Conclusions April 15, 2007
Posted by hpiette in Classroom Reflections.1 comment so far
Well, as we all know the semester is coming to an end. It is crazy to think about how much time has passed and how much was learned about the classroom environment. I think in all of my education classes this one has been the most beneficial to me and my understandings of how to better equip my students for their educations which hopefully continue into their college careers.
Exploring these blogs was very useful for me. It gave me an opportunity to look more closely on an educational topic which a feel very strongly about. As a result, many articles I was able to find reinforced much of my own thinking about No Child Left Behind and how high-stakes testing is affecting our educational system. In other words, this legislature was created with “decent” intentions but overall, has not been successful in practice. Students’ futures are being placed on the results of one test, just one. This determines so many possibilities of consequence. I still ask myself how punishing schools helps students be more proficient? Is No Child Left Behind really just to alleviate some embarrassing appearance because if anything I feel this act is reinforcing this. The truth is many students are capable of so much, learning more maturely so they can process and develop skills which will benefit them their whole lives, not just if they go to college.
What is preventing this from happening is the rigid format that teachers have had to revert back to in order to concentrate on yearly testing. This rigid format does not help students process because a dislike for English is being instilled on their psyches. Rather, help students love to learn reading. Then yearly tests will not be a necessary tool of measurement determining “proficiency.”
This class has sincerely been beneficial because it helped motivate as well as innovate my thinking about what is important in getting students not only educated in English but instilling a love for literature and writing. Regardless of having to wake up early for Saturday’s conference I felt that this too was beneficial because it gave me opportunities to hear other perspectives of instructors who are only reinforcing everything we have discussed in class. For me, everything has been joy!
Bright Ideas Conference 2007 April 15, 2007
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As we become English teachers in the near future, innovating our thinking as we reinforce the knowledge we have already learned is important to developing skills which will benefit our work in the field. After finishing the trip to Lansing for the Bright Ideas Conference, many concepts which have been explored in class thus far, I feel were examined in depth in the various sessions that I attended.
The keynote speech given by Jacqueline Amanda Woodson provided some basis for many of the meta-cognitive ideas which have been discussed amongst our classmates. For example, she often discussed how instructing writing is important but teaching students to value their own voice is just as necessary. In addition, in order for students as well as others to be aware of what they are writing they must simply be allowed to do just that without stipulations or instructions interfering. But when students write they should be able to become aware of their flaws because doing so will allow improvement. I agreed with Woodson when she described how students should be allowed to express themselves outside of “standard requirements” because doing so will open more to the possibilities writing has to offer. Also, with guidance students are more likely to think meta-cognitively about what they are doing therefore developing skills which will continue to help them.
I also attended the presentation titled, “Engaging Literature Lovers and Reluctant Readers” which provided oppositional ideas for these kinds of readers. For those who are reluctant, the speakers suggested fostering the love of reading when students have free time. In other words, when we are in school we often are forced to read selections from the “cannon” or other pieces which may not suit our liking that causes students to formulate an opinion about English which lasts the rest of their lives. But what is useful in a classroom is allowing students to read what they love while getting them to think critically about them which can be done through various activities. As future teachers, we need to think about how we can incorporate what students are reading on their free time into classroom curriculum.
The other portion of this session discussed those who are advanced and love to read literature. The speaker explained how having lit circles outside of the class allows students who do read this much an outlet to express their ideas with each other while keeping up with their pace of reading.
The last session attended was the “macBeth” presentation in which the speakers mostly discussed how in this digital world, students have been immersed with this technology giving us as teachers more reason to incorporate technology into the classroom. In other words, giving students the opportunity to use iMovie or MySpace creatively can still enable them to think critically while innovating the way we do this. I feel this conference was beneficial to my personal knowledge of the classroom and it demonstrated many of the principals which have been discussed in our class.
