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Every Child Left Behind

Mar 21, 2004 11:50

There was an article in the Minneapolis free news and arts newspaper last week about the No Child Left Behind legislation. I have copied and pasted it here, if you're interested in how educators feel about this unfunded mandate. I'll also add a link to The City Pages at the bottom. If you make it through the whole thing you get a cookie! Big ( Read more... )

Comments 8

kopernik March 21 2004, 11:10:47 UTC

Oh my Lord, what a colossal fuck-up.

shameless_ad March 22 2004, 16:00:01 UTC

Yep, it's really a regular 'ol SNAFU isn't it?! It's honestly one of the worst pieces of education legislation to be brought forth. Why do they think that punishing the schools is the way to make them better?

mdpenguin March 21 2004, 11:51:07 UTC

There was a good reason that the act from the 60's upon which NCLB was modeled failed and was abandoned. It's like trying to bring back the Star Wars program or defining a new "Evil Empire," enough people have forgotten about it and it's failures that it seems like a good enough idea to get votes.

shameless_ad March 22 2004, 16:04:41 UTC

The biggest problem with getting rid of NCLB is that it has a good name. It's got great PR value. The name "No Child Left Behind" is honestly the best part of the legislation.

To the average person (i.e. someone who rarely reads a newspaper and only occasionally watches the news... sad isn't it?) it sounds like a great thing. But as soon as you begin to look deeper, major flaws are revealed. I'm just amazed how many people *cough*republicans*cough* refuse to see that.

moreteavic March 21 2004, 18:07:08 UTC

One cookie for me!

Yes, I have heard about this from teachers in the pits--the teachers' lounges and their homes. It is just one big scam designed to privatize education to make a profit on America's youth. How are we supposed to eliminate or reverse mental retardation, for example? I hope that if John Kerry is elected, he finds a way to overturn this ridiculous legislation.

shameless_ad March 22 2004, 16:08:22 UTC

A whole plate of cookies, actually!

It truly is a way for the Republicans to gain support for voucher programs. If every public school in the US is failing, what other option do parents have? How about increasing funding for schools instead of using the funding to dream up stupid legislation like this?

The thing that just flabbergasts me is that they expect special education students and english language learners to perform at the same standards as every one else. Um, what? Are you dumb? There is a reason they have been put into special education or ELL programs. Duh.

metal2000 March 22 2004, 01:02:24 UTC

I got through most of it, which is not too bad considering I live in a country that has nothing to do with this insanely ridiculous plan/initiative.

Here is the only required assessment/evaluation in Manitoba:
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/ks4/assess/index.html

And it has nothing to do with what happens to the schools with which the students are contained. In fact, what we have here that is designed, in part, to regulate the quality of education at individual schools, is the "Choose Your School" program. This means that, as long as certain requirements are met, students that live in any school division can choose to attend school anywhere they would like. So if a school is really bad, students will transfer out and attend what they'd perceive to be a "good school", and obviously that will indicate itself that changes need to be made in that particular school.

shameless_ad March 22 2004, 16:11:47 UTC

I'm impressed that you even bothered to read it. I wouldn't have! School choice is a much better way to gage school success, I believe. Is it the be-all, end-all? No, but it makes much more sense than NCLB. Unfortunately in the US school choice is not funded enough (gee, seems to be a pattern here...) and parents are not very aware of their options.