No Child Left Behind: Falling Through the Cracks

I have just started my second online class working toward a teaching certification and this first week we were asked to read a big chunk of the textbook we were assigned about a very diverse set of issues in teaching from differences in experienced teachers vs. new teachers, classroom management, history of education, diversity in the classroom and a ton of other subjects...


We were then asked to respond to a question in a discussion board in our online class homepage...here's the question:


How do you feel the ESEA affects schools today?


A very short question. For those who are not aware, ESEA refers to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed by L.B. Johnson and edited and reauthorized by G. W. Bush into an act called No Child Left Behind.


Perhaps you are more familiar with that one...


With that information, this question becomes a short question with HUGE implications. And so, I proceeded to get on my soapbox and just let the class know how I felt about it...where others wrote a paragraph or a sentence or two...I wrote something more to the tune of a complaint essay. It has been copied for posterity below.










NCLB is, in my opinion, one of the worst things to ever happen to the education system in the United States. The ESEA had good intentions and was meant to give us a standard that could be raised to new heights as years went on...closing the gap between the educational standard in other countries and that in the United States. But the enactment of No Child Left Behind, I believe, leaves more children behind than ever. Standardized testing has become so important because of the fear of losing federal funding that it drives the curriculum in many public schools. Often, the entire curriculum seems to be centered on preparation for the standardized test which, in all actuality, (especially since recent years of lowering standards for higher passing rates) would be an easy pass for many students if they were just given the opportunity to learn how to do the higher thinking that our reading this week talks about. If children learn problem solving, are given the chance to engage their imagination and creativity, and were given more practical uses for information, many would not need to be tutored and drilled on potential test questions because they would already have the information to deduct what the answer could be. 

Along the same lines, another issue that I see brought up among teachers but not really among those not in the profession is the effect NCLB has on classrooms. Teachers and administrators are pressured to more evenly distribute higher performance children with those of low performance, including children with mental illnesses and special needs. This would not be as big of a problem if class sizes weren't also constantly growing. I realize that has more to do with the economy, but it is something that has great impact on this issue. When a teacher is required to give attention to each child and challenge each individually in his/her class and some of the students require extra special classroom management, some require especially advanced reading material, and some struggle to even maintain a passing grade, and the classroom size is more than 25, that poses a challenge that I would argue even the most expert teachers would struggle to face successfully. 

In my limited experience and observation, students who need more individual tutoring and attention fall through the cracks, and higher performing students become bored and disinterested and often become more of a management problem than anything because they don't feel challenged. What is left, then, is a room divided. The teacher must seek a middle ground, which is the minimum. Average is thus put on a pedestal as the greatest achievement. Teachers must seek to bring all students up to the level of the standardized test and students who perform above that standard are asked for nothing more than minimum in many classrooms. There isn't time to challenge them enough without causing other students to feel as though they are being ostracized or persecuted for their lower achievements.

The last issue I have with the heightened focus on standardized testing is the lack of interest in the fine arts. Mathematics and Science become the backbone of education, while art and music fall to the wayside. Granted, it does seem more important in everyday life to know how to add rather than know how to mix colors or play an instrument, however, these fine arts classes are where students are able to focus on learning problem solving and innovation. Creativity is important and learning math facts and cramming information about nature and body parts lacks that to a great extent. Learning those things is important but fine arts classes are learning labs. They are the places students can bring everything from grammar to algebra to anatomy together to create something new and exciting. Without that, students are most often learning facts and figures and though creativity is involved, it is minimal compared to that in fine arts classes and I fear inventors of the future are lost with the cutting of such programs. This, of course, is in its most basic form also a monetary issue but NCLB opens doors wide for such things to be done. 

I don't claim to know a solution for these problems, however, I do recognize them as real and pressing issues. This is all coming from someone who is about to begin an art teaching job and has just completed a semester's worth of substitute teaching in a variety of classroom settings in a district with every SES represented, so obviously I am biased a good bit on this subject. 








So, now you know how I feel about it. What do you think?!