FYI: This post was actually a series of comments on a post at www.thehuckablog.com. My friend Hey You deleted it because it clearly wasn’t where she wanted her comment section to go. That’s fine. Here it is.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It is my personal opinion that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is more a hinderance than a solution to a monumental problem. Yes, I do agree that our education system is lacking. NCLB doesn’t cure that problem, I feel it does quite the opposite. While it is all peachy to think that all children learn at the same pace, the fact of the matter is…they don’t. No matter what tests the government thinks up, kids will never learn at the same pace. Therefore blanket testing is not a viable solution to fixing education in America. Wow! You get the results back and you learn that not everyone is on the same page academically, while millions of dollars earlier, I could have told you that. What a waste of time, money, resources and educator creativity.
THIS IS A COMMENT FROM MMIL.
- It feels like I’ve said the following a thousand times since last Friday, “No, I’m sorry, the state student test score reports have not been delivered. Yes, I understand that they were to be delivered by May 31, but they are not here yet. No, I’m sorry, I haven’t been able to see if they’re posted online yet because I have had so many interruptions. Yes, it IS true that the testing company sold the Kindergarten test as a practice item to many schools in the state, thus invalidating the test results, so, yes, all students in that Kindergarten cohort will take ANOTHER test in the fall.”
- Where’s the vat of Calgon when you need it????????
- Ooops–sorry for hijacking your blog, HeyYou. (That’s okay, now we’re on ShoeShe, and ShoeShe is okay with the hijacking.)
- A resulting question for HeyYou: As a person that once wanted to be a lobbyist for a children’s organization, do you believe the current atmosphere of “test and stress” in America’s education system needs to be changed…and what role should your generation of young parents play in the national debate of NCLB?
THIS IS A RESPONSE TO MMIL’S COMMENT FROM SHOESHE.
- I’m not Hey You, but I think NCLB is a crock of you know what. Things were much better (at least for me, personally) when it was okay to separate kids by learning levels or aptitudes. That all went by the wayside when I was in about third or fourth grade. I remember a dramatic difference in my education at that point in my life. I was no longer in classes with all the smart kids, and teachers didn’t really know what to do with us (the kids who had finished fourth grade math books in first grade), so they had us “help” the other kids. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a third grader try to “help” another student, but the end result is usually something like “copying.” In addition, I was no longer stimulated. I began daydreaming, and I lost my appetite for knowledge. I, along with all the other best and brightest, had to wait until junior high to get back into “honors” classes to be stimulated, but at that point, we had all gone several years without such stimulation.
- It really is tragic that in an effort to be politically correct, schools, educators and mostly government officials who know nothing about the educational process make decisions that negatively affect an entire generation (and then some).
- Now, I realize that some would argue that the kids who weren’t in the “smart” class had a stigma. To be honest with you, I never noticed who was in what class. I knew that I was in a class that kept me learning and held my attention, because it moved at my pace. I knew that some of my friends weren’t in my math class, but were in my reading class. I knew that most of the kids I was in GT with were also in all my other classes, but I didn’t really know how all the classes were split up, nor did I care. There were four classes in each grade at my elementary school, and they were classified something like this: Above Average, Higher Average, Lower Average, Below Average. But, this was done in each subset (i.e., math, language, reading, social studies, etc.), so it was possible that you might be in an above average math class but below average reading class…or vice versa. It worked then. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work now, other than that we’re afraid to offend people.
- I also find it a waste of time, educational opportunity, money and energy to have as much testing as we now do.
- Plus, there is a particular school in my hometown that teaches to the tests. I know people say that about a lot of schools, but this one in particular gives grades on the practice tests and tells kids they’ve failed when they don’t do as well as they had hoped. This particular school ranks very highly in the state on test scores at all grade levels. However, college retention rates are terrible for this particular school’s graduates. Maybe those kids are doing very well on those tests and are able to secure more money for their teachers and school district. But, when it comes to life, they just don’t have the knowledge or desire to succeed.
- Life isn’t some big test. Life is an experience…a journey…a quest for knowledge. If you are constantly testing, then you’ve got to be missing some other key component to the educational process, i.e. hands-on learning, experiences that round out a student’s desire to learn, extracurriculars, etc.
- I find that I’m slightly (okay…more than slightly) passionate about this subject, and I really am not sure why. I have no kids, though lately I’ve been toying with the notion of going back to school to get a teaching degree. What do you think?
THIS IS A COMMENT FROM ANG RESPONDING TO BOTH SHOESHE AND MMIL.
- ShoeShe – you would do a wonderful job as a teacher! In regards to NCLB, I never really felt that it affected me until I started working with an educational audiologist at an elementary school in Wichita. That school was in danger of being sanctioned because of its test scores in reading. The biggest issue was that many of the deaf/hard of hearing children in the city attended this school, and deaf/hoh tend to have more trouble with literacy.
- I understand about being ahead of your classmates, but I was never offered a choice seeing as I attended a VERY small rural school. I had to share my valedictorian honors with a girl who took shop and basketball for credit, while I was taking advanced math, physics, and AP English. I felt that it was unfair at the time, but later realized that it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
- I’m curious to see what Hey You and Cat have to say on the NCLB issue, since they both have children who are either school-age or will be soon.
SHOESHE SAYS…
- Me too! What do you think, Hey You or Cat?
MMIL RESPONDS TO THE ABOVE.
- Glad I touched a nerve. Educators are, for the most part, forced to jump through the legal hoops of NCLB in order to avoid its sanctions. The head of the nail? Congress. The testing companies are the winners here…oh, and the “supplemental educational service” providers. They are all making millions on the backs of children and I imagine there is a HUGE lobby in Washington now doing its darndest to keep NCLB as is, without the revisions. Which would make Ted Kennedy happy since he’s the co-author and self-proclaimed owner of the bill.
- So……….what to do about it?
THEN SHOESHE SAYS…
- You know what else is a crock? Not adapting the tests to those with special needs. There is a girl in my hometown who was featured on the news. She is nearly blind (not all the way blind, but she doesn’t see well). Her mother requested that someone read her the test questions, because too much reading is a strain on whatever is wrong with her eyes. They rejected the claim. The girl wound up skipping school the week they did testing in protest.
- If you really want to leave no child behind, then don’t you think you should accommodate kids who need special arrangements?
- It seems that there are many learning styles and adaptations to fit the needs of many children who are not necessarily “below average,” but who instead have some sort of learning disability or challenge or handicap that makes it necessary to adapt or change the way tests are given.
- Actually, I think in a few years we’ll see that all this testing is detrimental to the learning process. I think we’ll see burnout (among both teachers and students). I think we’ll see kids forego college, because they don’t think they’re capable (that’s what they’re told if they don’t do well on these tests). I think we’ll see increased truancy. I think we’ll see more behavior problems as students are constantly labeled. I also think we’re making kids grow up too fast. I just don’t think all this testing is a good idea.
- I don’t really know what to do about it. Quite frankly I have no vested interest in the matter at this point.
SHOESHE NOW SAYS…
- What do you think? This is an open forum. Obviously it is all opinion, therefore yours may be different. That’s cool. I want to know what you think. I also think that differing opinions shape how we are able to fix problems and come up with solutions to a multitude of situations.
