Always searching for inspiration…

As explained in previous posts, many struggles have occurred in relation to the creation of No Child Left Behind. Though some can see that this law has possibilities and tests how students as well as teachers are performing several areas are finding that NCLB is narrow in terms of its measurement. As English teachers dealing with teaching to students from a middle-class bracket, minorities with expected improvement and the recent growth in immigration, future educators will also have to find solutions to teaching toward lower-class or possibly impoverished students as well who will also at some point be taking the same standardized test as every other student. Through searching Google News, I discovered a blog dealing with many current event issues but particularly questioned this administration’s “narrowness” in relation to testing schools when there is not much done for students and their families when they leave the buildings.

I have a question for President Bush. If he truly embraces the concept of No Child Left Behind, why does he limit such to educational performance? Why is it seemingly okay for children to be left behind in myriad ways outside the schoolhouse doors but, once they cross the threshold, it is suddenly unacceptable? If the federal government truly values this nation’s most precious resource (hint: it’s not petroleum but children), then ought there not be a commitment to the whole child, inside and outside of school? After all, doesn’t it stand to reason that a child who lags behind at home—e.g., due to poverty and its attendant ills—may as a result lag behind at school? Is the school somehow expected to compensate for such?

Like I have said before, I feel that several aspects of NCLB are not practical when it comes to our educational system. Teachers should be concentrating on instructing students who come from all backgrounds to read and write in a way that they can learn to enjoy or least appreciate, while in addition preparing them for higher levels of education or to receive their diplomas so they can earn some sort of job. If they are able to process what they are learning they will more likely retain their knowledge. This is important especially in areas in which life outside of school is more difficult because their families are in a low-income bracket. Areas such as this typically are problematic because emphasis on education is diminished and therefore performance on standardized testing is not generally as high. This makes the possibility of shutting down schools in these districts more of a reality which in turns less education to the area anyway. The author of this blog’s post quoted from The New York Times,

While no one believes that hospitals are really like “ER” or that doctors are anything like “House,” no one blames doctors for the failure of the health care system. From No Child Left Behind to City Hall, teachers are accused of being incompetent and underqualified, while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.

Every day teachers are blamed for what the system they’re just a part of doesn’t provide: safe, adequately staffed schools with the highest expectations for all students. But that’s not something one maverick teacher, no matter how idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.

I agree with this blog’s writer when he says that it is not teachers’ faults that students in these areas are performing below expectancy. They are challenged with trying to teach toward an annual test that determines funding, penalties and the existence of their jobs while continuing to teach students to their own curriculum that concentrates on meta-cognition which gears toward an open learning experience that children can benefit and appreciate. If performance inside of schools is all that is measured (due to not as much emphasis outside of school on educational importance) how are students going to perform anyway and why do teachers automatically get blamed? Are they the only contributing factor? I don’t think so and therefore I feel that the government should give more control back to education administrators by continuing to depart from traditional teaching requiring standardized testing. Instruct in ways that suggest an open-ended environment where the students are able to process because by doing so they will maintain facts that are mandatory on yearly tests. 

The Narrowness of “No Child Left Behind”

David Jaffe, January 19, 2007

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