Some Children Remain Behind; Not Every Child Is the Same March 30, 2007
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With all of the articles that have flooded my Google Reader account dealing with the controversial subject of the No Child Left Behind legislature, this one from the Washington Post offering almost a satiric perspective, interested me the most. Several who are for this legislature argue that those who oppose it are trying to shield our young minds from the reality of competition the world has to offer. But as explained by the author of this piece, the superintendent of Fairfax County, Virginia (which has a well testing district) does not consider this to be an issue. Rather he feels his duty as an educator is to stand up for what he believes is most important which does not include telling students above their shoulders “you must complete” this test. As future English instructors, I feel many of us can learn from his example though we may not be superintendents.
The federal approach to No Child Left Behind is what you might expect from an administration whose response to a failing strategy in Iraq is to throw good bodies after maimed ones. “We need to stay the course,” Raymond Simon, the U.S. deputy secretary of education, told The Washington Post’s Amit Paley. “The mission is doable, and we don’t need to back off that right now.”
Right now Jack Dale (the superintendent) is battling the U.S. Government with the support of many other districts, in order to at least change the part of the legislation that requires students born in a different country take the same annual test that everyone else does. Dale refuses to test these students because he understands the impossibility of them doing well. He agrees students from families which are not native speakers but who were born in this country should be tested but at a third grade level. The government’s response included removing 17 million dollars of funding from the district.
No Child Left Behind is built on a mirage. At some point that’s always just over the horizon, the law assumes, all children in the nation will miraculously read and compute at grade level, simply because they have been tested and tested and tested again. The theory is that somehow, when told the exact number of children who are lagging in achievement, teachers will agree to render the magic that they have thus far withheld and — poof! — those kids will become smart, cooperative and productive.
As we get closer to that utopia, it’s becoming ever more clear that Some Children Remain Behind and that, gadzooks, Not Every Child Is the Same. Oh, and this: Staking everything on a test doesn’t produce a flowering of inspired teaching, but rather what Dale, a former math teacher, calls an “obsessive focus on tests.”
But Dale, a former math teacher himself, is frustrated with almost the “robotic” answer he keeps getting in return. He explains many teachers are losing their ability to become those who inspire students but are obsessed with making sure students pass a test. One test which determines funding, jobs, reputation, etc. In other words, students are being plucked from the opportunity of having an education which is not solely based around mechanics but how to read and write in a more mature, cognitive way. In addition, those who cannot possibly perform as well are being singled completely out of an education at all. Like previously stated, the government expects children will suddenly over time reform to this regime like curriculum and become better students but I can imagine there are many actual teachers who would disagree.
No Child Left Behind is built on a lie. Not every kid will go to college, no matter what you do. So you can either lower the standards enough to pretend that everyone is succeeding, or give up on the lie.
But the feds won’t talk about that; they just repeat “Stay the course,” and any school system that balks is threatened with punishment.
“I’ve been warned that to speak frankly in this area is not wise personally or professionally,” Dale says. But he’s speaking anyway, because, as a good teacher, he knows that “we don’t succeed well when we go punitive. You need standards, but they should be aspirational; it needs to be about incentives, not punishment.”
Regardless, Jack Dale continues fighting for changes hoping to gain more flexibility for schools which are deemed “failures” according to standards. I agree with the author and this superintendent as it is expressed in the article that not every child is meant to go to college and you cannot force them. The best we can do as instructors is to try to inspire as many as we can to ensure well-developed minds who will want to go to college. As always one cannot get every student, but a good teacher will try. By lowering these standards, the government would be giving many more students the opportunity to succeed, rather than scaring them away totally.
In Fairfax’s ‘No Child’ Fight, A Refusal to Leave Children Behind
by Marc Fisher
The Washington Post
March 22, 2007
NCLB and High-Stakes Testing: What is truly at stake? March 21, 2007
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In an article I found with Education Week, two educators named David C. Berliner and Sharon L. Nichols are speaking out in a commentary written on the false validity of No Child Left Behind which is similar to many of the points that I have made with my blog entries. These two from Arizona State University and the University of Texas discuss how if Congress does not soon change the original format of this act that American schools will be more “at risk” than they ever have before.
