Kaziganthis
24-09-2004, 06:44
Hmm, it looks like nobody's talked about the No Child Left Behind Act in its own thread, so I thought I'd bring it up.
For those not in the know: The nclb act is a Bush proposition that changes the national school system into some convoluted Thing that looks good, but has little chance to work.
Having spent 12 years in public school, I think I have at least a bum-on-a-soapbox right to bitch about this. First of all, the act 'puts accountability into the schools' in some revolver-to-the-head kind of way. If a school does badly according to these 'school report cards' they get renovated. I believe this is a nice way of saying 'fire half the teachers and start all over'. When it becomes the teacher's fault for a child's misbehavior it sets a whole new system. Teachers refocus from helping the kids learn, to helping the kids get good grades. Good grades can be achieved by pure rote memory and cliff notes. While kids that learn make wonderful revelations in the school years, and make better and more morally steadfast adults. Learning children know how to make arguments and decisions, high grade students could only know how to copy and paste.
Then, all parents get these report cards as well. If a school does poorly, then the parents can choose to change schools. You know what this causes? An influx of overhead (students) on already overtaxed schools, I was lucky enough to have a school system built intentionally around large classrooms. But what about old fashioned schools? And what about the stress of changing schools? I doubt a middle school kid has friends in other schools. They'll be lonely and will very likely do worse in an unfamiliar school. And this will be increased by forcing schools to provide transportation to these new schools. My district was highly overtaxed on its busses. It had to get up at 5:30 to reach a 7:30 class. The bus had to provide to 5 residential areas because we were so sparse. I was at the edge of the district and all the younger kids were going to a new school.
Back to old fashion. The act wants to use 'proven methods' for kids. This means that what gives kids good grades is forced on other schools. This stagnates them to the same teaching methods. I went to a very experimental school which accommodated for the larger population. I had wonderful classes where the subjects were intermingled as much as possible, and it was fun. I shudder to think what it would have been like to have english/math/science/PE curriculum all four years. We had school representatives from a dozen different states to see how we worked. I think the act will bring an end to this experimentation, and become painfully obsolete in 10 years. Conveniently, after this guy's term is over.
I haven't taken my usual steps to make an argument in this, but I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the program.
For those not in the know: The nclb act is a Bush proposition that changes the national school system into some convoluted Thing that looks good, but has little chance to work.
Having spent 12 years in public school, I think I have at least a bum-on-a-soapbox right to bitch about this. First of all, the act 'puts accountability into the schools' in some revolver-to-the-head kind of way. If a school does badly according to these 'school report cards' they get renovated. I believe this is a nice way of saying 'fire half the teachers and start all over'. When it becomes the teacher's fault for a child's misbehavior it sets a whole new system. Teachers refocus from helping the kids learn, to helping the kids get good grades. Good grades can be achieved by pure rote memory and cliff notes. While kids that learn make wonderful revelations in the school years, and make better and more morally steadfast adults. Learning children know how to make arguments and decisions, high grade students could only know how to copy and paste.
Then, all parents get these report cards as well. If a school does poorly, then the parents can choose to change schools. You know what this causes? An influx of overhead (students) on already overtaxed schools, I was lucky enough to have a school system built intentionally around large classrooms. But what about old fashioned schools? And what about the stress of changing schools? I doubt a middle school kid has friends in other schools. They'll be lonely and will very likely do worse in an unfamiliar school. And this will be increased by forcing schools to provide transportation to these new schools. My district was highly overtaxed on its busses. It had to get up at 5:30 to reach a 7:30 class. The bus had to provide to 5 residential areas because we were so sparse. I was at the edge of the district and all the younger kids were going to a new school.
Back to old fashion. The act wants to use 'proven methods' for kids. This means that what gives kids good grades is forced on other schools. This stagnates them to the same teaching methods. I went to a very experimental school which accommodated for the larger population. I had wonderful classes where the subjects were intermingled as much as possible, and it was fun. I shudder to think what it would have been like to have english/math/science/PE curriculum all four years. We had school representatives from a dozen different states to see how we worked. I think the act will bring an end to this experimentation, and become painfully obsolete in 10 years. Conveniently, after this guy's term is over.
I haven't taken my usual steps to make an argument in this, but I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the program.