NCLB is leaving behind the children it was created to help. The socioeconomic aspect of NCLB must be equalized and, in my opinion, is the most intriguing. My motto has always has been “the highway to economic empowerment is through the street of educational enlightenment.” NCLB has moved the importance of teaching kids knowledge and skills for success to cramming for standardized tests. When it comes to standardized testing many schools and their students are at a disadvantage because their economic standing which means less resources for students to improve their educational standing.
Take the SAT’s as an example, I have a nephew who is in his junior of high school and he is ready to take the SAT exam. He attends a public school that does not offer a SAT prep class in the high school but other public school in the more affluent Montgomery County and Fairfax County, two of the wealthiest county in America, do offer SAT prep classes in the public high school. As well as the SAT prep classes, the more affluent students and the families can also afford additional professional educational services that lower income children and their families can not. Because of this disparity in resources for not only parents but also school districts, it becomes difficult for children to acquire the results that school officials are drilling the children to obtain. Children like my nephew are some of the children who are being left behind
Teaching to the test equals to cramming in my eyes. Kids do not get a chance to actually learn and retain knowledge and teachers are no longer creative in their techniques to teaching kids the skills they will need not only for life but for the next grade level. According to an article in The Clearing House by Theoni Symth expresses the sentiment that teachers are no longer sticking with the curriculum set for the schools because of the standardized test that the teachers jobs are dependent on.
In Washington, DC, where the school system is in a dismal state, has implemented a system for teaching that will do exactly what NCLB has done since its inception to educational mandate. Fail. The new DC school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has enticed teachers to teach in DC with the promise of higher pay only if they can produce results. I’m guessing those results are tied to the result of standardized tests and once they do not obtain those results they are out of the door just like the children who are being left behind.
The way the public school system is now is just ridiculous. The only teachers I ever learned anything from were those who refused to follow the curriculum set down that was simply long-term cramming for tests. Yes, they wanted us to do well on the tests; their jobs depended upon it. But they had become teachers so that they could teach, not feed their students an endless stream of facts and figures. They were the first teachers that actually made me think, the ones who resurrected my desire to learn. The ones who taught for results were the ones who taught me nothing. Sadly, those teachers were in the majority.
And that's comin' at ya' from yer local redneck hippie.
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Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me!!!
Teachers have no freedom. You have to teach what they give you or else loose a job.
Published Author and Poet
Teacher Education Student.
Our high school has been similarly impacted. NCLB has forced our teachers to attend 'curriculm' meetings, to tell them what they MUST teach their students. If we are already frustrated with teachers not teaching well, which many of us are, how can we expect them to get any better if we madate what they MUST teach, because it's going to be on a standardized test? Those standardized tests account for a lot of the money that high schools receive in order to keep functioning. High schools need that money, in order to provide basic services, and a basic education to the people within their district. Are standardized tests the best way to ensure that our teachers are doing their job well? I hope not. I think we need to have looser restrictions on what needs to get taught. I agree that there are certain things that each age group should be taught, regardless of the teacher, but I think the teacher deserves a chance to be themselves too. Teachers do a much better job teaching when they have created the materials, and are more passionate about what they are teaching, than when they are forced to teach certain things due to standardized tests. I think NCLB has failed for all practical purposes.