posted
Friday Kerry talked about adding funding to NCLB. Most teachers I have talked to say it is an ineffective program, and I have read articles claiming the same thing. So I was a bit dissapointed to hear that it was supported by both candidates. I was wondering if any teachers here have had good experiences with NCLB, and how effective people here veiw the program to be.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
NCLB is the politicans answer to education... which means something like it isn't going away, until politicians ask educators how to craft policy.
That said, it WOULD work better if it were funded, rather then funded at a level where it is starving schools of resources.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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I'm a big fan of state's rights, and I believe that the federal government has taken a lot of the power that should have been left in state's hands.
One of the ways that they do this is to tax the populace, and then tell the states that they'll give them money of they just do what the federal government wants.
Apparently, this is not unconstitutional, or it would have been struck down before now. But it sure goes against the spirit of the constitution, as I (an untrained wanker) read it, and against how I wish things were.
So, again, I am against this program on principle, whether it's effective or not. Education should be left in the hands of the states.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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"even the ones who vote Republican refer to it as the Every Child Left Behind Act."
Actually, most of the people I know say "No Child's Behind Left."
My favorite was a cartoon that asked: "So, if all the children are left behind, then, technically, none of them are, right?"
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I went and looked at the web site, and it breaks down NCLB into 4 parts:
1. Stonger acountability for results.
The page doesn't mention that NCLB requires that all children test on grade level in order to avoid penalties prescribed by the law. There are some exceptions, but it's actually difficult to get an exception for a down's syndrome child who doesn't pass the high stakes testing in math and ELA at 4th grade, 8th grade and state testing such as the New York State Regents tests that are required to graduate from high school. The acountability requirements also don't make allowances for demographic differences in terms of numbers of learning disabled children, etc.
2. More freedom for States and Communities.
This refers to the freedom to spend federal funding according to local needs. This would be well and good, except that NCLB isn't really funded, so there's no money to spend.
3. Encouraging Proven Education Methods.
Encouraging "proven" methods translates to a stagnation in the development of new teaching methods. It encourages "more of the same." The page mentions early intervention for readers, which was an UNproven method when pl94-194 (the original law that stated that every child deserves a free public education in the least restrictive environment, from which we get the phrase "no child left behind") was written.
All I can say here is that it's a good thing we've had 30 years since PL94-194 . In this time the science and art of educational psychology and pedagogy have advanced tremendously, so there are more proven education methods available.
BTW I happen to think that reading recovery and similar early reading interventions are very good, but that's not to say that someone won't come up with a new and unproven technique that works better or is cheaper. Programs like reading recovery are very expensive, so I'd like to see schools with limited funding be encouraged to try developing other programs so that perhaps a lower cost solution can be developed. But this goes back to the "freedom for states and communities" aspect of NCLB.
4. Choices for parents.
The choice is that parents can pull kids out of failing schools and let them go somewhere else.
This comes from two sources of political pressure: First, the Deep South. That is, the public school systems in the deep south were gutted after Brown vs. Board, and replaced with private academies that were essentially public schools renamed as private schools. Since the public school systems were gutted, school taxes dropped, and local (white) taxpayers voluntarily donated the difference to the academies. The result was an unofficial public school system exclusively for whites.
The remains of this system still exist, but other changes to public school requirements have brought the public school taxes back up, and now the parents of academy children want to divert money from the public school system to the academies, on the grounds that the public schools are inadequate.
The second source of political pressure comes from organizations of parents of learning disabled children. These people have a legitimate gripe, and in many cases have been the motivation for positive change. The big problem that I see here is that the changes these groups advocate usually provide advantages for people who already know how to advocate for their children, whereas people who don't know how to advocate are left in schools that have been abandoned and underfunded.
I realize that there's a fundamental difference in philosphy here, because I happen to think you should fix the school so everyone benefits, rather than abandoning the school and the students that remain in it; yet many people want to think of schools as a competitive industry, where failing schools should be allowed to fail, so successful ones can take their place.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Seems the Dept of Ed, like at least one other governmental department, made a promotional video of its advantages--which was more a pro-Republican commercial, and gave it to the media as to play as a news story. THose that did were given favorable marks, which may or may not have resulted in favorable access to other stories later.
All paid by everyone's tax dollars.
All paid with money that did not go to educate the children the govt. says it does not want to be left behind.
See, NCYB is easy. It places blame on Teachers and Principals. Placing Blame only ever does one thing--it frees you of the responsiblity of dealing with the problem.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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