NCLB, Worse Think to Happen to the American Education System
Boone Newell
University of Kansas
“It is a familiar commonplace that the world is changing rapidly. We live in a time of considerable social and political turmoil..” (Rury, 2012) this quote fits perfectly with the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act. President George W. Bush shook the nation in 2002 when signing in the NCLB. NCLB was President Bush’s effort to take a stand against the public school system and start holding schools more accountable. The purpose of this paper will be to show you the negative effects that this act has done to the American public school system.
The first and probably most well-known effect this act had was the overemphasizing on
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The power a teacher has over what, when, and how things are taught in his or her classroom is extremely limited now. Teachers are now forced to teach things that they know are too advanced for their students, which is causing their students to stress (Strike, Soltis, 2009), Teachers expertise and judgement is getting overlooked because of NCLB. The department of Education has stated “demand that instructional practices be evidence-based, and direct funding so only the best ideas with proven results are introduced to the class room.” They believe that this will vastly improve the quality of teaching. Yes, asking for scientifically-based research is not a bad idea, it is generally a good idea for teachers only to teach about proven things, but demanding it is a whole different animal. They are taking the ability to think creatively out, it seems as if NCLB is trying to make the ability to think for your-self a thing of the past. They only want you to learn what they want you to. Everyone knows that everyone learns differently, and it seems as if NCLB is catered to one specific way of teaching. Teachers know their craft, they understand that they have to cater to different students in different ways, they know their students better than anybody else and it is unfair that they are losing more and more control over their …show more content…
If you want to bring a change to school system you would think the first thing you should do is to reform the education teachers receive. If you have such a problem with the way things are going on then you must get to the root of the problem, if administration believes that new educators are out of touch with what goes on in school then there should be a cry for reform not just disregard (Schul, 2011). Slapping benchmark exams on schools does not just fix everything. Now you are just causing teachers to only teach to the test rather than engage the students, even lowering the quality of teaching more. If you want better scores you are going to need better teachers. NCLB calls for higher qualified teachers, but never really changed the qualifications just saying they should be trained in a specific subject matter (Schul, 2011). Yet they are also allowing people who have not gone to school for teaching to become licensed teachers. It seems like such a backwards way of thinking, but it seems like you do not need to be that highly qualified to have to teach to NCLB qualifications, all you need to is get good scores on your standardized tests and you will satisfy all the needs, and you will not be fired or at risk of losing your job because if your students are passing then your administration will love