No to “No Child”?
One of the topics that I chose to focus on during this semester is standardized testing and why/why it’s not important. I came across an article that focused on NCLB and the idea of standardized testing. I was amazed once I started reading this article, because the idea of it was to get rid of the NCLB law completely. When I read the first line, “The federal No Child Left Behind Act is a failure,” I just had to keep reading to figure out why because so many people make such a big shpeel about this Act and its importance. The main point of this article is to reauthorize this act. According to Congressman George Miller, D-Solano and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, the Act is flawed. Miller and Pelosi are both attempting to reauthorize this Act, but by doing so, they are not fixing the most flawed parts. According to TheReporter.com, “they are making it worse by adding amendments that would further punish our students and discourage future teachers from entering the profession.”
This article shocked me because I always thought that the NCLB Act was made to help students in education and provide equal opportunities for them. But according to this article, it’s just making education for these students worse. “The Miller/Pelosi reauthorization plan continues to measure student and school success based primarily on standardized test scores, and fails to include multiple measures such as: (1) Attendance rates, (2) Graduation rates, (3) A rigorous curriculum, and (4) The number of students participating in honors or advanced placement courses.” This is where this article fits into my topic of standardized tests. The current focus on standardized testing is that teachers are supposed to teach to the test. “According to a recent study by the Center on Education Policy, a majority of the nation’s school districts report that while increasing time for test preparation, they have decreased class time for science, social studies, art, music and physical education.” And what’s really sad is that in elementary school, lunch periods have been cut short so that students are able to have more time to prepare for these standardized tests. I don’t even remember ever taking a standardized test in elementary school.
The idea of NCLB is to provide equal opportunities to schools around the nation. But “rather than providing assistance and resources to help all students and schools succeed, the Miller/Pelosi reauthorization proposal continues to punish lower-performing schools.” Another thing that shocked me was that they are trying to use this new proposal as a way to mandate how they should pay their teachers. “We know that test scores by themselves don’t fairly measure student achievement; they certainly will not be able to accurately evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness.”
“If Congressman Miller and Speaker Pelosi would just focus on these proven reforms, No Child Left Behind could become a positive force in helping our students and schools succeed. But as long as they insist on continuing the failed one-size-fits-all, federally mandated but not fully funded system that has been forced on us, we will have no choice but to stand together and urge our congressional representatives to vote no on all of the Miller/Pelosi reauthorization proposals.” This final statement pretty much sums up my opinion of this reauthorization idea. I believe that so far, the NCLB has helped many schools and students succeed, so why change it?
Resources: thereporter.com Full article here
Sheryl Smith
