Although you addressed the negative aspects of NCLB very well,
you omitted the fact that the whole standardized testing
procedure assumes that all that students need to know are the
bare minimum facts of the core subjects. Thus, students are
learning to memorize facts rotely, and when we teachers of
electives actually expect them to use higher level or critical
thinking, they are either flabbergasted, bemused or ignorant
of how to even start the process. NCLB is the dumbing down of
America, so we won't have to worry about losing jobs overseas.
The employers will know that Americans are educated on
basically a fifth grade level and hire the students from the
countries where critical thinking means more than choosing a
multiple choice answer. I have been a teacher for over two
decades and I have never had to deal with such fundamentally
lazy thinkers in my entire career. If I ask a question that
has no choices, they invariably just sit and wait for me to
prod the answers from them. Perhaps the gurus in D.C. and the
state governments should consider setting the standard high
enough so that no matter what subject the students are taking,
they have to think to come up with an answer, not just
eliminate choices. Furthermore, I don't know what the
standards are like elsewhere, but in VA, you can miss 30-50%
of the questions and still pass the tests. Then, to add
insult to injury, the student who passed the SOL test, with an
equivalent score of 60%, gets an A automatically on the final
exam. At least, that is what our county does, much to the
dismay of those of us who are trying to teach to the end of
the year, in spite of the fact that the tests are given in
early May. Insanity, your name is spelled NCLB! Thank you for
letting me vent.

Lea

On 6/30/09, Dominic F. Sankar wrote:
> As a newly minted "No Longer a First Year Teacher", it is
> now time to turn my attention to all of the reflections I
> have collected or completed over the past year, and really
> dissect them. Several key areas, which will be
> instrumental to next year’s success, require careful
> scrutiny, and then there are one or two things that just
> leave me scratching my head.
>
> As I prepared to enter my first year, I struggled with the
> ideology of “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB). Where would I
> stand? Could I justify actions that led to the promotion
> of a student I felt did not truly deserve it, or would I
> teach (and grade) the way I learned? Further complicating
> the matter was the question of how could I water-down my
> lessons, and at the same time, identify those higher
> achieving students?
>
> As discussed on this message board (by Mr. Ed/7th/GA on
> 6/14/09) in “NCLB is Killing Gifted Ed and impacting gifted
> students' future”, I agree that it is extremely difficult
> to cater to one demographic of (low-performing) student,
> and yet reach or engage students in need of more rigor.
>
> Lesson differentiation can help to engage students with
> different learning styles, and increases the interaction
> between such students. However it has been my experience
> that sometimes these lessons are detrimental to some
> students, who lose focus and manifest this with poor
> behavior. I believe that in some cases (and not in all)
> that this moves beyond a teacher’s ability to
> differentiate, and into the realm of disengaging a certain
> level of student.
>
> In agreement and in accordance to Mr. Ed/7th/GA, the focus
> of NCLB is on the lower performing students. I also agree
> that the focus of NCLB garners more attention in larger
> classes when the range of learning levels are more diverse
> and therefore encompass a greater spectrum, than it does in
> a smaller class where the range has less diversity. How
> then does a policy that is geared towards developing
> students at the tail end of a spectrum, help students that
> are in the middle or in the higher end, and how does this
> policy help those students improve?
>
> A central ideology of education is the furthering or
> expansion of abilities and potentials. When a policy
> creates an all-encompassing curriculum to elevate a certain
> demographic of students, it has a trickle effect on other
> students, teachers and eventually the culture of an
> educational system. Another aspect of NCLB was identified
> in comments by Ms. Brown (06/15/2009: NCLB on this same
> site) who identifies the detrimental and seemingly unfair
> effects on Special Education. Ms. Brown comments that
> students in a special education class are being set up for
> failure, because they are subject to the same assessments
> as general education students, and whose progress are also
> measured alongside the general education students. In
> comments in response to Ms. Brown’s post, Mariana
> (06/20/2009, Re: NCLB) writes that her students were
> affected by unfair standards, which assessed special
> education students based on statewide tests, not on actual
> progress made.
>
> Once again NCLB proves that it hinders more than it helps.
> There are compelling arguments and discussions that show
> that an all-encompassing policy that only caters to the
> improvement of scores of low-performing general education
> students, does not work. Not only can it create an
> unfocused and crippling environment for high-performing
> students, it also fails to facilitate the improvement of
> students in the middle of the pack. Furthermore NCLB may
> be having a less than desired effect on the assessment of
> students in a special education setting. (Word Count 596)

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