Multimedia Presentation: Should the Government Reform the No Child Left Behind Act?
In Uncategorized on April 2, 2009 at 1:02 pmFinal: Outline
In Uncategorized on March 11, 2009 at 6:50 pmThe No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2001 by President George W. Bush. It was a federal law intended to require states to set standards and create ways to help ensure their students meet those standards. Its focus was the accountability of states, schools and teachers. It was also intended to provide parents with more freedom to choose which school their children will attend. It also tracked the quality of teachers being hired. In order for these schools to receive this extra funding, they had to demonstrate that their schools were making and achieving these standards.
Seven years after it was put into place, many loopholes and serious flaws came to light. Some of those flaws include:
· Gaming the System: some states set low standards so they can easily meet them and receive the federal funding, where as other states that are doing just as well are being punished because their standards were set higher. There is no national standard.
· Teaching to the Test: In most cases, rather than manipulating test results, teachers will teach a narrow subset of skills that will increase test performance rather than focus on deeper understanding.
· Segregation of Students: The No Child Left Behind Act allows a school to choose one percent of its population that does not have to meet the state tests. It is called the “One percent law” and most schools choose their most disabled and language-challenged students to be exempt which removes incentive to spend resources on them.
· Class Overcrowding: While parents have the freedom to move there children from a failing school to a more successful one, it does not help schools accommodate their rising populations but penalizes them for exceeding class size caps.
How did this all happen? The No Child Left Behind Act was the culmination of half a century’s work to federally fund education while still allowing states to have control over curriculum. Lyndon B. Johnson initiated the Great Society domestic programs which were an attempt to eliminate racial inequality and poverty. One of its main focuses was education. They were never able to follow through completely and its time as a priority fizzled out. By the 1980’s and 1990’s, with the United States’ graduation rates an embarrassment in the world, an interest in the federal government getting more involved in American students’ education began to develop once more. There was an amazing bi-partisan effort to bring quality education to students of all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds and shorten the achievement gaps between them and Caucasian students from wealthy communities. George W. Bush came into office in with No Child Left Behind at the top of his agenda. It was met with a lot of initial optimism, but within a few years, problems began to surface and hardworking schools were being punished for not meeting proficiency levels. With the current economic downturn and so many schools facing serious, crippling budget shortfalls, the importance of the No Child Left Behind Act has been called into question by the newly-elected Obama administration.
As of now, there are very few people, (none that I could find), that believe that the No Child Left Behind Act should remain as it is or believe it is perfect. Most, that do not believe that the No Child Left Behind Act should completely abolished or reformed, believe that it just needs a little tweaking. Former director of the United States’ department of education, Margaret Spelling, believes it is “99% pure”.
A majority of people do believe it should either be reformed or abolished. Those that hope to reform it want schools to be rewarded based on progress rather than arbitrary efficiency goals. All schools are different and they are always dealing with special circumstances that can’t be assessed in a uniform way. The Obama Administration has expressed a hope to test students in ways that assess their readiness for work and college, rather than just test reading and math. It also plans to start all kids from depressed areas off in the right direction by providing income-based grants for pre-school education. The other side of the opposition feels that tracking and testing the students is a waste of money and time because children don’t learn in static ways that can be accurately assessed in a standardized way. Others feel that the assessments can only truly track a student’s progress if they are created on an individual basis because standardized ones ignore disabled and English language Learner (ELL) student’s needs as well as gifted and talented students whose intelligences can not be simply determined by a test of reading and math.
So, should the government reform the No Child Left Behind Act? No. It should abandon the No Child Left Behind Act. A year or two ago, when times were not quite as desperate, I would say that it was worth being reformed. Now, when so many schools are desperately trying to stay open due to budget shortfalls, holding them responsible to reach proficiency levels so as to punish them for not meeting them seems like it should be very low on the priority. These tests really don’t take into account the different ways in which students learn and they don’t take into account the diverse situations and experiences students come from. They can’t even take into account that a child has a disability or has come from a completely different language. There are so many ways that states and schools can raise test scores while not improving education. The tests are arbitrary and they create a false picture.
Those that oppose abolishment or reform argue that test scores have risen significantly since the Act has become law; however, test scores rising can be (but are not always) a result of teaching to the test and manipulating scores. They can argue that it has brought attention to minority education, but it has done only that. California, which has an extremely large minority population in all its schools, is suffering the most. The schools that have minorities making progress are still not meeting proficiency standards and they are a ticking time-bomb. The most overwhelming argument against reformation is not an argument but a question. “How can we afford to reform?” or “How DO we reform?” Just because we don’t know how to reform it or abandon it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do either and it doesn’t mean that we should let things carry on the way they have been because we might be in for an unpleasant future.
