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Originally Posted by MattBronsil  What about complaining about NCLB in terms of the fact that:
1) Practices that DO raise test scores are the ones that are often cut out of the system. This is because it is much easier for the political head of a school board to cut out an entire system and show that he or she at least set up a curriculum that everyone is adhering to.
2) Much of what they're testing is actually backwards in the curriculum. Why would you test for math facts before you test to see if a child actually understands the usage of the math? Ever go to a fast food place and your order is $4.96 and you give the teenager a $5 bill and one cent? He looks at you in a state of confusion that George Bush would envy. Wouldn't it be better to teach practical application to math rather than starting with rote memorization and word problems?
3) It disables teachers from helping students move ahead. How are they going to move ahead if they don't understand what you just went over AND you're required, by the department of "education" to teach new concepts that build off what you just covered?
4) Not everyone is at the same level. Let's fact it- it's much harder to get a student to read if they have to dodge gunfire on the way home alone than if their parents come to pick them up to walk to the ice cream parlor before baseball practice.
You'd be hard pressed to find a teacher that thinks NCLB is beneficial to students. It does have some important pieces to it...unfunded, but important. But overall, I can't think of a more terrible piece of legislation that has passed in my lifetime.
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Matt,
I'm a special educator. If you want to find someone more likely to hate NCLB than a general ed teacher, you just have to find one of us. I am not defending the law in any way shape or form.
However, I also have to say that I also see many incidences where teachers, schools, school systems, or entire states adopt standards or practices that are not in the best interest of children, and are not demonstrated to raise test scores by any research, and when these practices are challenged they say "it's not our fault, it's NCLB". Saying that works really well at getting parents off your back, and excluding them from understanding and advocating for their kids' education.
Timed rote fact tests are an example of this. There's nothing in NCLB that says that state tests need to be timed, or that standards need to emphasize memorization of facts, or that if facts are to be memorized that they need to be taught through rote tests. The first two are decided at the state level, and the last at the district, school, or teacher level. And yet, when parents rightly raise concerns about these practices they're told "our hands are tied due to NCLB" and parents accept that and stop advocating.
Another example of that is eliminating recess (something that makes me furious). Again, I've never seen evidence that this actually improves academic performance, and have in fact seen studies to the contrary. There's also a lot of evidence that this is harmful to children in other ways. And yet schools continue to maintain that they "have to" do this due to NCLB, and parents buy that as an excuse.
I should add that in addition to being a teacher, I'm also an administrator who works in a predominantly low income public school that made AYP this year. I work in a state where state tests, while imperfect, are not timed, and place great emphasis on applications and problem solving. Within that context we've built a school where students are engaged in progressive constructivist learning, where kids get recess and choice time, and art, music, dance, and foreign language. Where kids take field trips, and get reasonable amounts of homework, and where time is devoted to building school culture through responsive teaching. Kids who struggle academically do get extra tutoring, but they (and every other student) still have opportunities to play on sports teams or participate in extracurricular activities like cartooning and Latin dancing. It can be done and when people say "NCLB" prevents them from doing so, they are passing the buck.
Again, I'm not advocating for NCLB or apologizing for it. It's a law with lots of awful pieces, and a few good pieces that aren't funded the way they need to be. But I do think that our tendency to blame every single negative thing in education on NCLB deflects energy that could be put towards powerful advocacy on a local level.
:, so this is a slightly abreviated version.
to timed reading passages and math multiple choice and open ended problems.
