alison watkins: You obviously haven't had No Child Left Behind influence your childs education like I have. My son is 8 years old, and was born with ADHD and functional autism. We always knew he was an intelligent child, but a little different than others. This became extremely apparent in Kindergarten as our son started failing every piece of work he did, despite constant tutoring from my wife and I (usually 3-4 hours a night, 6 days a week). Our son taught himself his ABC's when he was 21 months old, and by Kindergarten was a whiz with math, but ALL of his scores didnt reflect what we knew he was capable of.

It was No Child Left Behind that saved him. The funding directly from that program allowed him to get tested and diagnosed, as it would for any student with any educational program. Yes, we had to sift through the local school districts policies and guidelines, we had to research what our rights were as parents under the States implimentation of N.C.L.B., but it was there for us, and for our son.

What No Child Left Behind does is more than just standardized tests. Those are just a small part of the program, usually politicized by the left to instill a political class warfare against those in a nice school districts and the parents of inner city children. What is not told is that the program does so much more for every student, and if utilized can revolutionize the classroom.

For example, teachers dont just give out standardized information to a classroom based from an imposed teaching plan and hope the child learns. Now they have to make certain that each individual child succeeds in education. N.C.L.B. provides the funding for this, and ensures that the teacher is not alone in meeting a childs needs. In our case, our son required extensive psychological and physical testing, an ARD meeting was set with his teachers and school staff (and our family), and we worked together to have an Individual Education Plan put in place for our son to make certain that he wasn't just given a 'pass', but that he could be taught the information he needed to succeed at his grade level.

Before N.C.L.B., the only way to achieve this was for a parent to acquire an attorney or the backing of a national parents rights group and force a school district to work with a family. In many inner city situations this either bogged the system down or was never taken advantage of because of the time and resources required for a family that either involved a single parent or two parents working around the clock to make ends meet. In other words, the old way wasn't working for the poor, and those kids were getting left behind.

The beauty of N.C.L.B. is that it is law, and works in favor of the child. My sons first grade teacher fought the rest of my sons commitee at every turn, she thought he was stupid, believed that psychological problems didnt exist, and that my boy was just a problem student. (If you ever met my son you would understand within minutes that he is sweet, smart, but obviously a bit different than other children his age... he can defragment a hard drive properly at age 8, but still gets confused on how to tie his own shoes...his mind just operates a little differently).

Even though this lady did not want to take the extra effort to make certain our son learned, she was forced to by law. And learn he did. After a year he was able to catch up with his grade level, and in some areas, such as math, he even excels over his fellow classmates. Tests are given to him differently, teaching materials are presented to him in 'smaller doses' and other things are implemented for him to achieve without distracting or hindering his fellow students.

Those standardized tests your talking about are there, and they make certain he knows what he's supposed to know. Like math, reading, problem solving. We know that he IS actually learning. Thats the point of school - to learn. If we cant hold his teachers and the school district accountable for educating our children then they cease to serve a purpose. Thankfully President Bush understands this, and has given parents the tools they need to ensure their children will actually be taught, regardless of the circumstances.

Yes, forcing kids to know how to...oh read and write and do arithmetic is so horrible?

As the father of two children, if "forcing" teachers to teach reading, writing, and math makes them into robots then fine with me. Most of these standardized tests, especially the gradeschool ones, are just basic skill tests. You can't "teach" for them. These are trivial pursuit tests.

And you know what? It's not *MY* fault as a teacher that there's these laws that I have to follow, and certain things that I have to teach.

Personally, I think that NCLB is a *GOOD* thing. It helps me know WHAT to teach and WHEN to teach it. What I do NOT like about NCLB is that schools that are "underperforming" are penalized financially, and that does NOT help students succeed. Schools that do not make "adequate yearly progress" should have more money put into them, versus money taken away.

I also do not like the constant testing. I think I can assess whether or not my students have a grasp on the required skills better than a test can. I'll probably have to spend more time teaching them how to TAKE the stupid test than actually teaching the skills they need to PASS the test. I don't like the way special education students are tested, or in some cases, that they're even tested at all...

I think the premise of NCLB is definitely a positive move in the right direction for education, but there are some reforms that need to be made.

And give us a break...we pretty much have to know NCLB front and back, we have administroators breathing down our throats, etc. If you think you can do better, I challege you to go to college and get your teaching licensure.

NCLB only penalizes schools IF they continually fail. They get extra help for the first couple of years to get their act together and then if they continue to fail they get punished.

A once a year test isn't constant testing.

