No Child Left Behind Act?

Question

What do you think about the NCLB Act? - Is it working, why or why not? What is it doing for the average students? What is it doing for the above-average students? Do schools give the mentally impaired kids special tests so that they can get more funding? Do schools get more money if more students are in advanced classes? If so, why don't they make as much of an effort to find early geniuses as they do to find early below-average children? etc.

Thanks

Answer 1

I can only speak to low performing children and special ed children.

As usual, the No Child Left Behind act is an Orwellian misnomer. Actually children can be left behind up to three years. If you fail grade three, you just keep repeating it until you get it right. You can do this up to three times.

This is horrible enough for the 12 year old in third grade, but it is absolutely cruel to children with documented disabilities. If they want to stay on the regular diploma track, they must take the standardized test. Even though they are afforded modifications to the testing environment, such as more time, many do not pass it. This is like failing a child with only one leg for not running a mile in fifteen minutes.

These tests are a disaster for children  who fail repeatedly. They never feel very good about themselves for the rest of their lives.

Answer 2

As with everything else,  it is aimed at improving children who are not succeeding. They only get special testing conditions if it is specified in their IEP's. Average kids are always left out of the loop. Above average kids will pass the test so they get no extra instruction through NCLB. It will be gone in 5 years or so, mark my words.

Answer 3

I did a research project on the NCLB Act last year and what I found was very disturbing. Certain states, I'm not naming the states but one of them included the home state of George W. Bush, was forging test scores to obtain more federal funding that would have received otherwise. Other states, such as state that is home to the gambling center of the east; Atlantic City, were denying the special education students the right to be promoted to the next grade level if these students did not receive at least a grade of "C" in all classes and these schools practiced this form of discrimination in the name of the NCLB Act. Still other states had lowered the score to pass these tests as down to as low as 40%, such as the state that is home to the Detroit Lions did. The federal government requires at least a 70% in order to pass. Many states, such as the state that is home to the Denver Broncos, lumped the partially proficent students with the proficient students to avoid sanctions. It does little to help the morale of the teachers and nothing to help the students with any kind of mental conditions. Which could help to explain why the Virginia Tech shooter had managed to go as long as he did without mental help.

However, after faxing this same research paper straight to the Secretary of Education back around the 1st of the year, I found out in April that as of the school year '08-'09, the Department of Education is going is use seperate tests to actuately measure for learning disabilities at an earlier age and to measure actuately their progress through the school year. We shall see.

School funding is based on the scores of these tests and not on how many students are in below level, average, or above average classes. As far as the average and above average students are concerned, the school system focuses more on the self esteem of the child and less on the academic level of the child. Which could also explain why many universities, such as Old Dominion University, has to teach high school level courses to many of their students before they can enter into their course of study.

I hope this answer your question.

Answer 4

I agree with many above- NCLB is not working. It is a joke. Ask yourself this question, when was the last time something worked with no funding? That is NCLB. There is no federal funding and then if kids fail then the districts get less money. Kids that  fail at a high rate are usually poor districts. (Kids have food, shelter and safety more on their mind than education.). NCLB would punish a poor district that is trying it's hardest to get scores up but the kids are concentrating on other important matters.

Real education change is needed but should be done at the State level. CA, TX & FL needs more ESL than say North Dakota or Maine. A real change in education would come with funding and taking into account that a child with Downs is not going to achieve the same as a "normal" functinging child. As for the people that think their kid will get "kicked" out because of special needs- that was already protected in the ADA (american's with disabilites act; section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973). Since 504 was passed in 1973, NCLB didn't do anything more for these students. IEPs and other special considerations (including discipline) were in place long before NCLB.

Answer 5

It is the No Child Left Behind Act not the Make Every Child Do Better Act.

The emphasis is  on bring every child up to the  standards for that particular state. Many have said that those who already meet standards or who are gifted and talented are being neglected.

There are no special tests for what we call Special Education Most teachers object to that because they think that it is unrealistic  to expect many of these students, if properly placed to pass the same tests as others.Additional money is not available for those in advanced classes. Indeed school administrators complain that they receive insufficient funding for those who are below the minimum requirements.Many feel (I am not one among them) that gifted students can get by on less  and that the poorer students need a lot of extra help particularly in reading and math.

