What’s the deal with “No child Left Behind?”

Is this thing a success, a bust or a big fat fraud?

I plead ignorance because my sons are in college.

Is it just FCAT testing, or more?

Did Neil Bush make millions from it?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

I’m interested because it is the only program I can think of that was supposed to be an accomplishment of this administration.

and fund vouchers.

Yes, it is mainly testing.

I have no idea if Neil Bush has made any money off of it. I can't see how but I wouldn't put anything past them.

I recall reading, I think on KOS, that Neil Bush had something to do with the software and profited millions.

Does anyone like this program?

It is a program that is and has been underfunded, poorly managed, cannot be adequately duplicated across the country desite claims to the contrary and does nothing to offer better instruction. It is an "accountability" program aimed at school personnel that is designed to both discourage stagnation in education and usher in vouchers for private schools. Having said this, how long would you suppose it would take to make this program a success with limited funds and FEMA like assistance from the Federal or State governments?

1 year, 5 years, 10 years?

The only thing accomplished with NCLB is that the bill was passed during this administration and the test companies have made out like bandits. As to the Neil Bush angle, who knows?

more cannon fodder.

There's this nice little hidden clause in it that requires all schools to turn over to the government - the names of ALL 17 and 18 year old students - for military recruitment purposes. You CAN opt out, but you have to do it in writing - to both the individual school AND to the school district, and nobody makes much effort to apprise the public of this. If it weren't for peace groups and government watchdog organizations, we'd never even have known about it. Our valiant mainstream media hasn't exactly broken a sweat trying to get that information on the air or anywhere on the front page.

School districts must turn over the names of all SECONDARY students. In my district (and in many others) 6th graders are in secondary school. So the recruiters are getting names of 12 year olds.

I've noticed more military commercials during Saturday morning cartoons.

phone numbers of high school students to military recruiters, you could say it's a success as far as military recruitment is concerned.

Supposedly parents can sign papers to prohibit recruiters from calling their kid at home, but many recruiters ignore these opt-out requests and hound kids at home.

Pam's House Blend blog had a good article on this back in January.

The pillaging and cronyism never ends, does it?

Like in the classic song about the lady and the snake, they can't help themselves. It's just what they are.

There is a section in NCLB that forces school distrcits to release student information to recruiters. The only way to get around it is if the parents submit a waiver. Here's a link with a bit of info about it: http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.23Bb.jvb.child.htm

Neil Bush bought a software company, re-named it "IGNITE!", and sold it as test preparation software to Florida ($30 per student, and I didn't know of it's existence until the end of the school year), also to several other states. ALSO to Kuwait, other Arab nations, Mexico, and China. Neil Bush is dyslexic, but he knows how to profit on his family name.

The unfunded mandate that was NCLB--the federal government reneged on it's promise to fund the program--was a nightmare for public schools. The children were tested to death, the schools were shut down, the halls patrolled by vaguely sinister "monitors" during the 2-3 days of testing. Parents were not allowed to see the tests, or question the results. I'm speaking in the past tense (although it's still going on) because I took my daughter out of public schools over 2 years ago.

The teachers cannot win. Every year the definition of "passing" changes, the last I knew the lowest performing students from the previous year had to show a certain percentage of improvement in order for the school to receive a passing grade. It's absurd.

This program exists to destroy the Department of Education. Anyone who can has taken their child out of the toxic, stress-inducing atmosphere that used to be public education.

Rote learning is rewarded. Independent thought is punished. Subjects that are not tested are not funded. This is an abomination. And yes, of course the Bush family has found a way to profit.

I, unfortunatly, lived in FL during the early JEB! years. And now, for family reasons, live in TX. Test mania everywhere.

Why aren’t the teachers up in arms about this, and raising hell?
I never hear any stories in the news.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/no-child-left-behind.html

Read it up.

Here are a few things that I find wrong with it:

Under this Act, schools whose students do pass their state's standardized tests, receive a 'bonus' if you will, which is a certain percentage gain, in federal money it receives. What happens to the schools who don't have a passing percentage?...Oh right, they don't get any money. They have to fix their problems first.

The first time I read this part of the act, I actually laughed. How are the failing schools going to be able to do anything, with out the funding required to get better resources? Lets be honest here. Most schools in which they do have a failing rate, are minority, and poverty bound schools, in which have limited or no outside resources. By cutting the little bit of money that they have, you're intensifying the failure rates, and just making the situation worse. How is that going to help these kids step it up? All this is doing, IS leaving children behind.

Also underneath this act, it's either in '08 or in '07(Maybe I'm out of my ass? It's been a while since I read it.), if a school does not have a 100% passing rate, that school is no longer an accredited school. So, a student could have the highest, and best grade in his class, graduate as the top of his year, but won't be accepted into any college, because his High School isn't accredited.

Do you still love it?

If a school does not have a passing grade..for I think two or three years straight, parents gain the option of sending their students to another local school, who is accredited. Which is totally ironic, because now you're allowing over crowdedness, which will just act like a disease in that school, and just bring down their test results there.

And we're at the same spot we started at.