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush claimed success for the federal No Child Left Behind Act. “Students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap,” he said, calling on Congress to reauthorize this “good law.” Apparently, the president sees in No Child Left Behind what he sees in Iraq: evidence that his programs are working. But, as with Iraq, a substantial body of evidence challenges his claim.
Within this commentary both authors talk about how this form of academic measurement is in fact damaging our children’s future because they agree that those who have created this legislature must have had absolutely no contact with students. The reason for this is that if they had they would recognize many different aspects that come into conducting a classroom such as different learning capabilities as well as those who are learning English as a second language or perhaps those who are from a poverty-stricken area in which education is not considered important because that is what students are taught through society.
We note in passing that only people who have no contact with children could write legislation demanding that every child reach a high level of performance in three subjects, thereby denying that individual differences exist. Only those same people could also believe that all children would reach high levels of proficiency at precisely the same rate of speed.
Validity problems in the testing of English-language learners and special education students also abound, but we limit our concerns in this essay to the No Child Left Behind law’s reliance on high-stakes testing. The stakes are high when students’ standardized-test performance results in grade retention or failure to graduate from high school. The stakes are high when teachers and administrators can lose their jobs or, conversely, receive large bonuses for student scores, or when humiliation or praise for teachers and schools occurs in the press as a result of test scores. This federal law requires such high-stakes testing in all states.
But as a result of this annual measurement of a student’s performance that determines where they will end up along with their teachers and the school in general, what we can see happening is what others worried about thirty years ago which was creating only a single test to measure total effectiveness which has now become an overwhelmingly apparent problem. In fact, judgment in addition to punishment is being placed in several district areas in which this test is supposed to improving proficiency? I agree with these authors by saying that it is difficult to believe that American schools are becoming more proficient by students and teachers being punished by circumstances that they cannot fully control.
We have documented hundreds of examples of the ways in which high-stakes testing corrupts American education in a new book, Collateral Damage. Using Campbell’s law as a framework, we found examples of administrators and teachers who have cheated on standardized tests. Educators, acting just like other humans do, manipulate the indicators used to judge their success or failure when their reputations, employment, or significant salary bonuses are related to those indicators.
The law makes all who engage in compliance activities traitors to their own profession. It forces education professionals to ignore the testing standards that they have worked so hard to develop.
We found examples of administrators who would falsify school test data or force low-scoring students out of school in their quest to avoid public humiliation. We documented the distortion of instructional values when teachers focused on “bubble” kids—those on the cusp of passing the test—at the expense of the education of very low or very high scorers.
In addition to trying to teach to a test in a diversified classroom setting with different learning capabilities, race, gender and socio-economic status, the worst possible scenario is occurring in which educators are actually forcing students who do not perform as well out of their school for fear of public humiliation. Forcing students to leave school, how does this help educational proficiency? Again, I agree with the authors because this form of measurement is corrupting education far more than actually being beneficial. Students are being tracked from education regardless of a meta-cognitive process. Similar to Dick Gregory’s “Shame” students are being deprived of their education, but in this case they’re being tracked because of a test. I think it is ironic that some educators and principals are cheating or kicking students out of school because they don’t want the humiliation. Isn’t that humiliating anyway? Overall, after looking at the same situations through my own writing I feel that NCLB does need to be changed to say the least because it is removing students from a well-rounded education that teaches them to love or at least appreciate writing and reading.
High-Stakes Testing Is Putting the Nation At Risk
Members of the Government Fight to Change NCLB February 23, 2007
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In our educational system No Child Left Behind is a very serious topic as of right now. Not only are educators starting to voice their opinions about the social complications of this legislature, but government officials are as well. In an article I found with The Grand Rapids Press U.S. Representative Peter Hoekstra wants to create a new legislation that would give the responsibility of what happens in our educational system back to the government and essentially making NCLB impossible to use.
Hoekstra doesn’t believe his legislation has a chance, but wants to make a point. “Education has always been under local and parental control. We want to empower the states so they can say, ‘We’re going to be responsible for the state education,’” Hoekstra said Thursday.
