Activity 1.1

One of the biggest problems I see with NCLB ( No Child Left Behind)  is just that,  getting students to succeed and not fall behind while still having to move forward because of testing mandates regardless if the student truly understands what he/she is learning or not.  In a given year students have to learn many things and each student progresses towards mastery at his/her  own level.   A student that learns slower than another student or is not taught in the way that helps him/her learn or retain the information will not be ready to build upon that knowledge.  What the students need is repeated exposure to the curriculum and in different ways to gain mastery.  Of course there are those students that gain mastery the first time they are exposed to new material but many of the students I currently teach and have taught are not like that.   With that being said students need more than one way  to be taught and “teaching to the test” for NCLB is not the way to do that.  There will be some students who  excel at this style of learning because they can easily memorize facts but what about the students who do not excel in those areas. Where does that leave those students or the students who take longer than the time that is allotted in the school curriculum to master a concept?   Does this mean that these students are forced to either learn it on their own or sink further?

I believe that NCLB is a great idea in theory.  To have all students by the year 2014 at grade level and proficient; what teacher who loves his/her students would not want that.   In reality though NCLB has had the opposite effect.  Under performing schools are losing because the students that used to do well are now allowed to choose where they go to school and what is left is only those students who are underperforming.  With the loss of those  high achieving students they are left with the struggling students. 

Now that the schools are only left with the struggling students in the schools the standardized test scores are a lot lower and it looks as if the school is failing when in reality it’s not.  While I believe that standardized testing can be valuable to a teacher and school, it should not be the only criterion for which a school, student, or teacher is held accountable.  At the school where I teach the ITBS tests that we take every fall are a resource for the teacher to use to see what the child has learned already and where they still need help.  This is what the tests should be used for not looking at the success of a school because afterall we are all here to educate the future and that is what matters.  If we are able to stop “teaching to the test” and focus on teaching students again we truly will have no child left behind because every child will be able to succeed in their own way.