Do language minority students benefit from The no child left behind act?

Question

education

Answer 1

I honestly don't think ANY child benefits from NCLB!!!

Answer 2

All children and public school students suffer from no child left behind.  Talk about Orwellian double speak.  How about the clean air act?

Answer 3

As you can see from the answers you've gotten so far, whether or not NCLB benefits anyone is a hot topic.  

The language of NCLB indicates that "limited English proficient children" must be served in order for the purpose of the Act to be achieved.  The question is not really so much whether the Act provides for children with limited English proficiency.  It does.

The question is whether or not the public schools can or will comply with the Act.  This is where the debate enters in.  

Many people within public education absolutely hate NCLB.  Some claim the Act is poorly formulated.  

Others insist that the only reason some people within the public education system object to NCLB is because it holds these people accountable for actually teaching children and these people don't want to be held accountable for anything at all.  

It's true that the lazy are usually the first to object to being held accountable for their job performances.  And, as with any industry, there are people within the public schools who do as little as possible in exchange for a paycheck and are the first to buck for a raise, BUT THAT DOESN'T DESCRIBE MOST TEACHERS in our experience.  

Generally speaking, far too many teachers are poorly supported by their administrations.  They aren't given the training they need to support all of the diverse needs of all their many students.  They aren't given the tools and resources they need to do their jobs.  They are often unaware of the compliance standards they are failing to meet because their administrations don't want to invest resources in the classroom that could otherwise go to administrator salaries.  

And, again, this doesn't describe everyone's situation.  But, it does describe the situation in far too many places.  Even if this were happening within only one school district, that's one school district too many.

The real issue with NCLB, based on our experiences in the public schools as child advocates, is implementation and enforcement.  

We are aware of school sites that have deliberately compromised their students' performances on State testing just so that they could be declared Title I schools and get the extra money.  So long as enough of their students fail to make adequate yearly progress (AYP), they will continue to qualify for additional financial support.  And, it's been our observation that the kids who are most likely to be sacrificed to this funding scheme are children with special needs and children who are learning English as a second language.

So, do language minority students benefit from NCLB?  Only if their school districts are complying with it.

Answer 4

Well, in my opinion, the students are only give 1 to 2 years to catch up and perform similarly to students who are not Limited English Proficient (LEP), which is of no benefit to them if they are held back, etc due to poor performance on a reading test.  While I understand that children shouldn't be allowed to languish behind others, I also understand that language development takes time. Every bit of research regarding bilingual assessment discusses how to measure vocabulary development and comprehension in LEP kids.

And NCLB doesn't take into account that some children who are refugee status may have never been to school before, so not only are they learning the language, but they have to also learn every thing else.  In my district, we had a family from eastern europe come, and the kids knew nothing, but the high school child is expected by the state to be able to pass the graduation test in 2 years.  Perhaps if every student was gifted who was LEP we could do it, but it's crazy to think thats the case!

Answer 5

I don't think anyone benefits form NCLB! It is just letting basically any student pass on to the next education level. In my opinoin, if you aren't qualified and don't obtain the necessary gpa/grades to move on to the next grade, then you shouldn't be promoted. This act is just letting children slip through the cracks. Here's an example to look at (and even though it may sound silly at first, i PROMISE I am SO SERIOUS!):

Remember that episode of Spongebob Squarepants?

Mrs. Puff, Spongebob's boating school teacher was frustraded and just overwhelmed with the fact that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't teach poor Spongebob to drive.

She decided that this was taking a toll on her, physically and emothionally.

Day after day, Spongebob would take the writing portion of the test and ace it!

But, then the driving portion came up and he'd always crash the car, causing Mrs. Puff (a puffer fish) to blow up and get sent to the hospital. Thus, he'd fail miserably time after time.

Mrs. Puff then took it upon herself to just take the easy way out of the situation: passing Spongebob by making him write this one meesly sentence: "What I learned in boating school is how to drive."

Mrs. Puff then invisioned how this would just make matters worse. She imagined Spongebob crashing and possibly killing poor pedestrians, just cuz she let him off EASY

Do you see how it relates to NCLB? How children just getting let off easy would have a hard time in the next level? They might not really make it anywhere in life with such mediocre education. <best and LONGEST (lol) answer>