No Child Left Behind Act
POSTED BY: Sassalicious
UPDATED: Friday, April 21, 2006 02:54
VIEWED: 6361
PAGE 3 of 4
Quote:According to Title I of the NCLB Act, if your school has failed to make yearly progress, as defined by your state, then your school must be categorized as “needing improvement,” in which case the state is required to provided assistance to improve your school and you have the option to go to another school in your school district that is not categorized as “needing improvement.” Actually, the way I’m understanding it, the NCLB act would offer more money to your school and offer you the option to go to a school where you can learn not to be an idiot. Doesn't that sound like a plan?
Originally posted by Rhyianan:
Finn, being a student, I can tell you no child left behind is horrible. The students that don't care are being catered to, because they are the ones that can't pass the tests. This means that the students that want to learn can't because the teachers have to try to force the students that don't want to learn to learn the material.
As it has been said before, this is just dumbing down the population more, when we're already too ignorant as it is.
My high school was literally falling down around us. Sinks were falling off the walls in the bathrooms, termites were eating away at the band and choir room floors, and in some places, the snow was actually coming inside. However, because the community didn't want to pay for a new building, we didn't have enough money to do both the new program and the repairs that would make the learning environment better. And you're saying that since not 100% of the students can pass a test in that situation, that the school district should get even less money???
Do you want this country to be full of idiots?
Oh yeah....it's too late.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Key Word: Would.
But, it doesn't! IF the government had the money to put into schools, WHERE IS IT? I haven't seen any of this so called money(by "money" I mean supplies teachers order)that the No Child left behind Act offers for schools, and what of those people who only have one school for all elementary, one school for middle school and one for High school students in our district, what do WE do, just lay down and die!
JOSSIS(Most Definitely)AGOD
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Right now NCLB takes money away from schools that fail to perform (a ridiculous idea) rather than give them resources to help them succeed -- punishment without assistance.
Also, education (as anyone in academia knows) is about discovery, learning, critical thinking, investment in knowledge. Standardized tests (and especially the weight put on them) are actually hurting schools. Students don't learn critical thinking skills or discovery or proactive learning - instead they learn to memorize and regurgitate information. It is very sad.
Education needs to be updated (books should be relevant to students - The Iliad isn't) and students should be challenged to discover things, learn ideas, and follow paths to show how the disciplines are linked.
Get the politicians out of schools.
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Finn--
We know you've always gotta stand up for the Admin, but your ignorance of the issue at hand is obvious. If NCLB was correctly funded, with reasonable goals (expecting a mentally handicapped 17 year-old student who operates at 4th grade level to score the same as a High School Senior is not reasonable) you would have some points. But that's not the case.
Yes, Teachers need to be accountable for what they teach, but they do not teach in a vacuum. If you worked in a school, you would understand the staggering level of students who have parents who do not care at all how their children perform in school. That attitude has a tendancy to rub off on the kids.
And all the testing that has been added as a requirement of NCLB is detrimental to education on almost every level. Because teachers are required to teach to the tests now, it's all about filling in the right bubble. Memorizing facts is now more important than actually thinking about the material. Higher-level cognitive thinking just doesn't matter with these tests. Add to that the fact that the tests themselves often take away weeks of instruction time over the course of the year, and you have a program that claims to improve education, while dumbing down the curriculum.
I don't know a single teacher who likes the way NCLB has been executed. And it's not just teachers who were used to one system, who don't like the new one. I started teaching after NCLB went into effect, and before I even finished my coursework, I was amazed at how poorly it serves schools and students. The idea might have merit, but it's been horribly botched.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Quote:I thought that was the case as well, but I’ve been reading the NCLB Act and I can find no such indication that funding is taken away from schools that don’t perform well. The actual funding allotted to individual schools is a state responsibility, all NCLB does is require that certain poorly performing schools receive extra attention to correct the problem that is causing their lack of preformance. If schools in your state are being punished for not performing, then you should look at the way your state is structuring its funding, not NCLB. And if, in fact, your state is doing that, then it would not seem to be following the NCLB requirements, on the surface.
Originally posted by jmb9039:
Right now NCLB takes money away from schools that fail to perform (a ridiculous idea) rather than give them resources to help them succeed -- punishment without assistance.
Quote:On the whole, I don’t think standardized tests are the best way to learn or to assess education, but this is nonsense argument, because prior to NCLB standardized test requirements public schools in the US weren’t performing very well to begin with. So like the “new books” argument, this doesn’t seem to be the bottleneck either. It seems to me that public schools had their opportunity to enact the unrestricted discovery method and it didn’t work; now I think we need to try something else.
Originally posted by jmb9039:
Also, education (as anyone in academia knows) is about discovery, learning, critical thinking, investment in knowledge. Standardized tests (and especially the weight put on them) are actually hurting schools. Students don't learn critical thinking skills or discovery or proactive learning - instead they learn to memorize and regurgitate information. It is very sad.
And why isn’t the Iliad relevant to High School students? What exactly is meant by “books should be relevant to students?”
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rhyianan:
Finn, being a student, I can tell you no child left behind is horrible. The students that don't care are being catered to, because they are the ones that can't pass the tests. This means that the students that want to learn can't because the teachers have to try to force the students that don't want to learn to learn the material.
As it has been said before, this is just dumbing down the population more, when we're already too ignorant as it is.
My high school was literally falling down around us. Sinks were falling off the walls in the bathrooms, termites were eating away at the band and choir room floors, and in some places, the snow was actually coming inside. However, because the community didn't want to pay for a new building, we didn't have enough money to do both the new program and the repairs that would make the learning environment better. And you're saying that since not 100% of the students can pass a test in that situation, that the school district should get even less money???
