Summary Post Re: NCLB (Elizabeth, Nurdan, Roe, Vanessa)

It appears that there is a consensus among our group that the NCLB act is a great idea in theory but not in practice. The idea is great because as Elizabeth points out, “NCLB aims at improving students' performance, holds schools accountable and allows parents more options when choosing schools for their children.” Roe also mentioned the NCLB as being a good idea because, “every child in the United States should be able to read and write by a certain grade level. I also mentioned on my blog site that “from a theoretical point of view, legislative educational reforms at a national level (e.g. NCLB) are necessary due to economic reasons. As our economy becomes more of a “Global Village”, children from our country will be competing with the children of foreign countries for jobs. Because of the latter it is imperative that the US government makes a concentrated effort to ensure that our children will be equipped with the educational resources necessary to effectively compete and survive in the global economy.”

However, the implementation of the NCLB act has been gravely flawed. Because of the provisions directed at teacher accountability, the NCLB act impacts the manner in which an educator teaches. Elizabeth expressed, “In order to improve student performance, many teachers have to accommodate their schedules by dropping other subjects and concentrate on math and reading (and sometimes science) which are the areas tested. Elizabeth also admitted having to rearrange plans in order to fit more math and language art practice months before the NJ ASK. Vanessa cited similar experiences from teachers that she has been acquainted with. One such experience involved a teacher in an urban school district that has English Language Learning students. In addition to preparing her students for the district English language assessment, she also has to follow a block schedule (120 minutes of reading and 60 minutes of math). The schedule undoubtedly limits her time to teach other subjects.

Another fateful flaw of the NCLB act is the lack of federal funding. Vanessa mentioned that as a result of the lack of funding to carry out the NCLB initiatives, “many districts are avoiding to hire 1st year teachers with a masters. Colleagues of mine are having a tough time getting hired in a school district because they are qualified to be under the master level pay scale and the district doesn’t have the money.” Roe stated, “It is easy for the federal government to pass acts when they do not have to worry where the money to cover these programs is going to come from.” As it relates to funding, Elizabeth summarized our view on subject, “fully funding this act is what should have been the first priority before imposing such high expectations on schools. Without it, many children are being left behind!”