The whole school year is focused on preparing for the tests in the test areas. Anything that isn't tested gets very little time and attention. My son will have a reading test in February, a science test in April and a math test in May. I think the goals of NCLB are great. I mean who is going to say that we want to leave some kids behind but teaching to the test isn't really teaching. There is not time to make sure they "get" what they are working on because they have an agenda to cover before that test and if they kids aren't figuring out one thing they still have to move on to the next thing. In some subjects that is okay but in math everything builds on what came before so if you don't get addition and subraction how do you move on to multiplication and division. I really don't have a problem with a test if it was straight forward but the teachers will tell you that what they are requiring of these kids is past their developmental level, some of the math word problems are down right trick questions designed to confuse. The teachers and vice principal at my sons school said they struggled with the 5th grade math test. These are college educated grown adults but we expect 10 year olds to complete this and that's not even mentioning the pressure that is put on these kids by the school and teachers. It doesn't matter if you do all your homework, get A's on your report card, if you fail the test you will repeat the year. And NCLB is not funded on a federal level, it legislates the criteria but the funding is up to the states or at least that's my understanding from the meeting I went to at my boys school.

Dont blame the teachers for teaching to the test. That is what they have to do. Almost forced. I am a teacher in a school district heavily influenced by NCLB. I think that most teachers would agree that the intentions behind NCLB are good...but the way the law is structured...it sucks.

First, schools need to meet annual achievement levels that are set by the gov. My school just met their level for reading...some sort of reading achievement I believe...set at 46%. Now for the next school year, we have to get up to I believe 63%. How the heck do you raise reading scores in your school by 20% each year? They wont lower the bar...only raise it. The law wont allow the bar to be lowered...only constantly raised. Think about it. If the place where you worked...set a level of performance for you each and every year...and constantly raised that level...could you meet it? If you sold cars...and lets say you sold 300 cars a year, yourself. Could you sell 400 the next year...500 the year after that....600....700...etc? Now...could you do that without any extra funding? NCLB has very little, to no funding. States and districts are being forced against their wills to spend millions of dollars creating the tests, without any financial aid from the gov.

Another prob with the bill, which is hard to understand if you arent a teacher. With the new law...teachers have to make sure they meet state standards. In Las Vegas, there the benchmarks, power standards and CEF (curriculum essentials framework). While creating lesson plans..I am forced to look for standards that meet what I am teaching and incorporate those standards into my lessons. The problem with this is that, I am focusing more time on meeting the stupid standards (which I could manage to BS my way into making almost any of them fit in the first place) and writing lesson plans to match...than I am focusing on how I am going to instruct the students to engage them and have them learn.

Also...d3adzombie...NCLB has, as far as i know...very little to do with testing. It might give more $$ to special ed programs...but either way...that didnt allow your child to get the services that they got. IDEA and ADA are special ed services..and I believe that one of them works with ADHD. Either way...ADHD should not be something that a student needs an IEP for. I myself have ADHD. I got tested, diagnosed and medicated for it when I was younger. As soon as i was on my meds...I didnt need any intervention in school.

NCLB has very little funding. I know...I see the funding...the lack of it. I am currently teaching in a district that has no science or health curriculum in place for elementary schools. All NCLB does is test. The law makes districts test their students and provides (also known as 'continues') funding that district.

Also...you dont need a lawyer to make schools work with you and your kids. What it takes, is that if you think your child has a special need and is diagnosed with it...you can envoke your childs rights under IDEA or ADA and get the process started.

The tests dont make sure the kids know what they are supposed to know. They see if the schools are meeting their levels of achievement. If the student doesnt prepare for their tests, exams and quizzes, doesnt do their homework...they wont succeed on tests...yet the schools get punished. Schools should never, NEVER, be tested on the level of achievment of students, unless you can measure how dedicated the students are for their tests. If you dont perform well at work, your company shouldnt be punished...you should be. Why should this be any different at schools?

Draginol...yes you can teach to the tests. You would be amazed at the tests the students are required to take. Classroom tests, district tests, state, and now federal tests? Somehow we are supposed to teach the material between then? In my Methods of Teaching Math class this spring...I had to take the fifth grade math test that students have to take. There were many things on there that I never saw before. I ended up getting a B on it, after extensive mathematics classes. NCLB is not forcing us to teach. Its forcing us to teach to the tests...with all the testing out there...there is much less instructional time, meaning I have to spend more time preparing the students for the tests.

NCLB is a federal law. There is supposed to be a whole lotta money behind it...but it is not there. The states are being forced to pay the bills for the testing and implementation of the law. If you listen to the candidates...they talk about the law. Bush says he increased ed funding. Well ed funding is increased every year...but the bill was not funded as he promised it would be. The problem with the law is that it is a federal law governing education. No other law covers education. Education is always left up to the states...now the government is taking over, bypassing the states requirements.

Also...many schools are forced by pressure of the parents, not to fail the students. If the students and parents dont care about their education and the student consistantfly fails homework and tests...they can still advance to the next grade. This is a bunch of bunk.

