Thoughts on NCLB and Politics of Education

Just hearing "No Child Left Behind" makes many educators cringe, myself included. It's not that we disagree with being held accountable, it's just that many of the demands made can be construed as insulting to our professionalism.

There are many good aspects about having legislation that requires schools to be accountable for A.Y.P. It is true that there is a huge disconnect between the value of education state to state. I'm sure no one would disagree that education is important but it is evident in more states than others. For example, I know that New Jersey has the number one graduation rate in the country. Teachers are paid well in New Jersey and students tend to do well on standardized tests. I know someone who is a teacher in New Mexico. She gets paid peanuts, there is little to no state funding and the children are failing. Is that her fault? She has her doctorate in education and has spent years doing research and working with children, yet her students are still failing. It is for that reason that I think NCLB is a good idea. It tries to "level the playing field" a little bit. I think (even though sometimes I disagree with myself) that it is important to give teachers a standard to work towards as well. We teach our children through modeling and there is no better way to get our children to love learning than to show that we, ourselves, are lifelong learners.

In terms of my criticisms, they are basically aligned with the ones outlined in the wikipedia article. The biggest flaw in my opinion is standardized testing. I understand the need for a common evaluation tool but the results are not useful at all. There is little consideration for children with learning disabilities (though their IEPs are followed during testing). It also doesn't take into account testing anxiety and the like. It pains me to know that what my students have been learning and working on the whole year, they only have one week worth of testing to show it: two days of language arts, two days of math, one day of science (for 4th graders). I also don't think that the test is aligned with what we are placing emphasis on these days. We are teaching students to explain their thinking and we give them an opportunity to answer open-ended questions, discuss with groups and inquire about things of interest to them. They also self-select their reading materials and write about topics of their own choosing. Not on the NJASK! I also disagree with when the testing is scheduled for- mid-March. Students still have three months of instruction after that, yet we are expected to cram everything that might be on the test into the first 6 months of school. It's obvious that this is a flaw when even the students start to make comments about it and question why they are being tested on things when it's not even the end of the year. The last problem I have with standardized testing is that if we are going to have a federal law about eduation, how can it be that each state can give whatever test they want to their students and the scores will be equally considered. This is one thing I never understood. Maybe I am partial, but I happen to think that the NJASK is very hard, yet other states don't take it. They have their own way of measuring student achievement. Are all states comparable to one another?

I also agree with the "inequitable divisions of resources." It is true that with so much focus on one or two subject, the others might suffer. I think this is true in a lot of urban areas where the state is threatening to take away funding. Teachers are forced to spend their whole school year "teaching to the test" and trying to prepare their children for the standardized tests. With that kind of instruction, so much is lost. Children get bored of the same thing each day: practicing multiple choice questions and writing to picture prompts, and they may began to not take it seriously.

In terms of politics in education, it's something that always has been (on a state level) and always will be. In fact, I think politics will begin to play a bigger role in the future. I think it trickles down from other areas. Politicians are feeling pressure to keep our country/state/city bigger and better and they need highly educated people to do so.