I hope that I have answered your questions.

Answer 6

i am very curious how many children will be left behind in 2011. because all students entering high school in fall 2007 and beyond will have to have   4 credits of math and sciences   they are making it. more harder for high school kids to graduate. not all kids are college material.  plus they have to pass the TAKS.   there is no more resource  classes in my son school.  the new ACT will be Children Left Behind,

Answer 7

The NCLB Act not only leaves nobody behind, it prevents people from getting ahead. I don't like it at all. It is not working. Teachers are too focused on modifying ciriculum depending on state testing to reinforce this act, so instead of learning what we should be learning, we're reviewing information we learned years ago, but need to know for this testing so that we do well, so that teachers do well, so they get a big paycheck. Who is this law really benefitting, anyway?

Answer 8

No, No Child Left Behind is not working.    

To begin with, each state is allowed to choose their own standards.  That means some states have chosen very low standards, while others have chosen impossibly high ones.  Neither is good for the children.  One doesn't challenge the average child while the other overwhelms them. Literally, a failing kindergarten in California could be on the third grade honor roll in New Mexico!  (One of California’s kindergarten standards is writing a three sentence story with a beginning, middle and end.  Each sentence must start with a capital letter and end with a period, and all high frequency words must be spelled correctly. New Mexico doesn't expect that until third grade, and only from its best students.)

Since NCLB only tests language and math, in many schools these are the ONLY things that are taught. In my district they are so petrified that teachers will "waste” time teaching things that aren't tested, that they have an hourly pacing calendar.  Teachers get written up if they are teaching something at the wrong time of day or the wrong day all together. Literally. my friends and I have been written up for teaching math in the morning, (the allotted time for math is 45 minutes in the afternoon), for teaching social studies, (not part of the core curriculum and did not relate to the core curriculum story of Hats, Hats, Hats), for explaining a word to a second language student, (it wasn't English Language Development time and the word wasn't part of the academic vocabulary listed for that week's instruction), for teaching a sound that was taught a previous week as well as  teaching one that wasn't slotted to be taught for two weeks, (the only time we can remedialize or enrich instruction is during "global access time"). We have also been written up for providing classroom time for children to think and analyze different problems. We were told that it took too long for the child to get the answer and a better use of their and our time in the classroom setting was to just tell them the answer and to move onto something else.

Throughout the country, there are two main failing subgroups; English learners and learning disabled children. Are we really surprised?  How can we expect someone who is learning something to be as proficient as someone who already has mastery of it? The whole situation screams of injustice when we realize that to be label as an English learner a child is tested; their low score earns them the label. As soon as a child becomes proficient he is “redesignated” as “English proficient” and his scores don’t count in the English learner subgroup any longer.

Similarly, to be labeled as “learning disabled” children must score so poorly on certain standardized tests that there is a three year discrepancy between their chronological age and his academic proficiency. Is there any wonder why six months later they all don’t have the same score as their counterparts that did pass the test? Is it truly a shock, or a statement about a teacher, school, or district when six months later that child doesn’t score as well as a child who did pass the test initially?

Tell me how this is all of this helping our students?  The advanced ones are bored to tears, the low ones are floundering, and the average ones are learning to sit quietly and regurgitate what is given to them. Science, social studies, history and geography the very subjects that can spark a child's interest in learning, and are vital to understanding the world in which we live, have been swept under the carpet.  Before NCLB the appalling but true fact was that the average American couldn't find the US on the map of the world, now, with no science, social studies etc. at all in the classroom how ignorant are our citizens going to be?

Moreover, the program looks at only ONE test that was taken in five consecutive days, (at least here in CA) to determine how well a school is doing.  It does not take into consideration how far the child has personally come, what personally is happening in the student's life, or how long that child has actually been in that particular school. Here are just a few anecdotes from last year's testing.

One student left the test in the middle of testing because his brother was sick and his mother was picking him up. She didn't want to come back after school to pick the student up. He was then kept out of school for three days that week, and then the next week, (the week of make ups), because his mother was too busy taking care of the brother.  

