"La notas hay que sudarlas"

The DE (Department of Education) is forcing teachers, parents and students to define what is school and it’s purpose, but does the DE has it clear there own? I think that the real problem begins with the government and the promises they never fulfill. I remember schools being different, maybe the structure wasn’t good, but classes were different and students and parents were right at their roll. At this moment all we can see is the governments offering things he cannot fallow, the department taking advantage of the money for schools and insane curriculums that aren’t appropriate for Puerto Rican students. People get upset with all this differences, they get less enthusiastic and involve with a department that has many problems in controlling their management.
I know this is not an excuse for teachers, parents and students, some teachers has been doing incorrect decisions over there classes and I think this is not the correct way of solving a problem what he or she don’t know is that they are creating another problem that is low academic achievement and that students takes the teachers action to create a justification of there abandonment for school.
Students has evolution in a negative way over the years, they don’t like to study, they don’t do there homework, they want to take advantage of other students performance, they don’t respect teachers and other… parent do nothing to help there kids and the teachers has to pay for the students and parents behavior, so my opinion is that I think that the DE has some kind of reason on making high standards, but at the same time I think they did it really fast and it might not work how they expected.

Usefulness of education research questioned

In this article we can see how the government is trying to take over the education. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings speaks about the No Child Left Behind program with President George Bush at a charter school in Washington. This article based its study on the fact that students in public schools are performing better academically, than students that are from a private schools.
The secretary of education wants to remove students from public schools and place them into the private schools of the country. She needs to considerate that not everyone has the money to put their children in a private school. In my opinion, the majority of the professionals nowadays, studied in public schools. So you don’t need to be in a private school to be a great person and professional, you can study wherever you want in the school you want.
On the other hand, this article is also expressing the different ideas that people have from the law “No Child Left Behind”. One of the comments that the article has at the end is about the use of this law in the classroom and in the department of education. One person expressed his or her idea and I totally agree. If this law continues as it goes, teachers have to teach for the test and not for the students needs.

By: Liz Marie Rodriguez Aquino

Usefulness of Education Research questioned

In this article we can see how politicians are trying to take over the educational system. Even though studies showed that public school students have better test results than private school students the results were ignored by the government and considered irrelevant. Instead of paying attention to the results of that study which is important, other studies are being carried out with irrelevant topics that don't deal with the true problems in the educational system.
In my opinion the educational system shouldn't be controlled by the government because they don't really know how to work with the problems of education. It is real easy for a politician to tell the educators to rely on scientific methods in education, but since it isn't a highly reliable method it may contain material isn't useful to the students or the teachers resulting in no solution for the true problems that should be solved.

Usefulness of education research questioned

It is evident in this article that the problem is that the government is running education and not the Department of Education. This is so that the government and when I say the government I mean the Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and George W. Bush ignored the results of the study. Imagine, the Secretary called the study “irrelevant” concluding that the study was small and flawed. The study concluded that public schools do better than private schools in test scores. Although professionals carried it out, the Secretary still decided to ask for $100 million expense to send public school students to private schools.

My opinion is that NCLB (No Child Left Behind) is a way of the government of the United States of America to control education. When it should be the Department of Education in charge of education. They should be attentive of the quality of education and solve the problems. The law NCLB only focuses on test scores and not on the necessities of the students. Many of the students that don’t do well on test scores to monitor the law are those that have severe social problems. Also, they are not being attended in that field and flunk on test because of this.

Bush commented on NCLB in the article, he said that educators should use “scientifically-based methods of education”. But in my opinion science is not always 100% effective. Not all methods are useful. Although, I believe a lot of them are accurate according to my methodology class it depends on the scenery and the subject of instruction. In conclusion, NCLB is a political way to monitor education and is up hill. What to do when many schools get closed down for not carrying out NCLB?

Usefulness of Education research questioned

This article explains to us that there is a situation where the education is not going well, because it's being run by the Goverment & not the Department of Education. The Goverment chose to ignore the results of the research study, even though University professors, teacher's unions & other advocates of public schools find that the results were important to the public school system.
In my opinion, under the NCLB, (no child left behind) mandate, we will be seeing a lot of this situation going on, because their only interest is involving themselves with anything that pleases their own agendas & not necessarily the education process. Even though researchers will create studies which demonstrate what's really going on in the schools, if it does not appeal to the Goverment, it is simply disregarded or criticized. Another point is that these researchers will have a difficult time basing a study on a particular district because no one likes to look bad.

Usefulness of education research questioned

For those of you who did not attend the program featuring Prof. Nancy Vicente, at the end I asked her to give her opinion on "No Child Left Behind" and what she thought would be its long-term outcome. She considered it a "loaded" question, but, nonetheless, answered it. In short she said that even though the program is good, she feels that now the teachers are no longer educating; they are simply, "teaching to the test". She also said that this plan was more a political move, where decisions on education have been left in the hands of politicians. She coincided with my answer on the take-home when the professor asked our opinion on NCLB - at the time I answered that education was taken out of the hands of teachers and put in the hands of the President, congressman and the like. Our answers also coincided with the opinion that in the long run, there would be more dropouts and poorer education.

This article shows why both of our statements have some bearing. In this particular case, after a research study clearly states that on an overall level, public school children do better than private school; immediately thereafter, the Education Secretary unveils a very costly proposal to send public school students to private schools - WHY?? WHEN THE RESEARCH STUDY STATED THAT PUBLIC SCHOOL KIDS WERE DOING BETTER!!! According to the secretary, the research was "irrelevant, small and flawed" - but to whose set of criteria? This is where NCLB is politically biased; and, as a result, corrupts education. A research is done as a way of determining how a program is working, but when it does not appeal to the powers that be, it's simply disregarded or deemed useless. To add to this, a good precise research cannot be done because most school districts don't want to be singled out in any type of study and made to look bad, and, as a result, a lot of the research is done on subjects that are not practical and cannot help educators with current issues.

There was also a very important comment on NCLB - Bush told educators to rely on "scientifically-based methods of education", but science is not always 100% accurate, can be influenced by the government and sometimes is not useful to the students or their teachers. This is where we see the outcome of the educational reform brought on by NCLB, backed by government policy. We haven't even reached the tip of the iceburg on its long-term effect.