Being a person minded towards smaller government myself, I agree with the general premise of your post. But I think you're wrong on NCLB. . . If the federal government is going to provide my tax dollars to public schools, then I think that school should be accountable to us all, and that accountability comes through the federal government, which is what NCLB is all about. If we're truly going to keep the federal government out of education, then we should stop spending federal tax dollars on education. Let each state fully fund public education in their state, and up income taxes in whatever way they need to in order to fund the schools.
As for the act itself, I come from a family full of educators, so I naturally get to hear all of the constant griping. NCLB has some impossible goals in it that will NEVER be met by 99 percent of the schools in this country. For example, within just a few years, all public schools are required to have a 100 PERCENT graduation rate. You and I know that is impossible to mandate. So NCLB definitely needs to be tweaked. But it is essentially good legislation. Before NCLB, there was no accountability for teachers. Once teachers have been in the profession for four years, they are tenured and it's almost impossible to fire them. Now, teachers ARE accountable, and that is why they are so scared of NCLB.
In my home town, the consolidated high school was on a downward slide and had been for some time. Standardized test scores were horrible. The drop-out rate was tremendous. The attendance rate was incredibly low. The school was placed on NCLB's targeted list as a result. The response from the school was a sense of embarrassment for being placed on the list. The teachers and administrators got together to see what could be done to correct their problems that had landed them on the targeted list. They brainstormed, wrote down their ideas, put those ideas into action and busted their butts to get the kids prepared for the next school year. In a single school year, standardized test scores in English and Math improved from something like a 60 percent mastery to a 90 percent mastery. The attendance rate skyrocketed. The graduation rate improved. If there were no such thing as NCLB, our kids' education would still be suffering at this particular school and no one would've taken the initiative to improve things. With NCLB, the school had no choice but to react, and the results are undeniable.
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and that accountability comes through the federal government
NOPE!
The accountability belongs on the local level. Bad schools will fail and good ones will fluorish. This philosophy has been carried out in the parochial schools for 200 years in this country.
I've seen bad catholic schools go down the dumper because they were run by nit wits, and i've seen others put out some of the brightest young minds i've ever seen in my life.
and they THRIVE....
Some of those schools are harder to get into than harvard ! Hell our local high school (waukesha catholic memorial) is the best school in the state and in order to get in you have to do WHAT THEY WANT. You have to have gone to specific grade schools etc. because they want to make sure you've got the stuff to take up their strict curriculum.
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: So you LIKE "No Child Left Behind"?????
I do not agree with the NCLB for many reasons.
One, we are reaching for mediocrity.
Two, no funding for the new standards.
Three, not all kids can learn at a certain level. There is no magic score that is truly obtainable by all kids.
Four, some kids need to be left behind to wake them up, you can only lead a horse to water but you cant make him learn.
Five, it is trying to take the accountability out of each individual and dump it on all educators. Why should an educator be forced to keep a problem kid that refuses to learn, and then be held accountable when said child flunks a mandated test.
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals don’t believe in either of them.
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: So you LIKE "No Child Left Behind"?????
Quote:
The accountability belongs on the local level. Bad schools will fail and good ones will fluorish. This philosophy has been carried out in the parochial schools for 200 years in this country.
That is correct. Each state has to come up with its accountability test, but the hicky here is, the test has to meet certain requirment held by the NCLB act.
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals don’t believe in either of them.
Four, some kids need to be left behind to wake them up
that is an interesting point... around here they will not make a kid repeat a grade because it will hurt their "self esteem" -- hence the evolution of "outcome based education" which essentially forced the teachers to "teach to the test" in order to avoid NCLB punishments.
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: So you LIKE "No Child Left Behind"?????
Quote:
that is an interesting point... around here they will not make a kid repeat a grade because it will hurt their "self esteem" -- hence the evolution of "outcome based education" which essentially forced the teachers to "teach to the test" in order to avoid NCLB punishments.
It's a total hoax.
Yep, with our dollars attached.
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals don’t believe in either of them.
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