NCLB has resulted in dumbing down the curriculum. Now we are required to teach to the lowest common denominator, rather than teaching to the most gifted students.

The major issue I have with NCLB in my state (Florida) is that there are no provisions made for the children that are actually left behind. Here is an example. A child for some reason reaches the third grade and cannot pass the FCAT (our comprehensive assessment test) and does not pass the portfolio requirement either. Now this student must repeat the third grade. The child returns to third grade a nine year old about to turn 10 (a year older than the rest of the third graders). In some cases the child is in a special class with other students in the same situation. The child fails the fall retest, the spring test, and the portfolio. Now the child must repeat third grade again. The child returns to the third grade for his third and final year. The child will be 11 about to turn 12 (two years older than the first time 3rd grader). After this year the child continues onto fourth grade as a 12 year old about to turn 13 while his or her classmates are 9 about to turn 10. When the child enters 5th grade they are 13 going on 14 while their counterparts are 10 going on 11. Then the child enters middle school as a 14 year old going on 15 (students that have not failed will be 11 about to turn 12). In 7th grade they will be 15 going on 16 the other students (if they have not failed) will be 12 going on 13. Now comes 8th grade. Once again students must pass the FCAT to be promoted to 9th grade. The student is 16 going on 17 in a school with 11 and 12 year olds. They are going to be interacting with the other children there is no provision being made to separate the children at this point in time. Once again the child is given 3 years to pass the test. If the child takes the 3 years to pass the test that means they will be 19 almost 20 when they enter 9th grade!

As it stands now, the 3 time repeaters are entering 6th grade and 10th grades. Now ask yourself this, how confortable will parents feel in three years when their child enters middle school at 11 almost 12 and has to interact with 17 year old teenagers.

NCLB has helped those performing below the average, but at the cost of everyone else.

Children that are doing “okay” are not receiving the attention they need. There is no motivation for making sure that each child, or at least each class, shows growth each year. They only care about moving the bottom up. A child that is 2 years above grade level could learn NOTHING all year and end the year only 1 year above grade level, and yet that would still be okay by NCLB standards because they would still be above grade, even though they actually slipped back.

Many gifted and enrichment programs are being dropped in many schools in leiu for remedial programs.

Consequently I find many parents of gifted children are looking for other options, private schools, home schools, or moving to an area where there is a greater population of advantaged students – creating a brain drain effect.

There needs to be a balance.

This about sums up how a lot of teachers feel about NCLB:

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No Child Left Behind in Sports?

The Federal government has announced that all high school football teams must meet “No Child Left Behind” legislation beginning next season.

1. No team will be declared a winner, as that will leave 50% of

participants behind.

2. All high schools will be divided into districts with eight teams per district. Every team must finish at least 3rd place to be proficient.

3. All teams must score at least 21 points, but no defense can allow more than 7 points.

4. No tournaments will be held as this would result in one champion.

5. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the

championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

6. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions for interest in football, desire in athletics, genetic abilities or disabilities…. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

7. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction, because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes that aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability, and whose parents don’t like football.

8. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in 4th, 8th, and 11th grades.

9. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.

NCLB was written by politicians, not teachers and principals. I have found that politicians are not very verused in what works in the classroom. Not only that, but they are seem very unaware of the pressures and challenges that many of our children face today. I teach at an alternative high school where many of our students come to us without breakfast and no prospect of a hot dinner. I think that school districts should ban together and vote for a change to NCLB. It is not preventing students from falling through the cracks. I have found that students simply drop out of school instead of being forced to pass the standardized tests. Then these children go out into the world without the education that they should have been given.

NCLB has homogenized our educational system to the point where creativity, deep analysis and exploration in the classroom are kept to a minimum. This is due to the fact that administrators are more worried about test scores than they are about the level of learning going on in each classroom. They put IMMENSE pressure on their teachers to “perform”, and show high numbers. Consequently, test preparation has replaced being able to teach real skills. I teach in a rather large school, and our principal actually got up in front of the faculty and said, “I don’t care what they learn; just make sure their test scores are 85% and above.” It’s pathetic. People are more worried about keeping their jobs than they are about teaching what is important. At the lower levels, major life skills (such as learning how to write in cursive) are falling by the wayside, because the elem. teachers are too worried about State testing to focus on the important stuff. I actually know high school students who are not able to read cursive handwriting! The WHOLE thing is a MESS. (Literally AND figureatively.) In the meantime, I am sending my kids to private schools because they seem to have a grasp about what is important. It’s expensive, but they’re not dumbing down the curriculum. Until the US starts investing more money on its children and less money on senseless war-mongering, we won’t see the light.

Because of NCLB I had to go back to get classes so that I would be Highly Qualified to teach a class that they have now done away with. However, thanks to that I received my second master’s in elementary education and I am now teaching second grade. So, that was a good thing. I still do thing that every child will be on grade level due to the fact that there are students that have low IQ’s as well as learning disabilities. I don’t think that these issues have been properly addressed.

No Child Left Behind Act, although the idea had good intentions, has setback USA education back…oh, 10 years or more. Why? Underfunded, not understood by students, parents, teachers and administrators.

However, I will say it keeps the ignorant ignorant and the smart wanting to drop out of school.

Yes, I’m a teacher.

I’m not myself a teacher, but my mom is and I’ve been in her classroom a lot. In her school for her grade level she has received 100% passing in all of the standardized tests for last year, but with the way NCLB is written, she won’t be able to maintain “Adequate Yearly Progress” because of this now. You can’t improve 100%. The school district is really pushing teachers now with writing progress, etc. I know that the Read Naturally program is very big within our district (or it was) and that there are a lot of resource rooms to help students with problems. In the high schools they were encouring students (who at this point in time stopped caring about standardized test) to do well by giving away free things, serving them breakfast and waters throughout the test. I’ve seen students struggling to keep up with the ciriculuum and they go to resource room for everything and even not being a teacher, it breaks my heart to see them struggle on tests, etc. I think NCLB has to be rewritten or changed to have schools only fail if they are below a certain percentage with passing students, because it will be impossible to maintain AYP. (I wrote a speech on this for school, not a very liked topic in my household)

We are required to do more with less (already been doing that for years, but now we do MUCH more with MUCH less) and with more paperwork! We have to worry constantly because the Highly Qualified status that is tacked to our endorsements must be in place or we become labeled as “not proficient” and this goes out in letters to our students’ parents, and we suddenly are ineffective teachers in our subject area, although we may be tenured, and have 25 years’ experience in that subject.

We now teach to the test, because EVERYTHING rests on the achievement test scores. The school’s reputation, therefore the principal’s reputation, the teacher’s rep., and the system’s rep., are all tied to the scores of standardized tests administered to the students. (While, I might add, those tests may or may not be suitable and reliable for the students they are administered to!)

Teachers are still underpaid and underfunded for their jobs, but are required to know more, do more with fewer materials. George Bush came up with this ridiculous notion and some outrageous guidelines, and we can only pray that the education system can hold up until he is out of office and another system is in place.

You mean “No Child Left Un-tested”? The others have given great answers. It really does stifle a teacher’s and, more importantly, a child’s creativity, love for learning and problem solving skills. Teachers are expected to “teach to the test”… do they want to? NO! Would they choose to? NO! But with these guidelines & mandates they have no choice. I want to see some of our political friends take the 5th grade EOG (end of grade) test…would be comical – I’d PAY to see that!!