Discuss: No Child Left Behind Act

[Senator Lamb]

Do you think its bad legislation or do you feel its good legislation but not fully funded? Please discuss, i am interested in all your opinions. thank you all.

[Must_B_Free]

1. hard to say

the name sounds good, but it penalizes the schools who need the most help.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. No Child Left a Dime

that name fits better.

[China_cat]

13. It also seriously penalizes

schools that are doing everything right. One of the criteria is 'improvement'. Schools that have improved get good grades. Schools that have top scores in all the areas every time they are evaluated show no improvement and so get a failing grade. It's a really stupid way to judge the schools.

As are these damnable standardized tests. Our schools do more teaching to the test than they do teaching to the course material or, what would be even better, teaching kids to think.

[ulysses]

2. piss-poor legislation.

That'd be about it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Mixed feelings

It was inevitable. Those of us who work in education could see it coming for years. So in a way it's not as bad as I had imagined it could be. And in principle, it's a good idea. We DO need to hold schools accountable.

BUT, it also sucks. Not funding it is ruining any good effects it may have had.

I also think that for Republicans it is actually just a way to take money from schools that really need it and divert that funding to private schools via vouchers.

The more we have to test these kids, the happier I am that I can retire in two years. The testing is really getting out of hand. A test for the feds, a test for the state and 4 tests every quarter for the district. So that is 18 major tests a year for my students. That part of NCLB really sucks.

[iconoclastic cat]

5. Meant to discredit and destroy a free and public education,

the cornerstone of a democratic society--and a threat to the power of fascists.

[Starlight]

8. It's meant to destroy public schools to make way for privatization. n/t

[iconoclastic cat]

9. That too, Moonbeam.

[mark414]

6. bad, funded or not

it takes local control away from schools and gives little chance for already "failing" schools to get anywhere. the way it's set up will just take more money from "bad" schools, and the already good schools (read: white suburban schools) will just keep getting better.

it's embarrassing for a country like the United States to have this fucked up of a public education system. NCLB just fucks it up even worse.

[whalerider55]

7. overall, bad

first, its packed to the gills with garbage like being forced to allow miliatry recruiters into middle schools.

it was never close to adequately funded, but the rolling deadlines for meeting standards have never been amended, which has forced a lot of states (weho have their own financial problems) to pick up the slack, and where they haven't local towns and cities are being buried by educational costs to meet the stips in NCLB

there have been standards set for achieving certain levels of progress- so in true republican fashion, each state sets their own standards... so, if say, missiissippi sets low standards, and massachusetts had high standards to begin with, then there is much mnore pressure (because there is not as much to improve overall) on MA to meet the regs.

in MA, we had developed a statewide test to examine our curriculum and teaching strategies- that is what is was normed for. but when NCLB was enacted, rather than design a test that would actually measure student growth and accomplishment, the rep gov just decided that the MCAS test would be the law of the land for NCLB compliance- kids now have to pass a test that wasn't designed to measure student progress per se as a barrier to graduation.

and the tests are so poorly designed that one year they asked third-graders to write several paragraphs about what they would do on a snowday- when the kids across the commonwaelth blew the quetsion, someone did some research and discovered that this particular cohort hadn't ever experienced a snow day in the four years they'd been in public school.

Kennedy was snookered by Bush, and the implementation of NCLB, in addition to underfunding, has been gawdawful. For example, look at houston and rod paige- red states have been fudging test results for years.

just my two cents- then again, i am a school board member....


whalerider55

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. In MO

we have a very good state test. So we are lucky. But we still have to take SAT-9 for the feds. And that test really sucks big time.

I am also so over all this testing. I don't have enough time to teach I am so busy testing. 18 tests a year for my kids. Each takes the better part of a week to give. That is half the year.

[lawladyprof]

11. As the parent of two gifted children--I know, I know-LOL, but it is true

One, a full scholarship Duke grad., in the 3rd yr. of a Ph.D. program and the other another full scholarship winner, 1550 on both SAT's and GRE's so it's true, it's true <grin>, I am so thankful they are through K12 education. All that teaching to the test might well have/probably would have turned them off to education entirely.

My hardest task was keeping them interested and involved and well-behaved (respectful to their teachers and the school as an institution--and I succeeded) when they were light years ahead of their peers.

[whalerider55]

14. Prof

because of the shifting of cost burdens due to the recession and NCLB, we've cut our ed budget in my city three times in three years- our programs for gifted kids have been gone for over five years.

my own daughter came out of montesorri kindergarted reading at a fourth grade level; when i asked her first grade teacher what was been done for those kids who already read betond grade level, she told me that they sent them to the library.

then the PTO in another elementary school in our system bought a reading program to extend the curriculum, but the administration couldn't figure out a way for the three el schools to share it so it is based at and used by one school only.

as a school board member and a parent, this stuff is making me nuts.
add in the charter school, with a funding formula that taps our state reimbursement to the tune of 1/3rd, and it almost isn't worth it.
our annual budget is 20 mil, we are reimbursed for 17% of that cost by the state, down from 27% less than 10 years ago- while our budget has gone up by about 45% in the smae time frame.