Also...many schools are forced by pressure of the parents, not to fail the students

Oh, I have heard that so many times......parents who cannot or will not accept that their child is either not working hard enough or doesn't have the necessary smarts to make that grade.

 If I ever thought that one of my kids wasn't ready to go to the next grade level, I'd ask for him/her to be kept back.  I'd rather have a kid who knew what he needed to know and was a grade behind than a kid who was constantly floundering in a grade he wasn't ready for.

 

dharma,

That is because you are an honest, sensible person who has her head screwed on her neck straight and didn't have the road paved for her.

The parents in the zone where Ry and I teah...they're different. Its obviously my fault if their child cannot write, does not show up for school so she can learn, or is just plain "duh"...It's not ALL the parents, or not even MOST parents...but there's the few that just blatantly don't care. We have student's who don't have a clue take a week off to go to Disneyland and SeaWorld in San Diego, or just not come to school because they don't want to.

I have my kids write their own spelling words to be sent home for homework. I get notes from parents every week asking what spelling words are because their child's handwriting is "iffy"...and this is a TEACHER'S child. And then she calls me up and asks me why her daughter sucks at math? Am I teaching to the benchmarks? She thinks that I made too much of a jump from kindergarten right into addition in first grade? How the hell should I know? I was hired three weeks before I had to be in that classroom teaching, lady...I didn't have time to go through the Kindergarten curriculum and base mine off of that. (Sorry...this parent just really...argh!) I have a student who has been to school only ONE Friday since school started. The music teacher came up to me last week and asked me who she was and if she'd been going to our school all year. I told her yes, and she told me that she was pretty much going to fail music for the trimester, and I told her to go ahead and fail her. Her parents are educationally neglecting her, and although I doubt they'll even care if she fails something (she's failing math, too), I guess you never know. I have to send make up work home with her, but then I don't get half of it back, so how am I supposed to give her a grade if she won't turn anything in? I have no idea.

All I gotta say is...YAY for awesome parents who care about their children enough to say "you know what? You're not making the cut here, babe...you gotta stay back." And that's usually all it takes. The kid's brain has to catch up with the rest of him/her and they're fine.

One of the reasons my wife and I know so much about NCLB is because we are involved in all of our childrens educations. We still go over homework every night, read to each child daily. If one of our children needed to be held back, they would be. Notice in my previous reply I said that our childs needs are met without disrupting other students or the classroom. We do NOT want our child given a free pass, or to cause problems for other children.

This is what I know from reading a ton of documents handed to me by my school district, a neighboring school district, and alot of State and Federal resources online (all of which has been confirmed through literal experience). NCLB covers not only nationwide testing, but children on an individual basis.

1.) NCLB is Federally funded.
2.) NCLB is implemented in all States.
3.) NCLB is implemented in all schools within each state.
4.) NCLB is applicable to every student.
Someone mentioned they thought that perhaps NCLB had directed more money to special education in regards to my sons situation. Although my son is functionally autistic, his IEP was implemented through the regular classroom. Once his issues were addressed Special Ed wasnt needed for him. Here's how it breaks down for EVERY parent:
Your child has a problem staying at their level. Either they are failing, arent being taught properly or have some other issue.
As a parent, you now have the right to ask for a meeting of the school staff to address your childs needs. This meeting is more comprehensive than just a parent-teacher conference. It will include all your childrens teachers (even the art & music teachers). All the teachers now have to work with you to put into place a plan specialized to make certain your child learns.
Follow up meetings will be held to review progress.

In the past, in many schools, if you had a child that wasnt learning it sometimes required legal action against the school or school district to actually get a plan in place, and usually it was under some sort of disabilities act, even if your child was not disabled. This cost school districts tons of moeny, wasted alot of time, and sometimes resulted in tying the hands of the school to actually help your child. They would be held to such strict court appointed guidelines that they couldnt be flexible enough to meet a childs changing needs.
The biggest strength of NCLB, in my experience, is that it focuses on every child.

There is no easy answers to the arts debate but here's one.The schools should test to find the strengths of each student @ the high school level then have personalized plan to build the skills needed around their strengths.This would produce better jobs in the real world for the students,and cut the fat out of taking classes which serve only as points for graduating school.Art could be one of these programs of study,however if the kid has no interest in art and no talent doing it then move to what is applicable.

Seems in upstate New York "No Child Left" behind means every student must sell something to "raise" money. I have 4 nieces and 4 nephews who are all trying to sell something.

Look, here's my major beef with NCLB. Every one of my students takes the same test. That means students that have mental handicaps, students that don't speak English, everybody. Would you advocate a 5 year old taking the same test as a 16 year old? I don't think so. Then why should we have somebody with the mental or linguistic level of a 5 year old taking the same test as 16 year olds? Do we teachers want to leave these students behind? Of course not -- but we realize that they are special needs students who require special education plans -- and that means that to give them the test made for the regular education students is a slap in the face of the student and the teacher. And guess what? If those students can't pass the test -- our school can be penalized. Do you want your child's education to be penalized because the special education and non-English speaking kids couldn't pass the test? That can happen.

