No Child Left Behind is a Miserable Failure!

[kay1864]

From NPR yesterday afternoon:


All Things Considered, December 1, 2005 · Nearly four years after the No Child Left Behind Act took effect, the nation's urban school districts have shown little benefit from the law, which mandated annual reading and mathematics tests for all students in grades 3 through 8.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the "Nation's Report Card," over the last two years most fourth- and eighth-graders in 11 city school districts made very modest progress in reading and math. And most continue to perform well below the national average.

But the most worrisome trend is that the achievement gap between white and minority students has stayed the same and may even be widening. That's bad news for the Bush administration, which has insisted the gap has been closing under the No Child Left Behind Act.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5034973

[YOY]

1. BUT THAT LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE IN FRONT OF THE D.O.E.

IS SOOOOOOO CUTE!!! It just had to be effective!!! :sarcasm:

[BeyondThePale]

2. Everything * touches is a miserable failure!!

NCLB is not an exception, but the rule

[MADem]

3. There is one child who SHOULD HAVE been left behind!!!

This little putz:



Look, a little monkey in a washtub!!!!!!!

[NewWaveChick1981]

4. I have worked in higher education for 20 years,

and I am extremely familiar with Every Child Left Behind. I have monitored the information on ECLB coming out of the US Dept. of Education, and it has been increasingly bad. I have seen the gap grow between the haves and the have-nots, and it is extremely disturbing. I have two nieces who are just beginning elementary school, and I fear for them.

Standards are fine things to have, but not every child will conform to those standards. Many teachers have had to resort to "teaching to the test" to keep their heads above water, and this accomplishes NOTHING. ECLB needs to be scrapped---schools were far from perfect before, but this makes things so much worse.

[insane_cratic_gal]

6. Your exactly right

My daughter is just in 2nd grade, already they are doing the "teaching to test"

I've spoken with our principle and my daughters teachers about it, everyone in the education field hates NCLB.

If you do get any money (usually small) the school itself doesn't get to choose how that money is spent. Rather how the money is spent is already decided by the Dept of education.

So if they really need new science books, but the dept of Education decides to put that money toward history books the schools have no say.

Attendance is a huge issue. Excused absences are still held against them (you need 90% attendance rate). A child can miss no more then 8 days before the NLCB starts to doc them for it. It doesn't take into account Bad flu seasons, or a child who is suffers from some terrible disease. It's a blanketed average and that is all they care about.

Plus the sneaky military info in there is absurd, targets your children for calls once they reach Jr. year.

[LisaLynne]

5. That assumes that what * wanted was to improve education ...

and I'm not at all convinced that was the plan. I think the plan is to get the public schools in such a mess that they can get the voucher system through which they're hoping will mean that all the suburban white kids end up in religious schools or are home schooled. What happens to everyone else is not their concern.