Today's Survey: No child left behind? (April 12, 2007)

Don't know. I took my grandchild out of public school two years ago. Too much social engineering and too little teaching of the 3 R's. They don't teach children how to think, but, rather what to think. I gave up on public education. To reform it you'd need top take out all the PC social engineering and get back to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

Oh my, don't get me started or it will be an article all its own. I think that NCLB the way it is currently written is a disaster. I think that the people behind it have never spent too much time in classrooms. It is so test driven that it kills me and they provide very little of the funding that was promised. It needs a REAL overhaul to do any good in the school systems. I will leave it at that. This is a great topic !

I agree with Felix.

My kids were in grade school and jr high the first time this went around and was being tried out in the CA school systems. When my jr high student whined his math was too hard the teacher instead of teaching him how to do the work she gave him the same work my then 4th grader was doing.

When I asked how this was going to prepare him for high school my questions went unanswered and they kept repeating how he had to move on with his class and this was the only way. Come graduation day he failed to graduate by 20 points - all in math and spent an extra year and a half in continuation school - still failing but they Finlay just gave him and 30 other students their diplomas just to get rid of them because there was such a back log of students who could not even do basic algebra that they needed the room.

To this day he still struggles with math and it has affected his job, job choices and promotions. It's just not a good program at all.

I don't know, I don't have kids.

Beats me. I do know that i've had two kids graduate and go on to college and do well. Our district is pretty good. Beats me how well it's gonig across the nation. Mostly I applaude my kids for doing so well.

thats good ty for sharing this with all of us

NCLB is UnAmerican. For one thing, it is a federal mandate about education, and that violates the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution. How do they get away with this? In case anyone doesn't remember, the Tenth Amendment says this: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Since the Constitution doesn't give the federales any power over education, what in the world are we doing, letting them tell the states how the children should be educated? Does anyone ever stop to think about this??

Not only that, but as stated by some above, NCLB encourages a lower standard of education by forcing teachers to 'teach to the test' in order to try to raise the school test scores. Individual needs of students are pretty much ignored in the mad rush to get kids to pass standardized tests.

Third NCLB gripe: there's a clause that states that all children will be reported to Selective Services (ie: the impending DRAFT) unless parent's opt out. Have you opted out for your kids?

I am a homeschooling advocate. I homeschooled mine for nine years. My youngest is now enrolled in a government school because there are no private schools available in our tiny mountain community. I recently started a new homeschooling website. I had others while the kids were younger but I've closed them now. My new website is Independent Homeschooling. "Independent" means: homeschooling without the aid of a government school program of any type. That's how I homeschooled, and I recommend it to others if it is available through the laws of your state. (All state homeschooling laws are different, but homeschooling is legal in all US states.)

I'm afraid I have little to contribute, but this is going to be a great topic for me to observe. At a conference in May I'm giving a presentation on the Japanese education system, and all your thoughts on Austin's topic will be wonderful background for me. Please don't stop, everybody! Keep laying it on!
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Grrr. Well, let's see. My daughter made honor roll last marking period and she worked her butt off for it too. I love her dedication to her responsibility with her school work.
I had a problem about half way through her first marking period. During the parent/teacher conference I asked her math teacher for some help. I explained to the teacher that I noticed my daughter was forgetting some of the foundations in math such as multiplication. The teacher told me that she had already submitted names of her students who needed help in math and that my daughter wasn't one of them. She felt that my daughter was doing fine and had a C+ mid marking term. I didn't care what grade my daughter had I wanted her to have some extra help. I wanted to know what I could do to help my daughter NOW before she was at the point of failing. The teacher's solution was to hand me an extra teacher's edition textbook. The only difference between my daughter's book and the teacher's edition is the teacher's edition has the answers! I have researched online for myself and tried my best to see into my daughter's problems in math to aid her. Through her efforts in trying hard and my resourcefulness she ended the 2nd quarter marking period with a B and thus made honor roll. She's boarderline B- for this 3rd marking period. Even if she doesn't make honor roll this quarter she deserves it or some other award commending her efforts. I'll make one up if I have to.

Those stupid standardized tests have become a joke in my opinion. My kids came home with study books for the tests! I thought you couldn't pass or fail these tests so why study for them? Isn't everything they already cover in the classroom on a daily basis since they started school supposed to be guaged by?

Unfortunately the problem with schools today is in parenting. While there are exceptions, one can usually look at a school district's demographics and pretty much know how they perform.

Money can provide supplies and administrators can set unattainable standards, but in the end, if parents aren't involved and driving their kids to excel, performance will be lagging.

I don't know too much about it yet as my son is not in school yet.

I am sorry, but how on earth can teachers pass a student that can't read or write? This to me is just wrong. If they would make them learn to read, write and do math, then this NCLB might work, but they just pass the child anyways. It is so wrong. It needs to be pulled out of the school system.