Do you want this country to be full of idiots?
Oh yeah....it's too late.
You can't forget asbestos, bathroom stalls without doors, very few windows, a pool that likes to flood, unreliable building heat, and mildly broken locker room showers. And of course getting away from the structural integrity you have the bomb threats, building evacuations, gangs, drug deals, the occasional strip search, more frequent arrests, lock-down, school police officers, etc.
Wow, that really sounds like an environment entirely conducive to learning. And to think I went to the "yuppy" high school.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
you have the option to go to another school in your school district that is not categorized as “needing improvement"
The kids in Omaha will no longer have this option if the legislation isn't challenged because each school has been turned into its own school district instead of remaining part of the Omaha school district.
As for the state giving money to the schools, state governments don't like to give very much because the residents don't want to give money. However, in our society that is obsessed with athletes and celebrities, people are willing to raise sales tax to pay for a new football stadium. But when asked if they wanted excess money to go to social programs (from the tax increase they just voted Yes for), everyone said no. So the Green Bay Packers got a new stadium at the expense of shoppers/taxpayers and the mentally ill homeless in Green Bay have to rely on free samples from pharmaceutical companies for their medication.
Maybe people will change their minds once they realize that 30% of students are going to drop out without graduating, males are falling way behind females in class, and the U.S. is falling behind in the worldwide arena.
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I'll tell you what the problem really is . . . it's this damn hip hop rap these kids are listening to nowadays. You may say, "Very funny, Andeol," but hear me out.
Teenagers are in the thrall of popular culture. It's been like that for a while. The problem is, pop "culture" is becoming a vacuum of any actual culture, instead degrading itself to blatant egoism and materialism. Worship of vacuous celebrities is at an all time high. It's getting to where if I see a hot girl in public, wearing some insanely short shorts and a tight shirt, I can't tell if she's 14 or 20. And if these kids don't idolize some stupid girl dressing like a whore, they idolize some amoral gangsta who only cares about making as much money as he can.
And, as mentioned previously, many parents just don't care. Or they care about being a cool parent, being friends with their kids. After all, if you're always bothering your kid about his schoolwork, he won't think you're cool, and then he'll shut you out and you'll never know your child.
The NCLB Act is a reaction to this growing malaise about the school system. But it's after the wrong target. Yes, school systems could be better funded, but it won't matter until we acknowledge that the real damage to a child's education is being done by the attitude they bring into the school, not the methods of the teachers.
If kids don't wanna learn, they 'aint gonna learn. That's what I see as the big problem with NCLB. It's creating this false sense of security, showing people these numbers and saying, "See? We're fixing the schools! Pretty soon everything will be all right." Because there are a lot of people out there who will swallow those numbers gladly and thank the government for a lovely meal. -insert clever metaphore about indigestion-
"I'd be totally hacked if Stimutacs wasn't so . . ."
"Outrageously chill?"
"Word."
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Quote:
Originally posted by SaintAndeol:
The problem is, pop "culture" is becoming a vacuum of any actual culture, instead degrading itself to blatant egoism and materialism. Worship of vacuous celebrities is at an all time high. It's getting to where if I see a hot girl in public, wearing some insanely short shorts and a tight shirt, I can't tell if she's 14 or 20. And if these kids don't idolize some stupid girl dressing like a whore, they idolize some amoral gangsta who only cares about making as much money as he can.
All praise be capitalism and it's god profit, halleluiah and Amen.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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Quote:
On the whole, I don’t think standardized tests are the best way to learn or to assess education, but this is nonsense argument, because prior to NCLB standardized test requirements public schools in the US weren’t performing very well to begin with. So like the “new books” argument, this doesn’t seem to be the bottleneck either. It seems to me that public schools had their opportunity to enact the unrestricted discovery method and it didn’t work; now I think we need to try something else.
I live in Texas and graduated the very first year they started using standardized tests as a requirement for graduation. (1989) The school I went to was considered the best public school in the area and of the over 300 kids in my class, only 2 did not pass the standardized test on the first try. This was because before NCLB tied all accountability for school performance to the tests, we were actually taught critical thinking, making the tests a breeze. Since that time, schools have been forced to teach only how to pass the tests. The same school I went to has now dropped to only about 70% passing, and this is still the highest in our area! Why the decline? Because NCLB does not work! Finn, I can only assume you have no children currently in public school. I have 2 children, one in the 6th grade, and 1 in the 1st grade. When my oldest daughter was still in 2nd and 3rd grade, I asked the school if she could get extra help on her reading. I noticed that when she read, she had a tendency to rush through it and guess the word based on the first few letters or skip over words altogether in her rush to read. The school's response was that she was reading fine, all her test scores showed that she was above average. Well, now I have learned what caused the problem. My youngest daughter is an excellent reader. Although only in the first grade, she is reading difficult words, some with 4 or more syllables. She takes her time, sounds out every letter, and learns the meaning of these new words through their context in the sentence. Yet I am constantly being told her reading needs to improve. Why, because the only thing the test measures is how many words she can read per minute. My extremely intelligent daughter is so stressed out because she is being told that if she doesn't start reading faster, she will not pass the test and therefore can't go to second grade! Now tell me again Finn, how NCLB is working. How can you say that when my daughter, who has been independently evaluated be her pediatrician, a psychologist, and her school, and been found to have way above average intellect, is being told she is in danger of being "left behind"?
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