NCLB also increses paperwork and school bureaucracy. If I'm spending more and more time filling out paperwork for the government, that's less and less time I have to actually plan and execute my lessons. If my district is spending more and more money on hiring bureaucrats and buying tests (especially if we don't get the money to cover it) then that means class sizes are going to be larger, fewer teachers are going to be doing more work, and equipment will not be replaced or fixed when it breaks. I'm not talking about high-tech stuff here -- I'm talking about desks and pencil sharpeners and lunch trays.

You want schools to be accountable -- so do I. You want teachers to teach reading and writing and all the basics -- so do I. I also want parents to know that it's hard to teach a classroom of 30 Ritalin zombies. Your child might need it, he might not -- get a second, third, and fourth opinion. I also know that there's more to educating than what's on a standardised test. You want better teachers, we need to reform teacher training. We need to have people training teachers who have actually been in a public school classroom sooner than 20 years ago. We need to stop the mentality of "those who can, do, those who can't, teach" -- because when I hear a parent say that, I shake my head. We need to stop being in love with our school sports programs so much. There is no reason a football coach should make twice what a classroom teacher does. But that's what happens.

If you're an involved parent, I'm very happy for that -- too many parents aren't. I just want to let you know that when NCLB is shorted on funds, that money has to come from somewhere. And these tests aren't cheap. So, parents, if you want your kid to take these tests -- I suggest you vote for local tax increases, state tax increases, and federal tax increases. You can't have NCLB and the Bush mantra of "lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes." That's why NCLB is in this mess in the first place. The next time you want to think that NCLB is a great, grand program -- think about your attitude to taxes. If you like what George Bush has done to taxes, then you shouldn't be for NCLB, because there's no good way to pay for it. If you like spending $120 billion and more on fighting useless wars, then you should probably not be for NCLB because the money is going for smarter bombs not smarter kids. If, on the other hand, you'd like NCLB to actually get a chance to work with full funding -- well, you better start finding the money somewhere.

you only have parents to blame for all of this. tests used to be hard and if your kid struck out, he got held back a grade. after parents started taking the schools to court left and right, in the process screwing everyother child with huge budget deficits, they made things easier and easier until you could quite literally pass High school without doing anything but showing up in some areas of the country. thats just what happens when you hand them off to institutional sitters and never take the time to sit them down and help them with their homework or force them to get it done before they head out, or when your pumping so many babies out that you cant give them all fair amounts of attention and care. this is at least an attempt to get some sort of standard. granted its not the best, but look at why its needed and why they tried

To me, it seems like teachers are just teaching information that is only going to appear these tests. On top of the general lack of knowledge and information, there is no transference of this material from short term to long term memory...Students just memorize the information long enough to take a test. So...your child is going to school and learning how to have a great short term memory. What about life long knowledge?

---

Shaun Kerry, M.D.
Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
Writes:
Through the use of rote learning methods - lengthy, repetitive study of written words - many schools attempt to coerce students to force information for lengthy recall. This produces only the illusion of knowledge: increasing test scores. Such a process, however, is extremely stressful and inefficient when done to excess: It does not utilize the whole brain, and results in more harm than benefit.

In today's world, the student's mind becomes split into two separate, disconnected spheres. While the left brain is used for school, the right brain and limbic system are utilized for activities that take place outside of school. The student never has the opportunity to use these spheres in cooperation. In his mind, work and play become vast opposites - two diametrically opposed entities. He cannot imagine a world in which they could become one and the same.

If education simultaneously involved all parts of the brain - in a manner of the student's choosing and without pressure to please someone else - work and play would become one. If, however, fear is the most powerful motivating factor in our present educational system, work and play can never be unified. Tests and grades tools both of control and fear.

The basal ganglia, large structures deep within the brain, control the intensity of mental activity. When a human is under extreme pressure, his brain shifts to "emergency mode."
The brain is only meant to enter this mode for very short periods of time, and generally does so only in a time of great danger. For example, an individual would
enter this mode if being attacked by an animal.

Students - under pressure and excessive stress that persists for months and years - the brain can develop this mode of functioning as a habit. Over time, these individuals are driven into a hyperactive state, which is beyond their control.
A person's brain can perceive his situation as being under siege from forces threatening his very survival, even when those forces are absent. If this state of chronic fear and hyperactivity - emergency mode - becomes a habit, it will eventually prove damaging to his health. Even after an individual leaves school, events that occur later in his life may needlessly trigger the emergency response.

An extensive, relevant fund of information is important to success later in life, but must be acquired in a manner consistent with healthy whole-brain functioning.

Thats The Doctors take on it...and mine, for what its worth. Madd~ness