No Child Left Behind

I KEPT RYING TO LEAVE MY KIDS BEHIND -- ALAS, THEY COULD READ A COMPASS AND FIND THEIR WAY HOME

Nickle-bee fails because it sets goals.  There's a difference between a goal and a desire.  Teachers/Parents/Administrators want the students to meet specific benchmarks, yet we cannot meet it ourselves.  We do not control it.  When a disinterested student puts his pencil down after ten minutes of blurrily glancing at one of these enormous tests (in my state each student tests 2-6hrs a day for several days) I have to walk over to his desk, pick it up, and turn it in.  I'm helpless to do anything but try to inspire him to learn.       A goal is specific and attainable.  One cannot meet a goal for someone else.  NCLB is a noble desire.  Public schools are growing more and more helpless as they slide out of AYP-favor and risk losing federal dollars (I hope this was an unintended consequence).  I teach in an urban area and these kids can learn, but they have very serious life-struggles too.  An education act should help local school districts, not punish them.       Many conservative pun... Read more

I taught 5 years and it just doesn't work. Some kids will get left behind. I don't agreed with just passing a kid. Our kids are coming out of school with less knowledge than every. This is a HOT MESS! Connecticut is sueing 'No Child Behind' Law. Parents need to be held responsible and if the child is a bit slow then they need to do what that need to help their child through school (ie, extra programs, tutoring, etc.) http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc =FF-APO-PLS&idq;=/ff/story/0001/20050822/1324373276.htm

I see some fundamental flaws in Bush's approach here. Our educational system has to consider the needs of each student on an individual basis as best as it can. Many times those questions are best left to the state and the various localities with the federal government intervening only on a limited basis. Another more fundamental problem with the no child left behind approach is that one of its unintended consequences is to lower educational standards, thus stifling the prospects of truly talented children. Due an increasingly globalized economy, the American job-market is coming under increasing pressure from foreign competitors who are producing well-educated workers, especially on technological matters. It seems that a nations strength is no longer measured by way of industrial greatness exclusively, but rather by how well-educated the labor force is. In an information economy, this is going to be critical. The US educational system needs to be reformed in order to meet the needs of... Read more

I thought republicans were for less centralized government control. Whoops! Only a politician as dumb as dubya (plus his zombie followers) thinks that this idea will work.

Federal mandates without federal funding are seldom effective, and this one wouldn't work even with money. The problem is the premise that every child CAN learn at the same rate. What we've done is make every class as effective as the slowest child in it, and that hardly seems like a good idea to me. Let's face it, some kids do NOT learn as fast as others. This is something that's doomed to failure from the start. It's just a matter of how long we're willing to keep the sham up.

This act, which Bush signed into law in January, 2002, is a part of the law of the land. It's hard to see it as a hot issue for 2005.

It's been going on for years, but the Bush administration has been the first to really give it a name and a face. I completely despise this piece of legislation. It is ridiculous to think that all children can operate at equal levels set at some acquired mean. I was held back because of this practice. I sat in the back of my physics classroom and stared at the ceiling my senior year because my teacher was afraid to fail a student that refused to work. This is not even a situation where he couldnt (which I can understand slightly more than this), he was just lazy and my teacher waited around on him to understand each concept before moving on. I try not to imagine what more I could have learned in high school had I been in a program that put students where they SHOULD be academically.