Is No Child Left Behind Working?

No Child Left Behind does NOT work in Alaska.

As a grandmother of 6, from ages 4-19, mother of 5, who does volunteer work in one grandchilds classroom, the school library and in the State Capitol lobbying our elected officials on a variety of issues, I speak from a different perspective than the folks with whom I don't disagree. All make very valid points. The No Child Left Behind Program has a number of good points, but misses several others. I feel it is not as broad as it should be in some cases, and leaves many children out of the plane they should be working on. I have a cousin whose oldest son is autistic and was accommodated by the school system in Maine, due mainly to her efforts to ensure he wasn't closed out of any resources to help him reach his full potential.Other family members have children who could have benefitted from such a program had one been around back in the early 70's. It doesn't allow the states as much leeway for true excellence in their programs. Oversight by PTSs and local school BODs is critical.

No. No. No. Leave the teachers alone. The principal should watch for poor teachers and weed them out before they get tenure - then get out of the way and let the long-suffering teachers do their job without the government sticking its nose into that much more of local business. And believe me school is a business. SE Womack

I agree with most everyone's comments. Many people don't understand that schools are judged by their AYPs(Adequate Yearly Progress). The problem with this is that, no matter how much growth/progress a school had made with its students, if only ONE subgroup has not met the required standards, the entire school is considered inadequate. Many schools have as many as 17 subgroups. A subgroup can include such groups as those who have English as a second language, exceptionalities, economically deprived, etc. The other thing people don't realize is that the arts are listed in the law as a CORE subject, but are not treated as such by administrators because they're not tested in the standard statistical ways.
Gramlin

I am not sure if the law as a whole is working, but I do know it has been a God sent for my youngest son.


I have an adopted child who is EH (emotionally handicap) due to the issue from his bio-mother and years of abuse. We have had a hard time keeping him in classes, due to his behaviors, until I found out about this law and started using it to my fullest ability to get him help and keep him in school! Now he is in special classes where he gets the attendion and re-direction he needs to stay on task and succeed!


He is thriving rather than failing now and I owe a great deal of the sucess to this program. With out it...he would have ended up kicked out so many tiems, they would not have let him back into school and he would have had to attent teh "alternative school" where all the little punks go. Which could have been a very bad and detramental situation, for a child who has had enough trama in his life!!!

Teachers and schools spend to much time teaching the tests and not teaching what our kids need to know to live a successful life. We live in a district that depends on the results of these tests to get funding. That is not right. If the kids don not do well on the tests then the schools funding goes down. No child left behind is not the solution.

The Law is certainly a flop! The results say these things: the teachers are forced to "teach the test"; the schools are dropping the important subjects such as, social studies, PE, art and music; both ends of the performance spectrum are being dropped - special ed and advanced classes; the schools that need the most help are being punished. Need I go on?
You might ask where do I get the right to criticize this "federal" program? I have taught public school for thirty years AND isn't education supposed to be the responsibility of the states?
Please look at your schools and ask the TEACHERS what they think!!! Thanks, Kacy

Part I

Hi Julie,

I was interested in the thoughts that you shared in your recent posting. I find it a bit disconcerting that the schools have adapted the model where they teach the testing materials such that student will have an increased likelihood of embracing the rote method rehearsed in the class room, thus making the schools stats appear to be improving. My criticism is that if the student has embraced rehearsed methodology and has not learned the logical rational for understanding and deriving the applicable Methodology for resolving the problem, I would suggest that real learning has not occurred. When this young person advanced to a college or university setting, the student will discover how the public school system has failed him or her.

Part II

My wife and I chose to home school our children using a number of available Christina centric curriculum. All of our children (six surviving) completed the prepared material with few difficulties. All of them have gone on and have done a stellar job in their respective college work, all graduating from Texas A&M, a top notch University, with honors and highest honors. While most have moved on with family oriented objectives, one in the Texas court system and one is currently serving as a Doctor in the US Navy.

Part III

The real lesson that they learned is related to their ability to manage their time and academic work objectives. I believe that the public school system has placed an inordinate emphasis upon making the student feel good about them self even if the accomplishment is mediocre.

Today’s student has the finest facilities and trained instructors, but the system has been forced to mainline the entire population thus not acknowledging that intellectually speaking, all students are not equal. So the screw offs impede those that might be more gifted, slowing up the overall progress of the class in order to cater to the needs of the lowest common denominator.