Two brothers rarely came to school. Their parents were divorcing and their mother worked three jobs. She slept in the mornings and didn't wake them up. Therefore they were only in class about two days a week the whole school year. We worked with social services all year and they were eventually placed in foster care, but not before they took the NCLB tests.  

A family of 7 children, all of whom had been "home schooled" their entire life entered our school on the first day of testing. It had been their mother’s belief that an ancient Babylonian devil inhabited thin black lines and so none of the children could read and they were afraid of pencils, yet it was mandatory that all of them be tested and their grades counted as a reflection of our teaching even though none of them had even had one hour of instruction in our school.

One student went to Disneyland the week of testing. His mother said it was the only time she had off and wanted to be there without the crowds. He was then sick the week of makeovers.  

I could go on, but you get the picture. We have NO control over these circumstances, yet these students’ grades are painted as a reflection of our teaching, our schools are labeled as “failing”, and our days further scripted. Moreover, the “pass” and “fail” labels aren’t based on the average test scores. They are based on the amount of growth made in EACH of 36 subgroups IN ADDITION TO the number of children labeled as “proficient” each year in each subgroup. In other words, a whole school can make growth, but if one subgroup doesn’t make as much growth as deemed necessary by NCLB guidelines, the WHOLE SCHOOL is labeled as failing. The school is then forced to send notices home to parents informing them that their child is attending a “failing” school and that they have a right to move them to a “non-failing” school. Often the list of “non failing” schools contains schools whose average scores are lower than the failing school, but since they showed the proper growth according to the NCLB guidelines, aren’t “failing”. How misleading is that?

Lastly, there are educational sanctions placed on schools when they don’t “pass”. Failing schools lose more and more money each year that they are labeled as “failing”. Last year my school had $200 per classroom to buy all the paper, pencils, erasers, zero copies, and so on that it needed, (forget things like balls for PE and recess). This year it was lowered to $100.  How can we expect all children to succeed when the teachers, especially of our poorest and most needy, aren’t given the means to supply them with basic learning supplies?

No, Public Law 107-110, misleadingly known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2000, is not working. Don’t let anyone tell you that it is.

Answer 9

i don't feel that it is working at all . lawmakers can now say they v'e done  something  or they have a plan in place but it is definitely not woking. schools get more funding for special children , no more money for the advanced children.

Answer 10

I'm not sure where I fall here. My daughter (kindergarten last year) was  in a class with 2 students that didn't speak english. The teacher did have to spend too much time redirecting and explaining to these 2 students (one spoke spanish, the other polish). They didn't have an aide for these 2, making communication a huge issue.

On the other side, both of my children have special needs. My son is getting special ed preschool, and speech. I don't know what I would do without this school for him. It's only 2.5 hours, but I know they can't kick him out.

Schools don't go out looking for below average children. My daughter just started 1st grade, and I had a meeting with the psychologist. I wasn't waiting until the school decided that she had problems. I'm also not looking for her school to take over parenting now that she has known issues, I will be getting most things done through our insurance, or out of pocket. I only expect a few services from her school. My school district has a program for the above average students, as well as inclusion and self contained.

Like I said I'm not sure where I stand, but I'm glad to know I can get some help with my two, because of NCLB.

Answer 11

It makes fourth graders responsible for property prices.  People buying new houses want to see how good the schools are and of course they use these No Child Left Behind Tests as a basis to compare.  So what do the schools do?  They stop teaching and start test prepping REALLY early like in 2nd grade so that their school will have the highest test scores.

Answer 12

I believe it is working because it protects handicapped children. It ensures they get an education equal to that of a "normal" child and that they can't be kicked out of school for being slower than other students. NCLB also works for above average students because it ensures the school is making AYP. If the school makes AYP, then it can prove that the teaching methods are adequate. There is no such thing as "special funding." Each county is responsible for budgeting its own budget and for making the necessary accommodations appropriate for the number of special ed students they have in a given year. The schools also fund AIM programs for students who achieve at a higher level. The treatment is equal. You don't just go out and "find" geniuses. The children with a higher intellectual levels are rewarded on an individual basis. They don't keep stats on more intelligent kids simply because they don't have to prove progress. However, constant monitoring of stats is required for students who achieve at lower levels in order to adjust to meet the specific needs of each student.