What do you think about No child Left behind and IDEA 2004?

Question

What do you think about No child Left behind and IDEA 2004?

Answer 1

I think this question is answered best by looking at the spirit of the laws and not the laws themselves.

Answer 2

It is doing terrible things to children. They are, in actuality, holding children back by making them repeat 3rd grade until they have spent three years there. Can you imagine what that does to a child's self-esteem? By the time you are in 5th grade, you are about a foot or more taller than everyone and you stand out as a failure.

This would be bad enough, but children with special needs are held to the same standards, no matter what their IEP goals are. If they fail the standardized test, no matter how well they have done in class, they will flunk and will get all "F's" on their report card.

This also applies to children from impoverished backgrounds, ESOL students and children from chaotic homes. They often populate third grade in ridiculous numbers.

Also Adequate Yearly Progress means the school has to improve a certain percentage from the year before, even if they were an "A" school. This really puts pressure on educators and kids to improve on excellent.

Answer 3

NCLB is HORRIBLE.

IDEA would be GREAT if schools would follow it. But there is no enforcement of schools to follow it.

It is a FEDERAL law and schools are ALLOWED to violate it with no repercussions.

Answer 4

They both have good intentions but problematic ways of attaining their goals.

NCLB punishes struggling schools for not performing well.  Often the children in those schools have already been punished because they enter school with disadvantages caused by poverty and compounded by race and language issues.

IDEA 2004 has a long way to go before each child receives an appropriate education.  My personal focus is on deaf children, and the least restrictive environment issue is a point of contention for me.  In fact, that's the research I'm working on right now.

Answer 5

While the spirit of the law may be important, the reality is that the letter of the law is what needs to be followed, and that is often to the detriment of the student.  It seems that this law really boils down to the over-documentation of everything without regards to the individual students.  For example, an entire school can be deemed as not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) due to a the failing grades of a sub-group, such as special education students.  Think about it.  If special education students could pass the myriad of tests at grade level from the time that they begin school, would there actually be any special education students?  Also, what about "Highly Qualified" teachers?  I have known several excellent teachers that have retired a few years before they had intended to, to avoid the hassles of having to either go back to school themselves or meet other requirements to become highly qualified.  These teachers are not considered highly qualified, but a first year teacher who took the correct exams is?  It is completely asinine.

Ultimately, I would say that, yes, the spirit of NCLB & IDEIA are incredible, but the governmental oversight and implementation of them is FUBAR.

NCLB is 600+ pages of political, bureacratic language that is inadequately defined and severely underfunded, then passed on to the individual states and ultimately to the local education agencies (LEA's) to define and implement.  It is not until a great deal of time and money is spent implementing NCLB & IDEIA, that the state and federal governments can then turn around and say "sorry, you're doing it wrong, change it again."

Answer 6

Both laws are a necessity especially IDEA. Without IDEA students with learning differences that are performing below grade level would have little to no rights in the area of education. IDEA gives the parents a say in what their educational needs are.

No Child Left behind actually hurts the special needs student because they are expected to take the same test as their peers and perform equal to their peers. Now if they have an IEP and evaluations demonstrate they are performing below grade level how are students to pass a test at grade level.

No Child Left Behind has actually created an educational system that teaches to the test and not teaching for learning. Everything students learns is now directed at how well a student can perform on the test. The academic schedule is pushed and mashed to fit the test.

Although there are bad factors of the law NCLB there are aspects that are excellent such as holding the schools accountable. School Districts need to make sure students can perform the basics before graduating. The districts are required to meet their benchmarks that are outlined by the state. Accountability is a major.