"Neil Bush has a colorful history, including failed S&Ls, insider stock trading scandals, and well, general Bush family corruption.

We already know that Armstrong Williams received a handsome payday from the taxpayer for pimping No Child Left Behind for Bush, but Neil Bush benefits directly from No Child Left Behind, picking pockets in all school districts as his software company preps students for the standardized tests required by NCLB..."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/8/125556/7027

Is a Trojan Horse meant to take down public education. What happens if your students do well? The following year they must do better on the friggin test...and the next...and the next. It's a game of raise the bar until you fail.

The school where I teach has very low funding--very rural--very poor, and yet we manage to score among the top ten in the state. NCLB is out to change all of that. Because it is all about "accountability" the biggest change is reams of paper work. Oh, and if a kid is under preforming, well NCLB says that we must give the student a choice of high schools. But we're rural, so how do we do this? Easy says the Fed, simple put a school within the school with no money to do that.

There is no model for how anything should actually work. I love that. Anything we have changed is subject to being changed next year. Go figure.

This bill will never be funded, but if even if were, it would still be a very bad bill. It is bad public policy that fails to take into account the real and pressing needs of schools. A creation of the backward heads people.

Complain? What? And be labeled whinners, 'cause you know that is what would happen.

... of the sort mandated by NCLB, is of marginal and more likely negative value in terms of actually educating children.

PBS Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/nochild/

I haven't studied it. I have heard that Ted Kennedy was instrumental in producing this legislation.

But I seriously doubt it was Ted Kennedy's idea to include the notorious No Child Left Behind provision which forces schools to make their campuses and their student bodies available to recruiters, 24/7.

Last year we had five major rounds of testing. Everything we teach focuses on what will be on the test. These tests are in addition to the regular spelling tests, social studies tests, english tests, math tests, etc. We are now using valuable teaching time to test. Creativity in teaching no longer exists. Teaching is now focused on teaching to the test. We have state standards and district standards which dictate what will be taught. They don't exactly line up with NCLB. Can you say teacher shortage?

Our teachers union, NEA is focusing on lobbying congress. Most people think that all the union has to do is say no to NCLB. They can't. NCLB is the law. You don't break the law, you work on changing the law. Unions on the local/state/national levels focus on fair working conditions/salary/health care for it's teachers based on the negotiated contracts with the school district and the union. Lobbying efforts on the national, state and local levels focus on bringing about improvements to enhance education for all of those involved, districts, teachers and students. All things have to be worked on within the law and negotiated contracts.

I was listening to Seansky Hannity yesterday for a few moments and of course he was the undisputed authority on the evil teacher unions.
Without teacher unions, no one would become a teacher. Teaching would be considered a calling from God. Teachers would have to give up all their worldly possessions and to live under freeway overpasses.

My frustration with NCLB testing is just starting to boil. I get to focus all of my instruction time to prepare for "the tests." We will now produce kids who can pass standardized tests. They won't be able to fill out job applications, but they will be able to take standardized tests.

(Howard Deal howl..................)

and on teachers. He's a fine example of what happens when you let someone whose last encounter with a teacher was when he was 16, preach to the entire nation.

In another post on this thread, I mentioned that the school where I teacher is poor...excedingly poor. Years ago we threaded some SAT prep into our curriculum, because our kids could never afford SAT prep. This fall it became apparent that there was no "standard" to justify that prep work. Every grade that I enter into the computer must be keyed to a standard. Without a standard, the prep had to go. Okay. Gone.

Two weeks later the state announced that "test" that the juniors take will be the (drum-roll) the SAT test. Note: I'd just pulled that prep and had no way to justify it.

Solution: I now am teaching the SAT prep and lie about the standard. I just stick it in under some over-worded, meaningless standard.

Fortunately, the kids get it. They want to do well, and could care less what standard is shown. One of their favorites is a thing that I call SAT charades. We laugh til we cry...but they are not likely to forget it.

The schools with the best test scores tend to come from the most affluent neighborhoods, where parents can afford tutors, private lessons in the arts that help a child's intellect in general, where the schools have more resources overall, where kids at least have access to decent nutrition, even if they don't take full advantage of it.

Schools with the lowest test scores naturally come from more poverty stricken areas, where the parents and schools don't have the financial resources to do much more than survive.

Based on the test scores, the government justifies rewarding the rich districts that need help the least, and penalizing the poor districts.


In Michigan, in 2005, 45% of economically disadvantaged children met the state standards. 70% of non-economically disadvantaged children met the state standards. Using Bush logic, less money is given to the disadvantaged students. Or looking at it another way, less money is given to black students, more to white students (42% vs. 72% meeting state standards, respectively).

There are about 28 categories in which a school can fail to meet Annual Yearly Progress. The standards are raised each year regardless if the scores do. If any one of the categories are not met for their standards, the school automatically goes on the"Watch List" I teach special ed. One of my categories is the % of sped kids who take the test. If the % is below what is mandated, my school goes on the watch list. Scores do not matter in that category. Another sped category is the sped scores. My kids must make the same progress as the kids who do not have any learning difficulties. My 6 (4th grade)kids put my school on the watch list because their scores were 2% below the average of the other 4th graders. 6 kids brought my school down. My school district has quite a few affluent high schools on the "List" because of barely meeting the % of just one category. Each year the standards are raised.

