“No Child Left Behind” (NCLB), or as some teachers call it “NickelB,” was introduced by the George W. Bush administration to improve our nations educational system. It had a good purpose and great intentions, but like most political bills , it sets high goals with no direction as how to acheive the goal. The bill was modeled after the state of Texas’ education system. Students showed impressive improvement and achievement on their Texas state standardized assesments . Only years after NCLB was put into law did President George W. Bush and our nation find out that the Texas state scores weren’t accurate . It was found out that when a state subject test was presented to eighth grade students , some districts\/schools were holding back lower achieving seventh graders , then would skip them to nineth grade this way they didn’t have to be assesed on the state exam . Only the brightest and best in these districts were taking the test . This discprepency gave reasons for the incredible scores increase and success of their testing system .<\/p>\n
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As a result of NCLB, schools around the nation are chasing this goal, like “Ricky” jumping for the balloon in the movie , “Better Off Dead.”<\/p>\n
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Here is a short list of some of the identified goals of NCLB:<\/p>\n
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I will discuss each item in the list and why or why not it is a reasonable expectation.<\/p>\n
1) All students will score proficiency or better in reading and math by 2013-14 school year:<\/p>\n
This statement says that all children will excel in math and reading . This isn’t possible . As aneducators , I know that every child has his or her own abilities, strengths, talents ,and yes, weaknesses. This is what makes us different and unique individuals . To think that you can legislate everyone to be the same , doesn’t make sense. Also, many children attend school inconsistantly . These children may miss 26 days per semester. Why would we expect them to be proficient in reading and math . what can an educator possibly do to help students that are absent much of the year ? Many of these children don’t\/can not make up missed work or ask for extra help? Finally, there are students that do not want to learn. These students do not complete homework , they do not study for exams , and calling parents has no effect on students’ effort or desire to succeed in their education.<\/p>\n
2) All teachers will be highly qualified:<\/p>\n
This topic can definitely be addressed and reached . There are some issues that need to be addressed in order to meet this requirement. First, we have to make teaching more desirable to young college students . With low pay and huge amount of responsibility of today’s classroom teachers, new educators leave the career after 2 years (average). Administrators need to take pressure off of teachers so that the job is less stressful and more rewarding . If it continues , schools will have to fill openings with anyone they can get.<\/p>\n
3) Schools and classrooms will be safe, drug free, and conducive to learning. <\/p>\n
I don’t know if there is anything that can make our classrooms completely safe. I believe that many of the steps being taken to eliminate illegal drugs in our schools are beginning to work. Again, can we ever stop the drugs completely? The portion of the statement that needs to be addressed the most is the idea of “conducive to learning.” Many times a teacher is evaluated on classroom management. This means that if an educator sends a student to the principal’s office, he\/she is actually evaluated lower on his\/her evaluation. This could cause teachers to miss a pay-raise or other negative repercussions . Many educators just try to deal with unruly students and hope for the best. School and school district budgets are tight . Districts are often paid by their state by the number of children that are in school. Therefore, it is bad business to suspend students out-of-school for discipline reasons. The disruptive students do not leave school and make it very difficult for the teacher to maintain a conducive learning environment . The final result is that students know there are no consequences for bad behavior. Soon the students that want to learn give up because they can not learn in this chaotic environment and say to themselves, “Well, they aren’t doing their work. Why should I?”<\/p>\n
4) All students will graduate high school:<\/p>\n
There isn’t a way to make someone graduate. I have had students drop out of high school so they could work for their parents’ business. In a short amount of time some of my former students make twice as much money as I make as a teacher. Who are we to say to a student, “You have to stay in school.” There are many times that students just want to get out of high school and theyjust quit . We as teachers can counsel them to stay in high school, but the final descision is up to the student and his\/her family. Why is it that these students, for what ever reason, refuses to stay in high school, counts against the school district dictated by to NCLB?<\/p>\n
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Just the fact that the federal government desides they know what local schools should teach is not logical . I live in a small town where many of our students become farmers or work in the coal mines. Some of these people have no desire to go to college and want to follow in their fathers footsteps or even going into the family business. These students need to go to school to learn what they need to be productive members of society and to get a job that will support their families.<\/p>\n
If you need any help with online geometry<\/a> , virtual math lab<\/a> , or virtual algebra<\/a> there are several options both locally and on the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB), or as some teachers call it “NickelB,” was introduced by the George W. Bush administration to improve our nations educational system. It had a good purpose and great intentions, but like most political bills , it sets high goals with no direction as how to acheive the goal. The bill was [ Read More ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[2964,2963,2962],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-online-geometry","tag-virtual-algebra","tag-virtual-math-lab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}