sheesh.

whalerider55

[prairierose]

12. Every child left behind....

:puke: is bad law. It's sole purpose is to destroy the public education system that even the Pilgrims thought was important to the future of this country. It was public education that has helped to build this country but it is being destroyed purposefully. It matters not that it is not fully funded. It puts all of the onus on teachers to teach what the federal government has determined to be basic skills. Never, do we hear anything about the responsibility of students or their parents for their learning. It is all the teacher's fault. Now I am not saying that all teachers are wonderful teachers, or that they have mastery of their craft (which would be pretty difficult anyway coming out of most any teaching program) but they are dealing with problems that are so much bigger than trying to get students to learn something. Students and their parents do not value education. Parents (if there are two in the household) are both working to try to make ends meet. The children are inundated by commercialism and violence. They often show up for school in the morning without breakfast and dressed inappropriately for the weather. Their parents are so overwhelmed by their problems that they often do not have the time or energy to really parent. So the children show up for school without adequate clothing to deal with the local weather & their blood sugar so low that they can't wake up. Good way to start a day of learning huh? & now the regressive party is cutting out school breakfasts. That is a great way to ensure that children start a day of learning on the right foot.

We as a country do NOT value education. We have allowed the repugnant party to denigrate education, teachers and intellectuals for more than thirty years. How many times in this last election cycle did you hear Kerry called an eastern liberal or eastern intellectual,(when they weren't calling him other names) as if these were dirty names. The one thing they do best is name calling. The repugnant party has been overtaken by eastern economic elitists who believe that no one is entitled to anything unless they have the money to pay for it.It makes no difference, whether we are talking about food, housing, medical care or education. If you don't have the money for it, you are NOT entitled to it. They no longer really even bother with lip service to human rights.

They are working very hard to create a permanent underclass of uneducated ( therefore malleable) serfs. Hello, can you say corporate feudalism? The consolidation of the media which no longer actually covers news, and feeds the masses bullshit like reality TV or Scott Peterson is a very large part of the plan. And let us not forget hate broadcasting and the "progress" it has made in making people believe that hatred they spew. That this country's problems are because there are so many "welfare queens" who are "too lazy" to work & earn a living, they just have more babies to stay on the dole. Of course, actually educating them so they could hold a job would make no sense. Sex education to cut down on all those babies makes no sense either because they just want to teach abstinence along with a bunch of lies.

OK sorry for the long rant. Those are just a few of my thoughts on this subject.

[strategery blunder]

17. Not to mention allowing physical school buildings to fall into disrepair.

I know this is anecdotal, but the district I graduated from in 2003 is/was having the same problems with funding cuts, rising costs, and more new kids in the system. The ironic thing was this was a rich, suburban, white district too, but soccer moms and rich conservative bastard yuppie dads, who recieved their education on the taxpayers' dime, didn't want to pay property taxes.:eyes:

As a result, Harry D. Jacobs "HDJ" High, my high school, had a really crappy ventilation system. I'm not asthmatic (that I know of), but I do have allergies. One morning, not 20 minutes into the first class, something (probably a grain of chalk dust) got in my nose, and I got an allergy attack.

Normally, these things go on for about five minutes, then quit. However, even though I excused myself to go to the restroom after ten minutes (this wasn't a typical allergy attack for me), I continued sneezing at least once every two minutes for the rest of the school day. Once that dust got up my nose, no matter where I went in the building, there was no purging it. Do you think I learned anything that day?:eyes:

It took two hours of fresh air after school to clear the nasal blockage and sneezing associated with the attack.

This school had a history of ventilation problems. In chem, we used Bunsen burners to keep warm during the winter. One room would be freezing; the next would feel like Hawai'i in the middle of summer with no trade winds. But the school couldn't afford to fix it, and when it finally did, the contractor did a half-assed job. Yet under Bu$h's "tort reform," the school probably would not have been able to even think about suing said contractor.

[AirAmFan]

19. Think yr school was in bad shape? Read about E. St. Louis IL schools

in Jonathan Kozol's excellent book, "Savage Inequalities"

From http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Third_World_US/SI_Kozol_StLouis.html

'The problems of the streets in urban areas, as teachers often note, frequently spill over into public schools. In the public schools of East St. Louis this is literally the case.

"Martin Luther King Junior High School," notes the Post-Dispatch in a story published in the early spring of 1989, "was evacuated Friday afternoon after sewage flowed into the kitchen.... "East St. Louis Senior High School was awash in sewage for the second time this year." The school had to be shut because of "fumes and backed-up toilets." Sewage flowed into the basement, through the floor, then up into the kitchen and the students' bathrooms. The backup, we read, "occurred in the food preparation areas."

School is resumed the following morning at the high school, but a few days later the overflow recurs. This time the entire system is affected, since the meals distributed to every student in the city are prepared in the two schools that have been flooded. School is called off for all 16,500 students in the district. The sewage backup, caused by the failure of two pumping stations, forces officials at the high school to shut down the furnaces....

