Fixing No Child Left Behind: What Our Schools Really Need

I invited my executive editor at Parenting, Elizabeth Shaw, who covers education for the magazine, to share her thoughts as we begin the new school year.

As millions of kids headed back to school this month, many parents, teachers, and administrators had a lot to think about. Important things, like: Will there actually be enough seats in the ever-ballooning classes? What can be done to make sure the students improve enough this year to meet state testing targets? Where will the kids go now that the after-school care programs have been cut?

Instead, what got all the attention in the days leading up to the start of the new year? Whether it was appropriate for schools to air President Obama’s speech on the importance of education to students. It’s partisan fiascoes like this that get in the way of the actual work that needs to be done for our schools—and our kids.

And when it comes to education, that work means fixing No Child Left Behind.  There’s wide agreement among experts and policymakers that something has to be done to make this law more effective, yet it’s two years overdue for reauthorization and many schools continue to struggle—instead of flourish—under its mandates. 

This issue has become a top priority for Parenting magazine’s Mom Congress, a new grassroots initiative connecting moms fighting for better schools. And this month, Parenting School Years features a special Mom Congress report on NCLB, digging deep to reveal what the law intended (high standards and accountability), where it went wrong (testing, testing, testing), and what can be done to improve it (smarter testing, more money). The magazine has also launched a petition to Congress on Parenting.com, urging lawmakers to move education reform to the top of their agenda.  This is what our kids and teachers need…not the headache of managing the politics of whether the President has the right to speak to kids about all they have to gain by making school a priority.

To learn more about Mom Congress, No Child Left Behind, or to sign the petition, visit us at Parenting.com/momcongress.

 

 

 

Comments

[AnneWood]

Trying to fix No Child Left Behind is like trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I would love to include my child in a public education system, but feel the entrenched autocratic nature of modern institutional schooling is directly at odds with raising a happy, free-thinking, independent, compassionate citizen of a participatory democracy. It seems only a relatively small percentage of kids manage to emerge from our current system with their curiosity, critical thinking, and love of learning intact, and even fewer have had an opportunity to discover and develop the true talents that they're passionate about.

So our family has chosen to unschool and walk away from the tax dollars we pay into the education system. But we would jump at the chance to utilize those funds to enroll our child in progressive, democratically run educational enrichment!

Here's an excellent series of articles that makes the case for TRULY progressive education...

Freedom to Learn: The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn

[Ventoi]

I find teacher awards to be humourous...

only because I see teachers as being there for the fight not the glory...

[Ventoi]

My opinion, which I should not hear someone trying to get from my head a DAY before reading an article...
is that students must be accountable for ALL work products...
to ensure learning leads up to testing...

and to allow less room for corruption during testing which may give us a false sense of security or fear.

[lipai]

Change the nature of the curriculum. Not the curriculum itself. it's the delivery of education that is the problem, not the methods that teachers use to teach a specific subject. Make the class hour per topic longer (part of it as lesson, part of it as practice, part of it as real world application). Instead of wondering whether or not students do the homework, let them do it at school, in the class, with the teacher as resource. Let students work with each other (sometimes play can be used as an effective tool in learning). Throw out standardized testing, or at least balance it out with other forms of testing, because it has no real relevance on learning, or the capacity to learn. Which means in the long run, NLCB has to be dropped, or reduced as a tool to show which schools need help. Bring in civics courses, revamp home ec., support the crafts and arts. Let the subjects bleed into each other; enforced categories create specialization, and specialization leads to death (Dune quote). Give teachers more awards of recognition, publicly, not just on duration of stay or most innovative program, but the many and varied elements of quality of teaching.

[RainbowPhoenix]

There's a reason why one of my father's oldest friends, a teacher, refers to "No Child Left Behind" as "No Child Gets Ahead".

[Jaywalkker]

Children from an economically depressed, gangland can and will achieve the same grades as kids from an affluent suburb with higher funding? NCLB assumes that everyone learns equally and is motivated by equal measures and tests the same. That's like classless, egalitarian communism and a Republican dreamt it up.

My wife teaches special ed at the high school level. Her class is composed of the most profound and handicapped of the classes. Even her kids have to take standardized NCLB tests. Mentally retarded teens with cerebral palsy so bad they can't hold a pencil, have to take a multiple choice exam and write an essay with severely limited input/assistance from administrators.

I want a European model of education. Somewhere around end of middle school an aptitude exam determines or allows a student a choice of where to go - higher education or technical apprenticeship.

[RightWingMarine]

Maybe we could eliminate school taxes and let people send their children to private schools. Why not give the average person the same options that our President and much of our Congress have between public school and private school?
A shockingly high number of public teachers send their children to private school. Do they know something we don't?

[AJH]

Our school system is designed around 1950's america. As it is also individual state to state analyzing how to fix it is quite complex. Some thing's I think would help.

1. Using capital gains tax credits for Senior's who volunteer in schools to create meaniingful and relevant after school curriculums focused on harnessing the knowledge and experiences of our seniors to our youth. It not only brings back the arts but the advanced sciences and based on people retiring whey they worked introduces regionally appropriate job skills into the classroom. Sorry multi billion after school care industry this will hurt your bottom line putting billions back into parents pockets while getting maximum use out of existing infrastructure investment. Sorry teachers union not more salaries for it.

2. Tying childrens tax credits to student achievement.

3. Stop changing the curriculum every 4-5 years. With a wife who is a teacher I've now seen 3 different way's of doing division as the required style, none of which were the method I learned. Can you imagine moving between grades getting your new textbook and finding how you were taught to do the work has changed and you have to use the new way. Dysfunctional and it should be outlawed. Perhaps roll in new textbooks from the bottom up so children get a consistent method not mixed ones.

Mandatory retention of failing students, students who are achieving should not be punished by forcing teachers to cover past curriculum.

Then hold teachers administrators accountable.

[CEDobson]

Being the mother of two kids in high school, I have been a part of the Florida school system for years. This is what I have come to know:

We spend much more per prisoner per year than we do per student per year; seriously flawed.

If it takes a village to raise a child, then why are our children continually being shipped to other districts where they are ignored? The time has come to bring back neighborhood schools so our children can walk and be watched by their community. Gee - sounds like big savings doing away with hundreds and hundreds of buses and bus drivers, fuel, etc.

There are a million things to budget, but it seems as if public school budgets are always the first cut. The art department at our school has a budget of $500 for the year. No more lockers. No bringing books home. Most extracurricular activities have been obliterated, and the academics sorely minimized.

Teachers need a lot more money. The teachers who lack ability should be fired. Portable buildings need to be abolished. The arts need to be reestablished (proven fact that they improve learning).

"No child left behind" is, as it always has been, but worded differently, a laughable tactic to say "we care and are on this problem," yet nothing is ever done. I say this from experience - now in the public school arena for more than thirteen years.