My school for at least one year had just one kid self-identified as Asian. If that particular student had failed the test, our school failed a sub-group category, and thus the entire school was considered not making adequate yearly progress. What is the purpose of that? What does it prove about our educational program?

I can see how a side-effect of the NCLB laws would be to motivate schools to try to get rid of students that aren't likely to pass - particularly if they are a member of a small minority group in your school. Rather than really leaving no child left behind, the school gets more funding if they find a way to leave them behind, either by encouraging those kids to drop out - or better yet, transfer to another school.

It's a hell of an ethics dilemma.

We have at least one student that is in school only because their parents pay them to attend class; they're in school solely to collect their paycheck. If you pour all your energy into helping that one kid pass, they may not show up for the test days at all, or if they do, they might sit there and stare at the wall, and not fill in a single bubble on the answer sheet. Why should they? They don't get a grade for it, and they have no interest in it. And then when they fail, your school will lose funding for projects that would have benefitted the kids that are trying to get an education.

Or you can encourage them to drop out, or try to transfer them to a different school, perhaps a private or charter school. That way your school will pass the NCLB tests, and get funding for better teachers or equipment that will make a real difference in the educational opportunities at your facility.

What would you do?

Giving up on the kid and encouraging him to drop out isn't the moral answer.

Transfering him to another school so it's someone else's problem isn't the moral answer.

Spending a disproportionate amount of instructional time with him merely because he's the only member of a minority group in your particular school isn't the moral answer.

Allowing one completely disinterested student to negatively impact the educational opportunities of all of your other students seems to be the moral answer, but if you were the administrator, would you be fully satisfied with that option?

One way to do away with funding schools. When in doubt privatize.

Be sure it is an unfunded mandate.

it seems as if the teachers and principle has been doing this long enough they have learned how to use it in a very good and productive way, instead of using it to merely take up the time to learn test and lose. they are really taking advantaage in the teaching of this. but this school is different. has different students, a different enviroment and support of parents that a lot of schools dont have for different social and economic reasons

no child left behind is certainly gutting those schools and asking something from both the teachers and administration that the cannot do. and there is no answer for these schools.


all the way around schools are underfunded and we the people are actually expecting and insisting both parent and teachers pick up the tab. this isnt realistic and going ot create failure for our children in their education

I am still waiting for the kids to be made responsible. Kids need to be held accountable foe their own learning. My responsibility this year is to improve the writing scores for my sped kids so that my school can get off the watch list. Teach math & reading? don't have time. The focus is on writing. It is very hard to do when a few of the kids do not care. You cannot force kids to learn for the sake of the school.

Intended to make sure that all public schools "fail" so that they can be privatized.

It hinges on high-stakes testing brought on by the conservative "standards and accountabilty" movement begun back in the early 90s, closely connected to the Reagan-era desire to abolish the Department of Education.

It began at the state-level under some conservative governors; both Bushes and Pete Wilson are examples. It migrated to the federal level with GWB in 2000, with a big boost from Ted Kennedy, who bought the Orwellian rhetoric hook, line, and sinker.

It works like this:

1. Mandate standardized testing of all students (beginning 1st-2nd-3rd grade, depending on the state), every year. Get Republican donors, and ed publishing companies with 3-generation relationships with the Bush family, to publish the tests. Build it on the "continuous improvement" model, and make sure that the formula used to measure "improvement" is statistically corrupt. Eventually, no matter how well a school is doing, it will now end up on the "needs improvement" roster.

2. Make sure that all those Republican-loving companies are ready with lots of canned, scripted programs to be sold to schools that have to document their "improvement" plan; make sure all the "programs" on the "approved" list are approved by republican think tanks and committees. Make sure all the canned, scripted programs and curriculums do drill and kill, rote memorization of fact and procedure , with every minute scripted, and cut out the independent thinking part of learning. Make sure mandated money gets spent on private companies who tutor, do "staff development" that flies in the face of the research on how kids learn, etc... Add in lots and lots more tests to prepare for testing, and get those kids trained to bubble as they're told. That will set them up to be good, obedient little voters in the next generation, and allow their parents to brag about their stellar test scores now. They've learned to bubble obediently, and for that they are true scholars.

3. When the test scores drop, make sure the community knows it is because public schools are incompetent. Release all the scores to the public, rank schools, and allow those at the bottom to transfer to other schools. Get the "public schools are incompetent" PR machine going, because....

4. The next step, when the school cannot continue to improve, is to disband the district/school board, and have it taken over by political appointees. Who then step in and restructure the district to suit themselves. Of course, private companies can be hired to run the place, to set up their own curriculum and structure.

5. Meanwhile, schools and teachers are under such threat that school has become a hated place for all, with fun literally not allowed in many "improvement" schools. Teachers literally sanctioned for stepping outside of the assigned script to do something fun. And the public impression of "public schools are bad" continues to grow.

How long before vouchers take the place of public education?

It is misguided, underfunded, and poorly constructed. It f**king sucks.