Is no one left behind? By accommodation of the lowest percentile of the mix, I suspect that those that might be more capable are struggling and frustrated, spending boring days of instruction while waiting for the heard to catch up with them.

Best Regards, John

NCLB takes an industrial approach to kids-- cram them into a testing mold! Unfortunately, life rarely is a multiple choice test. I am lucky enough to be able to afford my son a private education. But I had originally planned on sending him to public school. Good public schools actually have more resources, diversity, and certified teachers than some private institutions. But I want my child to be able to question, analyze, research, and challenge to world. How does a multiple choice exam teach these skills and virtues? Even rats can take a multiple choice test and get some answers right.

My children go to schools in a school district that is not up to the standard for the No Child left Behind. I have an intelligent child that is totally bored in school, an average child that is frustrated by teachers that only teach the test and not information that the students are interested in, and my youngest child, who is not overly intelligent, spends too much time sitting and not enough time playing.

This program not only hurts the really smart kids, but also the ones that really shouldn't be in the mainstream classroom in the first place. We have a difficult enough time getting teachers in our school district - it's even harder now that they have all these rules and regulations that make our teachers into paper pushers and not teachers.

Wow, Im suprised by the some of these remarks. I dont think cutting back on "stupid sports" is answer to anything if you know anything about the importance being on a team is to a childs growth. This new wave of teaching were you cant leave anyone out or tell anyone they are wrong is not helping, its highly hurting the generations to come. People all learn differently, thats why there needs to be many different teaching methods, and from experience there are quite a large number of people that just dont learn from tests. How about instead of cutting back on things and focusing just on a few things, we increase the time spent on everything. I know in florida the kids dont go to school till 9 30 and get out at 2- 230. Why not just adding on an extra 2 hours of schooling a day. That way we can teach our kids all of the important things and not just a few things. Music, arts and gym are just as important to a growing mind as math and english. Its ignorant to think that they dont matter.

Working for the school system, I see a lot of problems with the No Child Left Behind Act. For one thing our children can not read! They can not do the simplist math problem with out a calculator beside them! And as far as disipline is concerned we dare not say a word to them that they don't like for fear of being brought up to the Board. And we could loose our job for it. I agree with all the comments saying we've left thousands of children behind. And we should get back to the basics of teaching! And maybe, as parents, we should all try to do something about it. My children are grown but I have grand children that I'd love to see learning ALL they need to learn to be good, productive citizens in the world. Not just what the politicians THINK they need to learn! Then maybe they'll have a chance in this world!

I've read that it is not working--and the schools who need help the most are punished if they don't meet particular testing requirements. Testing can be beneficial, but it doesn't seem to acknowlege that kids learn at different paces--and you can't force kids to read at the same level for example. I think it puts undue burdens on teachers.

No and the homework they give the kids is unbelievable!

The fastest learners have to sit for hours while the other students learn the basics. No Child Left Behind is pulling students to the middle (average). We live in a competitive world where we need outstanding students and thinkers, not just average. Schools need to be split from the beginning based on ability with the freedom to move up levels. The best and the brightest should not be punished for learning quickly!

This law is good in theory but not in practicality. Five year olds will not get a thing out of a class by being forced to sit for 1 1/2 hours in a reading group at one clip and havubg homework by the ton. If they don't get their exercise in school, chances are that they will not get it after school either. The same goes for older children.

The schools would be so much better off cutting out football teams and other stupid sports and spending the money on healthy and organic school food, teaching better nutrition classes and teaching things like etymology (prefixes and suffixes) so that they will learn how to figure out the meaning of words on their own to get them ready for SATs and such; also teaching them simple math so they will be able to live in the real world and can balance their own check books.

Teachers and administrators are so paranoid about getting the test results that they forget about the children. They teach to the test instead of teaching kids how to learn.

Ah, the irony of a name. They tried for the opposite, to leave no child behind, and they managed to leave thousands behind, stuck to a desk to take a test that a teacher had to teach. So sad. I just hope we go to the opposite extreme, as America seems to do, and get back to teaching to the child. Then we'll be able to call the new policy, All Children Prosper Ahead! (or something more word smithy).

No. I was against it from the beginning, and I'm still against it. Kids going to school now are not getting a better education.

No, it's not working. When there is a program that completely ignores several subjects and only focuses on two, that is not a complete and effective program. According to an article by Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2185486/entry/2185487/), an alarming number of high schoolers don't know the answers to basic questions. No Child Left Behind is deplorable and pathetic and many children in the US are facing an educational crisis that has simply escalated due to this stupid Act.