The "No Child Left Behind" act. - Page 2

[hydrangea]

My mother serves on the school board in her district, and this No Child Left Behind act is really upsetting her. In fact, she has been much more positive about our homeschooling since this started becoming a reality.

[simonee]

It sounds like "No child will be left behind" because Behind is where all the children will be. Except the rich ones of course.

What this country needs is a decent public school system based on support for parents, like below-40-hour work weeks and decent benefits in ALL jobs, so that parents will have enough time and energy to help their children navigate their way through the school experience. Children whose parents have enough time to take care of them, are happier kids who are more excited about learning new stuff. And kids that want to learn new stuff, will. That's what homeschooling proves every day.

If teachers deal with somewhat excited children, they'll like their jobs better, which means better teachers. Which means happier children. Which means better test scores ~ yes, 90% of the children above average :LOL

[daylily]

Simonee, since you grew up in the Netherlands, can you tell me why it is that education in Europe seems to be so much better than it is in the US. OR, is it a myth that the Europeans are all better educated than we are? Are literacy rates higher in western European countries because of generous social programs? Because of good-quality state subsidized preschool/childcare? Because of federally mandated educational standards? Enquiring minds want to know!

[Ms. Mom]

My son attended a Charter school in Kindergarten, I homeschooled him for 1st grade and now he's in Public for 2nd grade. What's interesting is that their teaching the kids what he learned in Kindergarten in second grade. To top that off his classmates are having a difficult time learning it?

When working in the classroom I've come to the conclusion that a great deal of our failing schools are due to parents who are not able to be more a part of the school. These kids need more guidance at home and support in school. Somehow, we've come to the conclusion that we send our kids off for education and that this takes that 'burden' off of us.

As parents, we need to be a part of our children's education no matter how we choose to educate them. I'd love to see a campaign geared at educating parents on how to be a part of the public school system.

I'm an oddity at my kids school. Sometimes the teachers don't know what to do with me when I'm there.

I think I strayed a bit off topic - sorry about that.

[Deirdre]

Ms. Mom ~ what my dh wouldn't do for a parent volunteer in his classroom....

ITA about the parent thing. I had a girlfriend who ask her 1st grade class how many of their parents read to them in the evening and only 3 raised their hands I think a program to help parents become more involved sounds like a great idea. Learning doesn't begin or end at the classroom door.

My dh teaches special ed so he is in unique circumstances. But one of the most frustrating things for him is to work very hard with a student's behavior issues and seeing success and then knowing that everything he has done is going to be lost when the student goes home

What this has to do with the No Child Left Behind Act I do not know

~Deirdre

[daylily]

It has a lot to do with No Child Left Behind. Ms. Mom is exactly right: that a child's home environment is crucial to his/her ability to learn. But under Bush, the home environment of at-risk children is only going to get worse due to policies that hurt the poor and help the rich. NCLB is useless if kids are living in poverty.

I'm guessing that the parents of the poorest children are very unlikely to get involved in their child's school because they're busy working 2 or 3 low paying jobs to make ends meet. Or, they're just embarrassed, have little confidence, were never well educated themselves and think they're not welcome.

[Deirdre]

Oh, ITA, daylily, I just thought I might be taking the thread OT with my diatribe about lack of parent involvement

Yes, I do think a lot of it does have to do with the economic pressures that parents face. I didn't expand on this but the teacher I mentioned above with only 3 children who had parents who read to them was then teaching in a low income district with many immigrant parents. She now teaches in a wealthy school district where every ALL of the mother's of her student are SAHM's Every child's parent volunteers in her classroom in some capacity. She doesn't know what to do with them all! Now it's too bad that some of those parents couldn;t wander on over to that low income district and volunteer in one of those classrooms.

Or better yet, why don't we have a country that supports parents, pays decent wages and provides healthcare for everyone?

[mamaley]

I just typed a whole bunch and saw that Daylily already said it, and in better words.

[BusyMommy]

What do you mean some schools don't allow volunteers? That can't be possible?!?!
Our school board and ad bldg dislike this act as well.

I think parents are a HUGE part of it. I've taught at both ends. This year, I have 12 regular parent volunteers. My kinder. class is simply soaring! This is also the first year our district has given EACH K teacher a 3.5 hour aide.
If Bush wants successful schools, get more caring adults in each room.
My class rocks. They're happy, well adjusted and fully supported students. I'm really going to miss them in 7 weeks.
Really.

BTW:
Don't forget that failing schools may have extra monies through Title 1 funding. This allows for more teachers and resources.

[JessicaS]

I had actually never heard of parents volunteering in classroms until I saw people mention it on the boards before....I never saw parents in my classses unless it was someone's birthday or something...

[Deirdre]

:LOL Abimommy, really?

My mother volunteered at my school all the time in K-4. She was eventually hired on as a Title I aide.

I can't believe some schools don't allow volunteers

~Deirdre

[dfoy]

I stayed out of this thread when it was active because it is such an emotional issue for me. But after receiving my May copy of NEA Today (National Education Association), I felt like maybe I could contribute effectively to the discussion without being too emotional and perhaps pass along some valid information.

