One of the things that concerns me as a pre-educator is No Child Left Behind and how that translates to my future classroom. I have to say that, as the law currently stands, I'm not a fan. I believe teaching to a test is harming our children, not helping them. The emphases is figurative learning, not operational learning, and the curriculum is pruned so that only tested materials are covered. So, when I saw this article on my Yahoo! news page, I began to get a little excited.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_education
I say a little excited because it's not done until it's done. It appears to me, though, that President Obama feels similarly about NCLB as I do, so I am cautiously optimistic. As was said earlier in class, music IS important. Art IS important. Drama, physical education, band, orchestra. These are all important areas that are the first to be sacrificed because no one tests to see how well a student plays the flute or draws a flower. Progressing schools should be acknowledged and rewarded, not punished because they failed to meet an arbitrary number on a test. This is what I mean about that. A school's standardized testing results show that 65% of the students failed the math portion of the testing, and the target number is 30% or less. I am making these numbers up for illustration purposes. The school makes changes and the following year, only 45% of the students failed the math portion of the test. This is a 20% improvement and not necessarily a small thing depending on the size of the school. Yet because the target number is 30% or less, this school would be punished instead of recognizing that a significant improvement has been made and giving incentives to continue this improvement. The proposed overhaul would address this, and hopefully correct it. I'll be interested to see how this plays out. It's encouraging to me, though, that we have an education-focused President in office.
This is encouraging, I talk to very few teachers who agree with NCLB. Judging a school on year to year progress does seem to be a more fair way to chart development. I do worry that the President will forget education in the midst of health reform, jobs and our numerous global acttivities that seem to use up many of our resources. My question to Arne Duncan and President Obaama is, where does the money come from to really make our schools work? Our children are the greatest natural resource this country possesses and they deserve every opportunity to be great.
ReplyDeleteFellow blogger Ayda has included a video in which the speaker talks of public-private partnerships. How great a role do you think the private sector should play in the funding of public education?
ReplyDeleteI may not agree with some of the math calucations becuse I am not sure about that. But I really like the idea of the importance of music and sport. Why it is not in our schools the way it should be. I going forward to blog in sports at schools. Because I do beleive of the importance of both.
ReplyDeleteAs I stated in the post, those numbers are ones I made up just for illistration. I have no idea what the actual numbers are.
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree enough that teaching to a test is wrong. I am very much a proponent of a holistic life and that includes education! I feel that children miss out so much by focusing on a test rather than the "learning" that should be in a classroom.
ReplyDeleteFunding schools is always problematic...it was one of the stumbling blocks for getting public education in place to start with. I think the solution must be at the local level. We have come to depend on the national government too much and we are consequently losing a lot of what made American classrooms a good place to learn.
I agree, teachers can't just teach to the test. The children are missing out on so much and they become overwhelmed with worry about the big test. So many students have test anxiety, worrying about something that they shouldn't be. We do have an education focused president, who has school children of his own to think about, and I am sure as a parent first and the president second he realizes this is a problem that needs to be fixed.
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