Hi All!
Here is your October 15th PA e-mail! Our focus this week was NCLB! We hope this information
answers any questions and cures your curiosity! Enjoy!
As most of us know, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was established during the Bush
administration back in 2001. The goal of NCLB was to ensure all students could read as well as abolish
all drugs and violence in schools within twelve years. Ten years later, it is obvious that this has not
worked. So why didn’t NCLB work?
For starters NCLB assumed that all students would learn at the same rate. We, as future
educators, know that this is far from the truth. Students do not learn at the same rate as their peers and to
assume they do so is just foolish. Also NCLB put way too much focus on standardized testing. Once
again, it did not take into account that not all students are good test takers. Standardized tests also only
indicate what a student is knowledgeable at a given point in time and not knowledge acquired overall. To
add even more to the mess, NCLB was underfunded. Schools where not getting the funding from the
government that was needed to successfully run NCLB programs.
Last year, the Obama administration changed NCLB back to its former name, Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA), due to the fact that NCLB had gained such a negative reputation. The
program seemed to be merely a name change. The Obama administration didn’t make any major changes
to the actual act itself, however, Obama is stepping forward now with some ideas on how to change and
hopefully improve this it.
President Obama has allowed states to get relief from NCLB if the states can create a testing
system that allows for accountability and can close the achievement gap to ensure students are on-track
for college and their future careers. The reason that there is so much flexibility is because NCLB is up for
reauthorization and, because it is still undergoing changes, the states have the opportunity to waive out
and create their own form of testing. This however does mean that government funding toward this will
be affected in their states if they so choose to waive out. The states are also still expected to make AYP
(annual yearly progress) and keep up with the other states still following NCLB. Thus, the states must
have an outline of what they will be doing that follows the requirements necessary to close the
aforementioned achievement-gap.
The idea behind this relief opportunity gives recognition to the notion that “the teaching
profession has complexities.” Thus, this opportunity allows us to address those complexities while NCLB
continues through its reauthorization process. Teachers, parents, and students are expected to be involved.
Obama does not want this to be a process where only administrators and state representatives make all of
the decisions. It should be a collective act. States may apply for this waiver by November 14th for this
school year or they can also wait until February for it to be instated the following year if more time is
needed to prepare their proposal.
We hope that this cleared up any further misconceptions and as always if there are any questions please
feel free to e-mail us!
Your Political Activists!