I am a teacher.

One of the many things that is wrong with this bill is the federal government setting standards on what constitutes a "highly qualified" teacher. No longer will it be good enough to have a university certify that you are able to teach a certain subject or area and renew based on college hours. Now you have to jump through more hoops. Here's what has happened to me:

I have 3 degrees: Bachelor of Science in Education; Master of Arts in Educational Administration; Education Specialist in Educational Administration

I have certification through the state of Kansas for these areas:
EMH Level III & IV (teaching mild to moderately handicapped children grades 5 - 12)
Building Administrator (all levels)
District Administrator
Special Education Director

This is my experience:
17 years teaching special needs students math, science and English as well as 7 of those years also teaching collaborative science and math classes in the general curriculum.
3 years Assistant Principal

I will not be able to get a "highly qualified" license. I teach content courses to special needs students who cannot participate in the general curriculum because of their disabilities. But I do not have a degree in those content areas, nor do I have upper level college courses in those content areas. All of my education and all of my experience does nothing for me.

And that is only one of the many problems. If you care to see more please visit this website and read the articles and see the flow chart regarding NCLB Act.

www.nea.org/neatoday

Please write your congressmen and relay your feelings directly to them. My personal feeling is that this legislation was designed to kill public education so it will be easier to implement vouchers on a large scale basis.

There is no more local control of education. This bill made sure of it.

[Lemon Balm]

Daylily,
I'm so glad you're going to homeschool! Having met you only briefly - Children's Museum in Richmond - I think you'd be an excellent homeschooling mom! We just started this year and it's great - the money thing is a problem. I'm trying to come up with creative solutions for that.
Courtney

[Deirdre]

dfoy~

Thanks for your response.

I was flipping through dh's copy of NEA Today yesterday and read a bit about the No Child Left Behind Act. Can you say This part really got me:

The law says: All teachers should be "highly qualified" by the end of the 2005-06 school year by having state certification and demonstration of
competence.

Glitch: Federal education department regulations permit teachers who are providing supplemental services, who are at charter schools, or who are in preparation programs that skirt state certification standards to be deemed highly qualified. At the same time, it labels not highly qualified special education teachers who teach several subjects--but who are not certified in each of those subjects. The law also makes not highly qualified those teachers who were certified as fifth- or sixth-grade elementary teachers--but whose schools were then re-designated middle schools, or vice versa.

I am not even sure if my dh (special ed teacher) is aware of this "highly qualified" business. It looks like most special ed teachers will not be "highly qualified" even though dh has 30 units beyond Bachelors plus has taken the multiple subject assessment and teaching reading assessment in the state of CA. Looks like the end of all resource teachers. He is on the fence about remaining a teacher anyway and I am afraid that additional hoops to jump through is only going to discourage him more. All I could think is that absolutely noone is going to want to be a teacher given these requirements (combined with crappy pay) that the profession is going to lose many good longtime teachers.

It is very sad and I do have to wonder about ulterior motives...like maybe all Americans should be taught in Christian schools: Since it looks from above that those wonderful little charter schools with truly unqualified teachers somehow become "highly qualified" under this act

[daylily]

Courtney, It's nice to hear from you! I didn't realize you were here under a new name.

Dfoy, thanks for your input. I was so annoyed about how this bill is affecting children and their parents, I overlooked the teachers' side of the story.

In many ways, this bill will make public education worse, not better. There was a story about it on NPR the other day and apparently overcrowding is not a valid excuse to limit the number of transfers to a so-called "successful" school. We're going to have children crammed into trailers and before long the successful schools will be failing schools. Ugh.

Is it even in our administration's best interests to have a well-educated citizenry? Bush and his co-horts come from the higher-echelon of society--prep school and ivy league educated. If the ordinary person gets an indifferent education, then control of this country will always remain in the hands of people like Bush.

[Lemon Balm]

"Is it even in our administration's best interests to have a well-educated citizenry? Bush and his co-horts come from the higher-echelon of society--prep school and ivy league educated. If the ordinary person gets an indifferent education, then control of this country will always remain in the hands of people like Bush."

Ever read any John Taylor Gatto? He is now my hero. In all the homeschooling research I've been doing, his writings really gave voice to my thoughts. Are we training people to be complacent, compliant burger-flippers and Wal-Mart clerks? (I'm not trying to insult anyone's job - just a society geared towards nothing more important than obedient consumers)

[daylily]

Another reason to hate NCLB:

Buried in this legislation is a requirement that high schools give personal information on all students to the military for recruiting purposes.

I've never read John Taylor Gatto, but he sounds interesting.

[applejuice]

Dear Hydrangea:

I agree that it would take some kind of revolution in our economic system to make homeschooling a viable option for everyone. Yet we would need " state schools " since not everyon ewill view it as theit "job" to teach their children anything.

But really, ideally, if everyone felt it was their god-given obligation to chang ethe world and educate their own kid, then, thing would be alot different in this country.