Best educational systems do the opposite of NCLB

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NCLB Chatboard

Best educational systems do the opposite of NCLB

by ja

Apr 10, 2011

I have been looking at what the best countries do in the world in the areas of math, reading and science literacy. Finland is at the top of any list when it comes to literacy in all areas. The one thing that struck me more than anything else was the lack of annual testing and measures that is so characteristic of our country. Years ago United States was at the top of the heap when literacy rates were spoken of. Then with the introduction of annual testing and other measures of success we started to drop. Now depending on what list you look at we are either 11th or 15th depending on the day of the week. NCLB practices are in direct opposition to the practices of the best school systems in the world. I spend two weeks at the beginning of the year with benchmark tests and two weeks at the end of the year with benchmark tests again. We can't teach because we are constantly measuring progress. We teach to a narrowly defined measure of what intelligence is. We don't realize that not everyone...See More

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Jo On 4/10/11, ja wrote: > I have been looking at what the best countries do in the > world in the areas of math, reading and science literacy. > Finland is at the top of any list when it comes to literacy > in all areas. The one thing that struck me more than > anything else was the lack of annual testing and measures > that is so c...See MoreOn 4/10/11, ja wrote: > I have been looking at what the best countries do in the > world in the areas of math, reading and science literacy. > Finland is at the top of any list when it comes to literacy > in all areas. The one thing that struck me more than > anything else was the lack of annual testing and measures > that is so characteristic of our country. Years ago United > States was at the top of the heap when literacy rates were > spoken of. Then with the introduction of annual testing > and other measures of success we started to drop. Now > depending on what list you look at we are either 11th or > 15th depending on the day of the week. NCLB practices are > in direct opposition to the practices of the best school > systems in the world. I spend two weeks at the beginning > of the year with benchmark tests and two weeks at the end > of the year with benchmark tests again. We can't teach > because we are constantly measuring progress. We teach to > a narrowly defined measure of what intelligence is. We > don't realize that not everyone learns at the same rate nor > that is everyone really destined to go to college. We try > to send unsuitable candidates to colleges. These students > take out huge student loans and then are unable to pay the > loans back when they drop out after not being able to keep > up with the demands of a college education. NCLB is a > horrible failure and the legacy will be a horribe mess.

I watched what our local schools did with the introduction of state test which were prior to NCLB. At first the schools did nothing. The test was blamed for poor results. The test was tweaked and the results were still poor. Then came NCLB. The school still did exactly the same thing for a few years and blamed the test. THEN when it looked like accountablity was coming down the pipeline, instead of improving instruction and how the students were taught information they worked on ways to game the tests, not teach the material for better understanding.

Part of the failure for NCLB is that the student's instruction didn't become better, but worse because instead of coming up with ways to teach better, they gamed the tests.

Apr 10, 2011

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