No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a Joke

When the No Child Left Behind Act was put into law in 2001, I was a senior in High School.

Now roughly 7 years later I’m an 8th grade teacher and about as frustrated with this law as I’m sure my educators were at the time.

No Child Left Behind or NCLB does exactly the opposite of what it’s supposed to prevent. I leaves children behind. FAR behind. So far behind that by the time they reach me in the 8th grade, if they make it that far, they have little or no foundation to build on.

I work at an inner city charter school in Houston, Texas. Dealing with some pretty tough children, and it never ceases to amaze me when I confront a child who is in the 11th grade and can’t read beyond the 2nd grade level.

Students who cannot apply concepts well enough to pass my own made up exams, let alone their state benchmarks.

It saddens me that there seems to be minimal efforts made to revoke NCLB and implement new laws that actually aide our children.

Texas currently has in place the TAKS test which is the assessment of TEKS (strict guidelines that all Texas teachers must adhere to). TAKS does nothing put stress children and teachers alike, and it doesn’t accurately show the ability of each individual student.

Standardized tests are increasingly becoming more difficult to pass and less sensitive to the diversity of students taking the test.

Teachers basically teach to the test. There is little if any room to bring out the creative and imaginative side of the individual child.

Students are more than aware of the system in which they’ve been placed and the unfair treatment they are receiving. It is difficult to keep children motivated in school, let alone when their core existence seems to be left in the hands of some Act that doesn’t adequately help their needs.

This article published in February of this year, states that

Texas’ public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), directly contributes to lower graduation rates, especially for minorities.

Of course most articles are going to gear their attention more so to minority students than the majority but they always fail to include poor whites, and poor Asians in their research.

One group does not triumph over another group when it comes to test score success. Once we factor in all the different demographics and whatnot, we end up with scores that reflect the learning and social environment of most students represented.

The article states

The accountability system’s zero tolerance rules for attendance and behavior, which put youth into the court system for minor offenses and absences, alienate students and increase the likelihood they will drop out.

And this proves true within my own campus. I have students who only come to school because they don’t want to receive a $500 ticket from the truancy officer on campus. These are my students who are currently enrolled in the 8th grade but have birthdays before 1994. Not all are trouble makers but imagine trying to teach a student who can’t stay home because they are not of age to drop out yet their own existence in your class is because they don’t want to get caught up in the system.

We’ve got to figure out away to put more money into the hands of our educational systems, and less money into the hands of the prison system. We need to do intervention and prevent some of what’s happening now with the next generation.

As a teacher I strongly assert that NCLB is doing nothing but leaving children behind. And they end up in places where they cannot be reached and don’t want to be reached because they’ve been failed by the one system that’s supposed to grab hold of them and bring them to safety.

Let teachers teach, nourish and influence their students as they once did. It’s now because of so much government involvement and such scandals from so called educators that now we are losing our next generation. And there will be no one to blame for their failure but us. The adults who’ve they’ve been entrusted to.

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~ by Latisha on December 14, 2008.