I find this statement extremely ironical because maybe I am the only one who had this understanding, but I thought that the government has been responsible the whole time. Regardless, I respect the fact that someone who is within the government is finally trying to publicly recognize a need for some change with NCLB. Hoekstra acknowledges many of the issues that I have discussed such as schools are penalized or received pulled funding for situations that are beyond teacher control when trying to teach toward a yearly test. In addition, this legislature is quoted as having “little flexibility” in its measurements. Similarly, the previous story about immigrants being academically punished due to NCLB is also a reality in Holland (another place where the Latino population has grown considerably and having to deal with the same consequences).
He also discusses in this article how by teachers having to instruct and change their curriculum in order to satisfy test standards there is some level of discrimination. The reason for this is they are having students who are likely not to perform well pushed away with most of the instructor’s time being spent on the students who will do well. This occurs as a result of schools’ fears of being closed down or teachers losing their jobs. In other words, students who are supposed to benefiting from this act are actually be punished in more ways than what was earlier mentioned. Rather they are being crippled from having the opportunity to become mature thinkers who are capable of learning to read and write at a more in-depth level which occurs through creativity and thought-process.
Creating a system in which students are credited for showing growth in a subject rather than asking them to pass tests they’re not prepared to pass would be a first step, he said.
Entrepreneurial skills, critical thinking and creativity are being replaced by one goal: getting the kids to pass a test, he said.
“We’re all going to be there. The question is, is anybody going to be at the right place?” Schlemmer asked.
I agree with these men because after the test-drive of this act it is clear that what students need is a creative outlet that does not require them being forced to spend their secondary careers trying to memorize literary facts. Students will truly benefit from the opportunity to express their thoughts and creativity in a controlled environment such as a classroom. I get the feeling that many government officials think that this is unimportant and should be left for time outside of school. What they do not realize is that students respond to this, therefore making them more likely to retain information they have learned. The goal is “proficiency” so why not teach to students in a way that they do retain what they have been taught each year.
Hoekstra takes aim at No Child Left Behind laws
Nardy Baeza Bickel
The Grand Rapids Press
February 23, 2007
Can socioeconomics be a factor on student performance? February 14, 2007
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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
Google News Blog Search
NCLB Enforcing Reading Skills on US Immigrants February 5, 2007
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With a recent stream of immigrants into the United States, those who will become English teachers will also have to struggle with not only teaching toward a test for fluent, native speakers of English but those foreign from this country without similar language capabilities. In an article found in the Washington Post, Virginia schools are being “threatened” by the government due to not testing immigrants on reading and writing because of difficulty in testing at the same level as those who are native speakers.
In a sharply worded letter, Deputy Secretary of Education Raymond Simon said he is “greatly distressed” that some school districts, including Fairfax County, might violate the No Child Left Behind Act. Simon urged Virginia to enforce the law. If it does not, he said, federal education officials could step in, possibly withholding funds.
Administration in Fairfax, Virginia believes violating this is unacceptable and educators have had “ample” time to administer an updated test that is geared toward non-native speaking students. However, their teachers continue to vote against this mandate because foreign students are unlikely to pass a traditional test, which eventually would cause schools to lose funding anyway.
The dispute began last year when federal education officials rejected the reading exams that Virginia has given to many students learning English, because the tests don’t cover the same grade-level material as those given to students fluent in English.
“No Child Left Behind says all children will be able to read and do math at grade level,” Simon said. “The whole point of No Child Left Behind is to find out what they know and don’t know and target resources. . . . We want the law to be followed.”
Though I understand that the government is determined to reach 2014’s goal of “proficiency” in English, I do not think that they understand what occurs within a classroom. They have constructed standards for teachers and students to perform on unaware that it is easy to be on the outside looking in saying, “Students need to be performing better. So either they do this and we measure their ability the way we want or we will punish and pull funding.” I can imagine that teaching toward different capabilities among native students is hard enough but now there is a whole other aspect to teach toward. Their educators say they have created a test that measures what students have learned after they know an acceptable amount of English but should not be tested until then.
