illustrating the lunacy behind No Child Left Behind.

pirljamgirl

by the year 2011, every student/school is expected to pass these standardized tests 100% and if they don't, the school itself will be disbanded and reconstituted if it cannot meet the requirements within 3 years. Right now it's on a scale...it's still in the 70% passing rates. urban schools are suffering first because of poor resources as the year 2011 approaches the percentages will get higher and eventually these schools with better resources will not be able to reach an unreachable goal.

We are humans. Humans are not perfect. There cannot be 100% pass rates. Hopefully none of this will come to pass and NCLB will be disbanded. I would like to take part in trying to remove this ridiculous legislation... but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I can't even comprehend how this was ever passed in the first place. It's so ridiculous. It's moronic.

jlew24asu

Pacomc79 wrote:

NCLB essentially forces all teachers good and bad into a corner. It forces them to create good standardized test takers so the numbers look good and god forbid someone miss that day of school the test is on. No good fundamental broad based education can be standardized. Parts of it can sure, but no student is equal, period. Every child is different, instead of giving good teachers freedom to take students who can handle more difficult subjects early on or (vise versa) depending on thier calling we force everyone into a ridiculous standard. Say you have a school with lots of parental involvement but average to bad teachers that winds up with good test scores. NCLB sends those average teachers into check on and give tips to teachers who might be doing a hell of a good job educating but thier kids have a hard time with tests and might have no parental involvement etc.
This is a political program brought about so political people can take numbers and boast about them in forums it has no roots in reality.

The Federal Government has not and will never be equipped to run schools, it makes absolutely no sense to spend the resources federally that should be invested locally and honestly up to state governments.

If you asked me what was wrong with education I'd say too much standardization not enough individual teaching, parental involvement etc., but the issues are broad reaching and cannot be handled with the stroke of a pen signing a bill what have you.

Some of the issues have to do with a poor student to teacher ratio, severe lack of dicipline due to the same and the dumbing down of the curriculum to fit the lowest achiever in the class instead of the opposite. We are more worried about self esteem than we are with them learning anything relevant to thier future lives.

One need only look to the way money is appropriated to see some of the bigger issues. The Administration is paid far far to much for what they do. (to much overhead) There is not enough budgeted (in any school system anywhere) for teacher supplies and a lot of what they have comes from thier own pocket. Give a good teacher supplies and a workable class load (around 20-1) with the ability to adequately dicipline students (goes to parents somewhat) and they will turn out some brilliant achievers we simply start them on the difficult stuff far to late.

Which brings me the problem of teachers unions. Paying for performance and skill are prevalent everywhere else, why not in education? Teachers should be individually rated and individually paid just as people in the working world are. If the federal government wants to nose into education how about granting money for teacher rating positions in each field who will rate teachers per quarter and examine all aspects of their duties and how they do them to determine raises and bonuses etc in order obviously to retain good teachers and get rid of bad ones. It's not the schools per say that are bad. It's too much money in administration, not enough supplies, not enough space for too many kids and not giving proper respect (money) to people doing exceptional work.

But to get back on your question, NCLB is a bad program because it forces schools to stick with a specific range of standardized tests and maintain a certain score level or lose funding. (and then some I'm not a teacher perhaps one would like to elaborate)

This is a narrow politically based answer to a very broad scoping problem that in the end only creates more problems. That's why it's a bad program.

thanks for the info.

jlew24asu

cutback wrote:

The state of America's education system makes me sick and embarrassed.

is there are realistic way to fix it?

chopitdown

jlew24asu wrote:

is there are realistic way to fix it?

change the definition of success. We determine success by GPA, SAT/ACT scores, NCLB test pass rates. We should meausre success by what matters...how well do people function in society? Would you [generic "you"] call someone "left behind" if they don't graduate high school yet get a job and are able to hold that job for a long time? I sure as hell wouldn't. But right now according to NCLB and our standards that kid is not successful and we'd consider him a failure...that is sad.
In statistics you learn that everything fits on a bell curve. You have some fat kids, skinny kids, and avg people. You have some real athletic people, quasi athletic people, and motor morons. How come when it comes to education we insist that life doesn't exist on the bell curve? We insist on saying everyone should be at one standard...in what other endeavor do we expect, and get, everyone to one minimum standard? I like the idea of NCLB...we should strive to educate everyone and reach everyone...it's just not realistic. If someone doesn't want to finish high school and isn't good at high school but really wants to learn a trade we should encourage that.

pirljamgirl

chopitdown wrote:

change the definition of success. We determine success by GPA, SAT/ACT scores, NCLB test pass rates. We should meausre success by what matters...how well do people function in society? Would you [generic "you"] call someone "left behind" if they don't graduate high school yet get a job and are able to hold that job for a long time? I sure as hell wouldn't. But right now according to NCLB and our standards that kid is not successful and we'd consider him a failure...that is sad.
In statistics you learn that everything fits on a bell curve. You have some fat kids, skinny kids, and avg people. You have some real athletic people, quasi athletic people, and motor morons. How come when it comes to education we insist that life doesn't exist on the bell curve? We insist on saying everyone should be at one standard...in what other endeavor do we expect, and get, everyone to one minimum standard? I like the idea of NCLB...we should strive to educate everyone and reach everyone...it's just not realistic. If someone doesn't want to finish high school and isn't good at high school but really wants to learn a trade we should encourage that.

well said.
there are plenty of people who don't graduate high school but yet succeed in life. there were several presidents who didn't even attend college. it's ridiculous.
i wish there was a way to abolish this bullshit. i live with it everyday