The topic of todays blog will center around the not so recently passed No Child Left Behind Act. This topic may not be recent but it definitely remains in the forefront of struggling teachers' minds. This was intended to hold every school in the nation accountable for their actions through standardized testing and tight control on federal funding for any school that fails to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress. This is handled through a series of steps taken if a school does not meet the AYP multiple years in a row. These steps range from a bad label and free tutoring to the elimination of a school that consistently falls short. In theory this idea is great because No Child is Left Behind, but is it really effective? I'm not sure it is, but I think it has potential.
Most of you have heard the term 'teaching to the test' and in Florida especially this has been highly controversial. Teachers are spending so much time making sure that their students can pass these standardized tests that they don't have time to teach anything else. Students don't have time to learn anything else either because they are forced into remedial classes that are supposed to help them, but don't encourage them to want to learn. I was never placed in these classes because I test well and found these tests remarkably simple, but others that I went to school with and even some of my friends' children are completely discouraged by these classes and these tests.
These tests label students and force them into classes that stigmatize them and take away their electives making school a chore and and an uninviting place to be. Just today I was talking to a woman who's son has chronic stomach pains, not because of anything physically wrong with him, but because he is so physically stressed about attending school. He is going into high school this year and can barely read, his teachers have mentioned tutoring and private schools, learning disabilities and a mess of other excuses for his not passing these tests, but he is entering high school. One of his teachers came to her outside of school to explain to her that the other teachers think that he will be made fun of if he is held back and will be more discouraged, but will likely not succeed in High School, her solution was to send him to private school, which his mother can't afford.
I am still on the fence with this issue because I think it sounds promising, but if teachers constantly push failing students through the system to avoid having to spend time working with them, then Every Child will be Left Behind.
I feel that No Child Left behind is something that can be great for schools everywhere, but unfortunately the ways that the federal government measures progress makes the act ineffective. I grew up in Miami and as most people know there is a large population of Haitians, Hispanics, and other foreign ethnicity. This essentially means that a large portion of the Dade county school system contained ESOL students. Due to one's school repeated failure to meet AYP a high school was shut down and students were left feeling dejected and teachers were left feeling as though they had failed their students. Either way the system sucks and seems to only be geared towards keeping up the status quo.
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