In the same week, the schools announce the layoff of 280 teachers, 166 cooks and cafeteria workers, 25 teacher aides, 16 custodians and 18 painters, electricians, engineers and plumbers. The president of the teachers' union says the cuts, which will bring the size of kindergarten and primary classes up to 30 students, and the size of fourth to twelfth grade classes up to 35, will have "an unimaginable impact" on the students. "If you have a high school teacher with five classes each day and between 150 and 175 students . . ., it's going to have a devastating effect." The school system, it is also noted, has been using more than 70 "permanent substitute teachers," who are paid only $10,000 yearly, as a way of saving money.

Governor Thompson, however, tells the press that he will not pour money into East St. Louis to solve long-term problems. East St. Louis residents, he says, must help them selves. "There is money in the community," the governor insists. "It's just not being spent for what it should be spent for."'

[AirAmFan]

20. Yes, that's the same Jim Thompson who, on the 9/11 Commission,

insulated all Bush officials from accountability for the WTC and Pentagon disasters. And the same Jim Thompson who served on the CBS board that demoted Dan Rather for telling the truth about Dubya's AWOL.

[prairierose]

21. Yes, Kozol is fabulous...

he doesn't pull any punches. I make my students read this section of the book.

[strategery blunder]

25. Oh, I believe it.

:puke:

The sad thing is, I wanted to be a teacher until after bu$h*co's re-selektion, because I knew NCLB crap would continue...I don't know if I could teach when the government condemns and actually seeks to destroy my work. Not to mention that teachers are crapped upon by society as "evil, un-KKKristian libruls." (And I'm a Christian.) Sad, really. :eyes:

Now I'm in college, history major, and I don't know what I'm going to do with my history major--whether or not to keep or change it. The referendum on the destruction of education policy that was this "election" utterly destroyed my interest in teaching. Now I'm directionless. It's so depressing:cry:

Edit: When you check out the link, scroll down to find what I mean by "selektion." If this isn't what bu$h*co wants to do with workers here, it's what he wants to do with Iraqi civilians.:mad:

[prairierose]

26. Well, I teach at the college level....

I thought I would be safe from every child left behind there but it is starting to creep up on us. I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep teaching.

I often have counseled students that teaching, even with the lack of respect from this society, is a good thing. But I can't really do that anymore.

[proud patriot]

15. I don't like it because of the provision

that states Schools must give the military
our childrens personal informantion in secondary
schools or lose funding .

They make the parents go through hoops to
maintain their childs privacy .

[AirAmFan]

16. To achieve ambitious goals, resources are necessary. NCLB is a cruel hoax.

As implemented, NCLB is built on a completely wrong premise--that all schools already have enough resources to educate all their students, but that they need external incentives to use those resources for education rather than to waste them.

The real problem is that in the vast majority of states the overwhelming majority of school funding comes from local property taxes. Thus localities without much taxable property (such as East St Louis, Illinois) have an overwhelming disadvantage compared to their wealthy suburbs. The NCLB compounds this disadvantage by imposing achievement mandates that would be impossible in a short time even if extra resources were made available for smaller class sizes, afterschool and weekend tutors, etc. Of course, NCLB provides very little in funding for such absolutely necessary resources. In fact, funds are TAKEN AWAY from schools that do not magically improve their test scores by arbitrary thresholds that statisticians say the tests are too inaccurate to measure accurately.

In the real world, aging inner city school districts can hardly keep up with the requirements of their physical plants for sound roofs, heat, ventilation, and plumbing, let alone come up with magical test score improvements with no extra resources. Meanwhile, the Bush administration adamantly opposes helping such districts finance $100 billion in absolutely essential school building repairs the GAO said a few years were necessary to keep leaky school roofs and falling-out window frames from letting in the elements.

[Senator Lamb]

18. question

is allowance of random drug test (not relating to sports team) apart of this bill? it happened with my friend and he is a good kid with no problem. he was randomly called out of a class for a test with no reason.

[fortyfeetunder]

22. NCLB is a turd in the punchbowl

The premise that educating children is really a turd of bullshit floating in the sweet platitude pubchbowl of leaving no child behind.

I was appalled to read my kid's school newsletter to find out the students' attendance records had to be maintained for review because of NCLB.

Also agree with other posters NCLB is actually dismantling the public school system. It's designed to set schools up for failure.

We have a school system here that virtually eliminated school recess here because they thought because of NCLB that kids need less recess/relaxation time and more learning time.

[bhikkhu]

23. Its worthless

its based upon a simple propoganda technique, find a name for a program that generates a visceral reaction of support and then do whatever you like with the program itself. Its intent is to gut funding, punishing schools which don't meet artificial new guidelines, while withholding the funding that would allow them to do so.

My children are in public school. The effect of the frustration over funding and program cuts, and the single-minded drive of the teachers towards test performance above all else leads me to wish I could home-school them.
But that is probably the point.

[Kipepeo]

24. Overall - bad

Like others have said, it's part of the Republicans' overall plan to kill public schools. They set up a system where they can "pass" or "fail" schools so that they can wipe their hands of schools that "fail" their setup and private schools can gain more support.

It's a way to kill off our public school system slowly.