Why ‘No Child Left Behind’ Should be Scrapped
January 7, 2008 | 1:29 pm | by t-blender |Rate It:
sfgate.com: America’s schools have fallen into a giant trap. This trap is epic in its dimensions, because the people capable of leading us out of it have been silenced, and the initiative that could help us is being systematically squashed.
Policymakers and the public have been seduced by a simple formulation. No Child Left Behind posits that we have troubled schools because they have not been accountable. If we make teachers and schools pay a price for the failure of their students, they will bring those students up to speed.
But schools are NOT the only factor determining student success. Urban neighborhoods are plagued by poverty and violence and recent reports in The Chronicle show that as many as 30 percent of the children in these neighborhoods suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Fully 40 percent of our students are English learners, but these students must take the same tests as native English speakers. Moreover, a recent study provides strong evidence that family-based factors such as the quality of day care, the home vocabulary and the amount of time spent reading and watching television at home account for two-thirds of the difference in academic success for students. Nonetheless, NCLB holds only the schools accountable.
No Child Left Behind is bullshit! The program is simply a media buzz word created to fool the American people into believing that this administration cares about education. The program is extremely under-funded & it makes our teachers simply “test administrators”. In theory the program looks good, like the idea of cold fusion, but the practical application is challenging & inconsistent. There are numerous factors that influence a child’s learning regardless of what the teacher does. The number of children per classroom, parental support, English as a second language, & the list goes on.
Here’s a perfect example. A student starts 6th grade w/ a 2.3 reading level despite the NCLB standard being 5.0. At the end of the year the child is reading at a 4.8 grade level (an incredible improvement of 2.5 grade levels) but because the NCLB standard is 6.0 the school, the teacher, & the child have failed. Because of this failure funding is cut resulting in fewer teaching materials, lower teachers pay, & less funding for structural improvements for the following school year. Now how is next year’s child w/ a 2.3 reading level suppose to reach a 6.0 by the end of the year?
We should apply the NCLB principle to professional sports. When a team does not win the championship lower their salary cap, if they don’t make the playoffs lower is some more, & if they loss more than half their games lower it further. The lack of available funds will hold teams accountable thus ensuring a successful season the following year.