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.
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2 comments:
Hi!!
I think Bush is crazy, he wants to keep frustrating people not only with the war, but also with education, which is very important and necessary for those kids that are learning to become someone in the future. Bush wants to create a monopoly in which he owns the whole United States and the country are a “token” that he can use and more as he desire.
NCLB is an invention, it has his good stuff but 90% of the program is unrealistic and is created for school that don’t exist in the States and in other places of the world. This program is more politic that other thing, is worst that being here in the island with Anival creating a plan for the teacher’s salaries. I don’t like NCLB and I hope once Bush is out of the presidency this program disappeared with him.
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