If the government does not want to allow a new test and still expects immigrants to perform on a traditional test they must come to realize what actually happens in a classroom. Teaching two very different groups of students to a “proficient” performance will take away from all of these students. So in my opinion, the government is creating a losing situation with NCLB. The reality is many factors determine a student’s performance and students not familiar with English will be slower, therefore forcing them into the same testing is just not conducive. Forbid that the government pretended to listen to what actual educators are trying to tell them! All students should be able to learn to be mature readers and writers which I feel can be done through letting them thought-process what they are working on. With non-native speakers most of the teacher’s time will be spent almost completely on instruction in relation to the standardized test, not on becoming mature meta-cognitive learners which I think many teachers will agree is just as if not more important because this actually helps them become better at English. Then helps in future years of education and work as opposed to teaching facts they need to know for a test. Being prepared for the workforce when they graduate? Funny, I thought the government had already realized “children are the future.”
Va. Is Urged to Obey ‘No Child’ on Reading Test
Maria Glod, Staff Writer
Washington Post
February 1, 2007
Can students handle preparation for testing? January 30, 2007
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The subject of No Child Left Behind will frequently be one that affects our everyday teaching as well as the lives of our students. Since the act was formally passed five years ago, several have studied student performance and the affects from the changes that have been made as well as the development of any further improvement from district to district across the country. Many seem opposed to having to change their teaching styles to accommodate a standardized test. In addition, several people feel that NCLB takes away from other aspects of a student’s education, such as fine arts while causing them to not have time for their own lives. This article which was located on CNN.com closely examines one student’s individual grasp on preparing for the test and how it affects her day-to-day life in school and in general.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) — Natashia Ector starts the last class of the day with her head on her desk.
After two bus rides, a train ride, five classes and a lunch period spent doing homework, the 17-year-old high school sophomore quickly takes her math teacher up on the offer of two minutes of quiet.
But the calm doesn’t last, the classroom perks back up and the work begins anew.
There is no time to waste at the Boston Community Leadership Academy, where the teachers and 10th-graders have mere months left to prepare for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. The exam will determine which sophomores can graduate and whether the school is meeting the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which mandates that all children be proficient in math and English by 2014.
Last year, more than 90 percent of the schools’ students — nearly all black or Hispanic — passed both the math and English portions of the exam on their first try.
Minority sophomores statewide have shown steady improvement over the past five years, making Massachusetts a leader in addressing one of education’s most stubborn and urgent problems: the achievement gap between white and minority students on standardized tests.
In a typical day for Natashia, it seems everything is colored by the all-important exam.
“Nobody knows what we’re going through,” she says, “unless they’ve come to school.”
After No Child Left Behind became law, states scrambled to comply by creating new tests and standards, said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive officer of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington group that advocates for public education. Others reduced existing standards to make it easier for students to meet them, which is allowed by NCLB.
But Massachusetts — already several years into its own reform plan — did neither.
When the state Legislature passed the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, it created the MCAS test, established the 10th-grade exam as a graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2003 and demanded the creation of high standards for teachers and students.
In exchange, the Legislature promised more funding; it has pumped more than $19 billion in additional money over the past decade-plus into education.
In most schools districts, several teachers are having to only change their individual curriculum in order to ensure that their students will be able to perform on annual standardized testing, but in this particular area of Boston it has become a graduation requirement and as earlier stated, has provided this school system with an enormous amount of funding. Though I feel that NCLB may do quite a bit to improve the effiency of students not only in the white demographic but the minorities as well, I’m still not entirely sure of whether this act provides students with the skills they should acquire before they go on to higher learning experiences. Reading about this student in the tenth grade named Natashia has made me consider my own doubts about how it affects student performance and understanding.