Links to Source Notes:
*1-Academic-Enhancing No Child Left Behind – School Mental Health Connections
*2-Journalistic-Evaluating ‘No Child Left Behind’
*4-Journalistic-What No Child Left Behind Left Behind
5-Institutional-Mapping Oregon’s Educational Progress 2008
6-Institutional-The Agenda – Education
7-Institutional-PTA Position Overview for the Upcoming ESEA –NCLB Reauthorization
8-Institutional-After school and No Child Left Behind Reauthorization
9-Institutional-The American Federation of Teachers on No Child Left Behind
10-Academic-Robbing Elementary Students of Their Childhood: The Perils of No Child Left Behind
11-Academic-How Tracking Creates a Poverty of Learning
12-Academic-Tearing Down The Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education
13-Journalistic-No Child Left Behind Changes Oregon Education
14-Journalistic-How to Fix No Child Left Behind
15-Journalistic-Principals Say No Child Left Behind is Unattainable
16-Journalistic-Beyond Jobs: Obama Wants Stimulus to Reform Schools
17-Journalistic-Improving On No Child left Behind (Multimedia)
18-Journalistic-Impact of No Child Left Behind is Debatable (Multimedia)
19-Journalistic-Schools Say Stimulus Package is Too Late (Multimedia)
20-Journalistic-Seven Years In, No Child Left Behind Gets Poor Marks (Multimedia)
21-Journalistic-Gender Gap Theory Doesn’t Add Up (Multimedia)
22-Citizen-Interview with Lois Molyneux
23-Citizen-Interview with Tera Hoffman
24-Citizen-Interview with Margaret Lillie
25-Citizen-Teaching to the Test (Blog)
26-Citizen-The Future of Education-One Teacher’s Prediction (Blog)
27-Journalistic-GAO: Loss of Arts Education Higher in Some Kinds of Schools (Blog)
28-Journalistic-Daniel Shanken (Photo)
29-Journalistic-Kathy Willens (Photo)
30-Journalistic-Benjamin Sklar (Photo)
31-Journalistic-J. Scott Applewhite (Photo)
32-Journalistic-The Impact of No Child Left Behind (Photo/Graphic)
33-Journalistic-No Child Left Behind Leaves No Room for Some
**Extra Source Notes:
34-Journalistic-For Some Schools, the Question is: What to Cut?
35-Institutional-A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
36-Journalistic-Study: No Child Left Behind Rule Looser in Minnesota
*Source Note: Improving On No Child Left Behind
In Uncategorized on March 11, 2009 at 4:37 pmImproving On No Child Left Behind Act (Youtube.com; November 14, 208)
Summary: John Yinger, the author of Helping Children Left Behind State Aid and The Pursuit of Educational Equity, points out one of the No Child Left Behind’s weaknesses. The gaps between states when it comes to initial proficiency levels and goals creates an uneven playing field for the nations students, teachers, and schools.
Topic: Should the government reform the No Child Left Behind Act
Category: Journalistic
What is it? An online video of a recitation.
Publication Information: Youtube.com;November 14, 2008
Author: John Yinger
Location: The video can be found here.
Accessed: March 8, 2009
Support:
Helping Children Left Behind State Aid and The Pursuit of Educational Equity by John Yinger.
Helping Children Left Behind State Aid and The Pursuit of Educational Equity is the book which Yinger wrote on the No Child left Behind Act. The book includes an in depth study of the country’s different education systems and their level of quality. It also looks at their proficiency goals for the 2014 deadline.
Audience and Agenda:
John Yinger is Trustee Professor of Public Administration and Economics and the director of Education Finance and Accountability Program. Education Finance and Accountability Program is a program that “which promotes research, education, and debate about fundamental issues in the elementary and secondary school system in the U.S.” He served as senior staff economist in the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan. Yinger earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1974. There is no reason to suspect that his expressed views and the information gathered by his study for his bool are influenced by any commercial or political interests other than his own pursuit of statistical information.
Usefulness:
This article is useful because it shows how unrealistic most of the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are. He talks about the gaps between states when it comes to initial proficiency levels and proficiency goals. California, which has one of the lowest initial proficiency levels, has set one the highest proficiency level goals by 2014. Statistically speaking, the chances of California meeting those goals are slim to none. It shows extreme carelessness in the No Child Left Behind Act to allow states to make their own goals and tests and punishing them equally when they do not meet them. On the other side, states that had high initial proficiency levels and low proficiency goals for the 2014 will not be in trouble but it doesn’t really mean that they have accomplished something. It is unfair. If the no Child Left Behind Act is to equally reward in punish then it should test equally as well.
Works cited:
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jyinger/
