| A Paradox With "No Child Left behind" |
 Hi, Everyone.
Normally, I usual don’t write about the same subject 2 days in a row, but education is one of my major causes I support. So, as you can see this article would have gotten my attention. ;-)
Yet again, this morning I read another article on the No Child Left behind Law called State Found to Vary Widely on Education . It, too, was in The New York Times. Here is the link for the article in its entirety: http://www.nytimes.com/
2007/06/08/education/08scores.html?ex=
1338955200&en=60d958ad6aad652f&ei=5088&
partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Within the article itself, it goes on to explain how each state has a different standards of what is considered proficiency and what is not. Here are a few direct quotes form the article to give examples of this. :
Academic standards vary so drastically from state to state that a fourth grader judged proficient in reading in Mississippi or Tennessee would fall far short of that mark in Massachusetts and South Carolina, the United States Department of Education said yesterday in a report that, for the first time, measured the extent of the differences.
For example, an eighth grader in Missouri would need the equivalent of a 311 on the national math test to be judged proficient. That is actually more rigorous than the national test. In Tennessee, however, a student can meet the state’s proficiency standard with a 230, a score well below even the basic level on the national exam.
The differences between state proficiency standards were sometimes more than double the national gap between minority and white students’ reading levels, which averages about 30 points on the national test, Mr. Whitehurst said.
Even within our homeschooling laws & regulations you can see a difference. For example, the 6 states that have the most regulations & laws are NY, PA, RI, MA, VY, & ND. The state with the least regulations & laws is TX. In fact, within the TX state constitution, homeschooling is not only allowed, but protected. The data for this came from http://www.hslad.org/laws .
So, you would think that the solution to this problem would simply to make all states education requirements to be the same. However, that is not the case, and here is the reason why.
Within the US Constitution, Amendment X states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” One of theses powers would be how education within each state is regulated. You can find the data at this link: http://www.constitutioncenter.org/
explore/TheU.S.Constitution/index.shtml
Therefore, with all this in mind, what is our nation to do about this paradox? It really is a catch 22 isn’t it? If the government tries to make where all states must follow the same education standards, then our constitutional rights will be violated. However, if the government does not, how are we to meet the requirements of the No Child Left behind Law? The answer is rather simple. It can’t be done. So, my question again is, how is it helping our children? I still don’t see how it is.
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| See also: No Child Left behind Law, education |
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