For those that have questioned whether or not NCLB removes students from other areas of learning, this article shows how a student of minority which this act concentrates on, is able to take on many different activites including dance and drama. In relative to what we have been discussing in class recently, Natashia’s teachers concentrate mostly reading comprehension which is largely tested on but still have the opportunity of giving lessons in other subjects such as drama. For “The Crucible” students were to analyze a character by comparing to a celebrity similar qualities and how they each would fulfill the role. Which consequently encourages reading comprehension through a better understanding of the characters. In relation to our own discussions, I think that mixing both the curriculum involving NCLB with a more meta-cognitive learning curriculum is possible but more difficult, and therefore calls for some improvements because as Natashia says,”Nobody knows what we’re going through, unless they’ve come to school.”
Her English teachers, Beth Noell and Frank Pantano, barely mention the exam directly, but their emphasis this class is on reading comprehension, a major skill needed to pass.
For the period, the students talk about the characters in “The Crucible,” putting them in different categories, speculating on their motives and discussing their fatal flaws.
The four-act play should take the class about four weeks to finish. Maybe that’s a little long, Pantano says, but “I want them to go in depth and understand.”
So it seems that regardless of this test that students are being required to pass in order to graduate, teachers at this school are still taking the time within the limits of their curriculum to not only teach a deeper understanding of reading and writing, but skills that will enable them in any further assessments, such as a standardized test.
One teen’s struggles preparing for standardized test
January 29, 2007
CNN.com
Observing No Child Left Behind in Other States January 18, 2007
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As English teachers who will soon be out in the field we will be dealing with the constant question of has No Child Left Behind, which five years ago had passed as a legislature with many answers to improving student performance in math and reading has had overwhelming improvement in public schools over time. When Bush’s administration created this program the idea was to increase school and government standards so that in subjects that are “most” important such as English, we will have more students who are making the grade more often to ensure that these improvements will hopefully better the quality of our future generations who will one day be taking care of the country.
I discovered in an article I found using Google News which was recently published in Carson City, Nevada that the person writing the article (mostly opinion based) decided to take a closer look at what this act has done to schools in his area. He did this by examining the local schools in the district he lives in while interviewing administration and teachers who live there.
The superintendent of the district, Dr. Mary Pierczynski says,
“NCLB established valid goals for teachers and students,” Dr. Pierczynski told me, ”but the people who put it together must never have been in a classroom.”
In other words, after five years progress many of the schools did have some improvement, excluding the local elementary schools but that those who created and passed the act were clearly not aware of the experiences that occur within a classroom. Those who thought of creating this act created a strict or “uniformed” way of running the classroom. Ironic, considering that most often educators are finding that a slight departure from these traditional classroom settings are more suited to the learning of students. The reasoning for this being that constantly reciting facts and information about “what happened” in stories and poems does not help children maintain what they have learned nor does it offer a deeper sense of understanding that comes from becoming a mature reader. In addition, growing as a reader can only happen when students are interested and engaged. Therefore, teaching in a way that is directed mostly toward an efficient performance on a standardized test is not necessary helping students to improve while learning more, but just passing.
Though there has been some improvement, educators are claiming that the program is slowly progressing toward its goal in 2014 of “proficiency” and that is finally focusing more on the standards taught to lower achieving students. That with its with its five-year deadline, new national standards can be revised for further progression. But perhaps the reason this is taking more time than originally speculated may be for some reasons earlier listed and that there is a constant push-and-pull with teachers trying to teach in ways that suggest students have the ability to learn better from processing what they are reading rather from maintaining facts and skills suited to take a test with certain requirements. Curious.
But the government must not forget that students still do contain the capacity to be creative and thought processing individuals. If our school systems continue this “rigid” program students will have a tendency to having a difficulty learning important reading and writing skills which is for many already a more challenging task to take on. Someone should ask those who were involved with the creation of the act if they know where they laid out the rules for being creative and thinking meta-cognitively rather than constantly struggling to make sure students pass another standardized test. Just something to think about. I think No Child Left Behind has some potential but definitely needs to be improved if the government intends for this to actually prove to be useful in upcoming years. Many aspects that define this act have relatively decent intentions but will it truly do justice for students who are becoming more mature learners? I think that is where this act falls short is helping children become equipped for further years of education.
Is “No Child Left Behind” passing the test five years later?
By Guy Farmer
January 14, 2007
