No Child Left Behind?
Because it's a midterm election year, in a very short while, the politicians are going to start raising some of the featured issues. Well, that is, if they find the time to come up for air from the name calling, mud-slinging and dirty tactics. One issue that's certainly going to come up is education and No Child Left Behind.
No Child Left Behind does not work. Period.
I've heard all the arguments from both sides, and I have to tell you, both sides are couldn't be more wrong. Of course, since this is the world of politics 2006, both sides lack the capacity to hear one another and listen to the other's point of view, but in the case of NCLB, that doesn't matter. Because both sides fail to acknowledge the only aspect of the issue that truly matters:
The success of the child in the classroom.
As a middle school teacher in the New York City Publics schools, I saw the day-to-day impact of NCLB. I saw what it meant to the succeeding student in the classroom. In no uncertain terms, it meant the end of that success.
In a nutshell, NCLB moves students from failing schools to succeeding schools. But NCLB fails to acknowledge that often the student who is transfering schools is equally or more at fault. And so is that student's parent and family. It's not the fault of the so-called failing school; the blame resides elsewhere. Point the finger inward.
Throw a student into a foreign classroom who doesn't want to be there, and you've created the perfect nightmare scenario. You've introduced the disruptive element that steals from the learning. From now on, all the energies a teacher was able to give to students who wanted to invest in their education must now be wasted on disciplining and harnessing the entity who doesn't want to be there and will do anything in it's power to be removed.
Only that new element is not going anywhere. Because the test scores in the former failing school have gone up now (duh, when you remove the kids who aren't doing well, what do you think is going to happen?). So for all intents and purposes, new teacher and new school are powerless to do anything about the cancer that has been introduced.
Yes, I speak of it in harsh terms, because NCLB turned far too many students into "why bother" students. NCLB created a "what's the point" mindset of resignation in far too many students who came to school wanting to succeed. They saw that their government didn't respect their hard work and efforts. It didn't matter if you tried at school. If your classroom was a true place of learning, this was your reward.
Even at ages twelve, thirteen and fourteen, succeeding students recognized the truth: Their education was expendable. They could be left behind.
No Child Left Behind does not work. Period.
I've heard all the arguments from both sides, and I have to tell you, both sides are couldn't be more wrong. Of course, since this is the world of politics 2006, both sides lack the capacity to hear one another and listen to the other's point of view, but in the case of NCLB, that doesn't matter. Because both sides fail to acknowledge the only aspect of the issue that truly matters:
The success of the child in the classroom.
As a middle school teacher in the New York City Publics schools, I saw the day-to-day impact of NCLB. I saw what it meant to the succeeding student in the classroom. In no uncertain terms, it meant the end of that success.
In a nutshell, NCLB moves students from failing schools to succeeding schools. But NCLB fails to acknowledge that often the student who is transfering schools is equally or more at fault. And so is that student's parent and family. It's not the fault of the so-called failing school; the blame resides elsewhere. Point the finger inward.
Throw a student into a foreign classroom who doesn't want to be there, and you've created the perfect nightmare scenario. You've introduced the disruptive element that steals from the learning. From now on, all the energies a teacher was able to give to students who wanted to invest in their education must now be wasted on disciplining and harnessing the entity who doesn't want to be there and will do anything in it's power to be removed.
Only that new element is not going anywhere. Because the test scores in the former failing school have gone up now (duh, when you remove the kids who aren't doing well, what do you think is going to happen?). So for all intents and purposes, new teacher and new school are powerless to do anything about the cancer that has been introduced.
Yes, I speak of it in harsh terms, because NCLB turned far too many students into "why bother" students. NCLB created a "what's the point" mindset of resignation in far too many students who came to school wanting to succeed. They saw that their government didn't respect their hard work and efforts. It didn't matter if you tried at school. If your classroom was a true place of learning, this was your reward.
Even at ages twelve, thirteen and fourteen, succeeding students recognized the truth: Their education was expendable. They could be left behind.