Teacher creativity has gone by the wayside.
I miss being able to be close with kids - we have so much to do in so little time that kids' curiosity cannot be dealt with - talk about it later is my refrain.

I took my daughter out of school becasue they wasn't teaching her anything so I homeschooled her and she graduated several years ago and learned more than her friends did in public school.

At my daughter's school, they send the corrected work home (3rd grade). I look over it and if I see any papers that she missed more than 1 problem on, I read it closer to see if she needs help at home for a subject.
She was having a slight problem with multiplication this year, so I emailed her teacher about it, he told me she was in the highest level of math that his kids are split up into, so it may be a little difficult for her, but that he still wanted her to continue. So we bought flash cards and went to work. Every other or every third night, we grind out some flashcard work, and some written work, and now she is doing wonderfully in math again.

So I guess I agree with Dan K on the parenting part.

I personally do NOT agree with NCLB. My daughter was held back in Kindergarden, and I have to say that I agreed with the decision. She really was not ready to go on. Now she is in 3rd grade and is almost a straight A student all the time. If I had pushed her before she was ready, who is to say she would not be struggling with C's and D's?

Good subject for discussion.

There is so much more they can do to improve schools, NCLB is not the way to go. Standardized testing is not a true measure of a child's ability, the testing forces teachers to "teach for the test" instead of using more creative teaching styles to help all learners acheive needed skills to be successful.

In Brookyn the teachers hand out work than expect you, the parent, to teach them how to do the work. I said fine and took him out of school. He didn't know his times tables...in two days I taught him and he knew them backwards and forwards. He did know who Billie Jean King was and Michael Jackson, but, when I mentioned Napoleon he thought it was a pastry and Caesar was some sort of salad. He came home one day to tell me he was writing an essay on Michael Jackson...I almost fell out of my chair. Yeah, he said, we have to bring in an essay on a famous African-American. I grabbed a tome from the Encyclopedia and told him...look up Thurgood Marshall...write an essay on him.

As a former school teacher - I think that NCLB is all a smokescreen with very little to show for it. The matter of education should be left to the states. It isn't a federal matter. Bush has pushed for all of this testing and things haven't changed much.

Hard to say - I haven't been in a classroom in about 8 years...just dropping in to say hello. Salud.

I think if they were going to set up an education program, they'd have educators actually working as part of the team to set it up. My older sister is a teacher in Florida with numerous Teacher of the Year nominations. She's a creative soul, and yet that's all been thwarted by the introduction of NCLB. Worksheets that suit every class, having to test kids to a certain level on phonics (Including those students she teaches that DON'T HEAR). She's avidly against it and I am too. It's ridiculous to assume that all children need the same teaching. I think far more are being 'left behind' with the current system.

I think that it's wrong to teach for a test. No, I don't tests as in a weekly spelling test or a unit test. Standardized tests which are a part of No Child Left Behind are about as good of forecast of a student potential as is the breakfast they ate this morning or their attitude that they brought to school that day. It's crazy! I saw let teachers work with the kids according to real state standards instead of standards created to insure that schools and school systems are meeting with NCLB standards.

Classrooms are to large, teachers cannot discipline children and parents need to discipline and teach children right from wrong, if a child is disruptive, time is taken away from teaching to deal with this child. Parents need to go over homework and papers done in school to see what the child is having problems with and praise the child for work well done.

I am holding my child back in kindergarten this year... I have seen my son struggle as he is now in 5th grade and should have been held back in kindergarten too... it is so much easier to let a child catch up with others by being held back then pushing them foward and letting them stay behind...

with that said.. the teacher was not the one who recommended her to be held back.. it was me... at where my daughter is at, it should have been recommended that she be held back and not pushed forward.. the no child left behind act is not realy all that it is cracked up to be.. i see so many children failing where they could be excelling if the system would have taken the time to hold them back when necessary and not pushing them through.. I think now too that the age limit should be changed too... did you know that a 4 year old can start kindergarten as long as they turn 5 by dec. 1st?... yes it is true... my oldest started at 4 years old and is graduating now.. even though she has good grades and all, she problably should have started when she was a little older and could understand more what teachers were trying to teach them.. not to mention that in fourth grade they decided to update all the books in the school that were more than 30 years old in their teachings... it was bad enough the teacher skipped sections as they did not know how to teach the kids what was to be taught in the books.

No, I do not believe they have improved at all. I used to work at a small private school. Some of the families had a few older kids in public school and they complained about this system. They explained why, and I completely understood. Not to play the blame game, but I must say that people often blame Bush for this. Bush actually did not come up with it. He let Ted Kennedy come up with it and then I think Bush is the one who enforced it.