to this law, assessment testing or passing these tests has become of the utmost importance within the schools. It has taken the joy out of learning for these children, and the joy out of teaching for many teachers. Why do you ask? It’s because of the pressure of passing these assessment tests are put on both the teachers and students so that the schools can be within complicates of this so call law that is suppose to help our children. I state suppose to help, because if you practice something over and over again enough, you will eventually get it right. It’s simple memorization NOT learning.
Another unfair issue I would like to point out is that assessment testing is only good for comparison ONLY if you can get the entire population to do the test. In this case, that isn’t even feasible. Why? Well, let’s think logically about this shall we? What about the kid that was absent that day when the test was taken or the homeschooling children that are not taking the tests? Also, the issues that are being left out of the equation are that this law was intended to even the plane for all children. The problem is that in order to do that you would have to even the plane for family income, the treatment of different races, environment the children live in, ect. This is also not feasible unless some miracle is to occur.
Finally, another issue I would like to point out is because the No Child Left Behind Law is meant to even the plane for all children, this is what happens in reality.
For the children that are gifted or above average, they are forced to be bored, because they already know what is being taught and are not allow to go ahead of the peers due to the fact that would create inequality. Instead, to get out of being bored these children usually get into trouble. This is not always the case, but it does happen.
For the children that are below average due to either learning disability or a handicap of some sort are eventually pushed up the scale so that they can be the “same” as the rest of the children. By doing this, how are these children getting any benefit from the system?
So, how is this helping the children? I can’t see where it is helping them at all. In fact, I don’t see how it is making things better for our children at all. The truth of the matter is that the United States has scored poorly in education for quite some time, and President Bush knows this. For example, Japan has always scored high in math where as the children of the United States score low as a nation. So, in order to make the richest country in the world look better, he is trying to up the ante so to speak. Unfortunately, the ones that are suffering are the children themselves.
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| See also: No Child Left Behind Law, education, children |
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