Discussion Topic
No Child Left Behind
Posted on 11/05/09, 12:45 am
Apparently a lot of school districts have taken this to mean lowering the academic standards so that the slowest kid sets the bar for all others. Now this is not me saying it is the slow kid's fault I am saying that instead of putting more effort into the slow kid we have dumbed down the standards
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11...
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11...
-
Reply #1 11/05/09 1:02am
the concept is honorable...the application is deplorable -
Reply #2 11/05/09 9:23am
I agree. I see the same problem here where I live. I was shocked when a young teen age kid came into my store one day, and he did not even know how to count well enough to count out his change. Now I know that even some adults have some problem with money, but all he had to count out was 10 pennies. It to me is sad, when a teen age kid cant even count to 10. -
Reply #3 11/05/09 11:02am
Teenagers today cannot only not count, they can't spell, can't write, read, or even make sense when talking. They may have to lower the IQ level of a genius from 141 to 81 because I do not think many kids today could score high on a standard IQ test. What is really scaring the hell out of me is that those kids in school today are the future of this country, and they can't spell, read, write, or count. How the heck are they going to build spaceships, cars, planes, buildings? How are they going to provide for a family. I know of at least 3 teachers I see every week that complain their jobs are becoming meaningless. They try to teach the kids beyond what the schools are requiring them to teach and they are threatened with termination unless they stick to the lesson plan. Some say they would quit teaching if it were not for the kids. Someone has to teach them. Since their parents won't, they have to. -
Reply #4 11/05/09 2:58pm
Well the way I see it It was a President with an IQ of 76 that decided that this was a good policy -
Reply #5 11/05/09 3:02pm
No Child Left Behind was a program that was left behind. I have no idea if it would have worked or not, but here in Chicago, the fact that there were no textbooks, no materials, and no support for the teachers was quite a problem. They were all left behind. In theory, I thought that the program had promise, but as with many things, if it looks good on paper and nobody really makes it work or cares after everyone says it looks good, it will fail. -
Reply #6 11/05/09 11:00pm
the more involved the federal government becomes in the school system the worse it get's...this is a total fiasco IMO and one that is doomed to failure, sadly so many kids will also be doomed to mediocracy in the process. -
Reply #7 11/06/09 1:21am
I was reading a document earlier today about proficiency standards in our schools. From this document by the government, "Mapping State Proficiency Standards", each state could and did set their own standards for their state.
And there was a huge disparity in these standards. For example, the states with the highest proficiency standards (for the fourth grade reading category) were:
232 Massachusetts
227 Missouri
223 South Carolina
215 Minnesota
214 Maine
And yet some states were far below that:
179 Alabama
178 Michigan
175 Tennessee
172 Oklahoma
163 Mississippi
Although the as many as 87% of the kids met the standards in some state, in Alabama only 24% of the kids met this standard - and yet their proficiency was set a lot lower than the others to begin with.
This just doesn't seem right. Evidently, kids are not getting an equal chance at education. At the least all states have the same proficiency standard.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportca...
-
Reply #8 11/06/09 1:39am
Also, someone earlier in this thread mentioned "IQ" so I looked into that also. There is a very intereting article titled:
"IQ Test: Where Does It Come From and What Does It Measure?"
by Jan Strydom, M.A., H.E.D., D.Ed. &
and Susan DuPlessis, B.D., B.A. Hons (psychology)
Intelligence testing began in earnest in France, when in 1904 psychologist Alfred Binet was commissioned by the French government to find a method to differentiate between children who were intellectually normal and those who were inferior. The purpose was to put the latter into special schools where they would receive more individual attention. In this way the disruption they caused in the education of intellectually normal children could be avoided.1
This led to the development of the Binet Scale, also known as the Simon-Binet Scale in recognition of Theophile Simon's assistance in its development. It constituted a revolutionary approach to the assessment of individual mental ability. However, Binet himself cautioned against misuse of the scale or misunderstanding of its implications. According to Binet, the scale was designed with a single purpose in mind; it was to serve as a guide to identify children in the schools who required special education. Its intention was not to be used as "a general device for ranking all pupils according to mental worth". Binet also noted that "the scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured". Since, according to Binet, intelligence could not be described as a single score, the use of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) as a definite statement of a child's intellectual capability would be a serious mistake.
The article also says: Binet's scale had a profound impact on educational development in the United States - and elsewhere.
However, this is the part of the article that really surprised me.
Few people realize that the tests being used today - of which the IQ test continues to be the most popular - represent the end result of a historical process that has its origins in racial and cultural bigotry. Many of the founding fathers of the modern testing industry - including Goddard, Terman and Carl Brighan (the developer of the Scholastic Aptitude Test) - advocated eugenics. Eugenics is a movement concerned with the selective breeding of human beings. Selected human beings would be mated with each other in an attempt to obtain certain traits in their offspring, much the same way that animal breeders work with champion stock. The eventual goal of eugenics is to create a better human race.
The Nazis took this idea to the extreme.
The founding fathers of the testing industry saw testing as one way of achieving the eugenicist aims. Goddard's belief in the innateness and inalterability of intelligence levels, for example, was so firm that he argued for the reconstruction of society along the lines dictated by IQ scores...
It is an interesting article and if you want to read it, here is the link:
http://www.audiblox2000.com/dyslex...
-
Reply #9 11/06/09 1:23pm
meanwhile....back on topic....
i have four kids and kids-in-law that are teachers. two in tx and two in mo. they all have told me that the downside of the 'no kid left behind' act is the manner in which it is administered. if i have it right, the school budget is tied in with compliance of the act. so the schools, especially the smaller schools, wind up focusing education based on the kids testing, rather than on providing foundational education that can be built on from year to year. in addition, the schools then focus their budget to see that they can continue to improve or at least stay at the level that they are at which then takes away monies for other things. all of my kids love it when i make a donation to them for classroom supplies. one daughter ended up buying calculators for her kids out of her own pocket so that they would have calculators. i have contributed office supplies over the years.
the last time i saw such a drastic change in educational funding was during Reagan's administration. schools really started pinching dollars then. athletic budgets were slashed. at the time we were living in mn. we as parents were told that certain athletics would be cut unless the parents funded it. several schools implemented booster clubs to help pay for transportation, uniforms, refreshments for the teams, etc, etc. in our case, we were told that they would have to end band unless the parents came up with cash for uniforms and from that point on, we would have to pay for lessons and provide instruments. it was a harsh reality.
i miss the days when public schooling was considered a right in america rather than a privelege. -
Reply #10 11/18/09 1:18am
No Child Left Behind has a great idea behind it: 100% proficiency in Math and Reading. Who wouldn't want that, right?
I just feel as though the structure of NCLB isn't the best. Children who are English Language Learners and have Learning Disabilities are expected to take the same test as all of the other students without any extra help. How does that make any sense at all?
Also I am worried as a future teacher because WI has just allowed student's test scores to correlate with teacher's pay. These standardized tests might show that a student is not proficient, but they don't show any growth that the child may have made due to that teacher who in fact won't recieve any bonus because their students were seen as not proficient rather than looking at growth.
I just have some issues with NCLB, and I don't have any ways in mind to resolve it, but I definitely think it should be re-structured and re-thought over.
Welcome
Join This Group
A place for members to Have true debate over issues without name calling. The Object is to have healthy debate on both sides of an issue that is intelligent , informed and insightful.
