No Child Left Behind
Will No Child Left Behind Still Rule the Education System
One thing is for sure: educators are very much hoping that President-Elect Obama’s administration will overhaul the No Child Left Behind act. This is largely because the legislation that was so popular when it was first proposed has proved to be a large…we’ll go with “mess” since this is a family site.
When it comes to education, the No Child Left Behind act had noble goals: make sure that students were really learning and that school districts were not getting paid to merely baby-sit kids but to actually teach them. The problem stems from how learning is judged under the act. Under No Child Left Behind, a child’s education is judged solely upon his or her performance on a standardized test.
The standardized test has been used for decades to determine how well students were learning basic skill sets in individual states. Because schools are publicly funded, tax payers wanted to make sure that their teachers (who have the hardest job in the world) were earning their (tiny) salaries. Before the No Child Left Behind act, however, teachers weren’t forced to teach “to the test” and were able to cover a wider variety of materials that taught students how to think. Now, after the passing of this act, students are taught how to test well.
Another criticism of the No Child Left Behind act is that it provides incentives for teachers and school districts to lower education standards to both keep their federal funding and to keep from having to push the students who do not perform well from the district altogether.
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Special Education & Mainstreaming
In the district I work in, just like others across the United States, special education departments have been dismantled and special education certifications have been debunked.
Because special education certifications no longer carry the same weight as other teaching licenses, said educators no longer have the right to teach their own classes. This has lead to most special education students being taught in regular education classrooms.
This type of inclusion does not always work.
In theory, this form of mainstreaming may seem ideal for special education students, since they are now in an environment with their peers and have the support of another teacher in the room that will adhere to all IEP requirements, including test modification and extended testing time. In practice, however, this only furthers the euphemism of the dreaded No Child Left Behind Act, which seeks to dismantle the public education system through unattainable goals of proficiency for all students by 2014. This can also further isolation of the aforementioned students and distractions to regular education peers, resulting in stagnated social development and more frustration.
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