Playing Devil’s Advocate with NCLB
There are a lot of NCLB critics. This is understandable as the penalties threatened are very real and teaching is not always a 2+2=4 profession. Each student presents a different learning style and ability; blanket standards are not always fair and blind. I still do not know how I feel about this issue. I’m sure when I am actually teaching and the test affects my curriculum I will care very deeply. If high stakes testing is the most evil thing to hit education since ‘do all the odd numbered problems’ worksheets I will just have to try my best to present the material in an interesting and student engaged way. From all the rhetoric about the evils of NCLB I thought there were no positives. This article from the Detroit News shocked me.
For despite its bureaucratic faults — many of which have been protested on this page — No Child is showing real achievement gains, even in low-income schools where longstanding school quality problems have confounded decades of federal administrations. Now, the act should help provide schools with the best methods on how to improve, not simply expand funding.
Even in Detroit, where barriers to learning such as poverty are enormous, the achievement gap is closing, new research shows. Michigan State University experts are still assessing the new MEAP results, but already they see that pupil achievement is improving.
Detroit’s surprising good news mirrors national improvements in elementary student achievement. No Child cannot take credit for all the gains, but even critics give partial credit to the law.
I would prefer more statistics backing up the claims of improvement, but the claims still have been made. Could NCLB actually help improve inner-city elementary schools? And if it does, could the improvement follow the students up through middle and secondary schools? I will look furthur into this.
One item from this article which does worry me is the “surprising good news”. Academic improvements should not be a surprise. What is expected of our schools or teachers if improvement is a surprise? I would hope that failing schools would be more of a surprise.
**I can’t completely cite this article; it is no longer available online
A New Approach
I want to explore how Standardized testing affects English in the inner-city secondary classroom. I will write more about this and do more research on this new subject when I have more time later tonight…This could be a new direction that I go in down the road, depending on how much I find with Stardardized testing.
I am not currently ready to completely damn standardized testing as having absolutely no positives. Most people I have talked to in education have already done this. I do not know all the details about this issue yet, so I will take a more open-minded approach to my research.
No matter what one may think of standardized testing in high school (or any school for that matter) it is a reality and a heavy burden for students. Melissa Trujillo from boston.com follows one student around school to illustrate how her class time is devoted to preparing for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test.
There is no time to waste at the Boston Community Leadership Academy, where the teachers and 10th-graders have mere months to prepare for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. The exam will determine which sophomores can graduate and which schools are meeting the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which mandates that all children be proficient in math and English by 2014.
If so much emphasis is placed on a test I guess it makes sense that all of a student’s time is utilized studying for this test. But at what cost are we making sure students can spit out answers for a test?
A Student Prepares for State’s most important standardized test
Melissa Trujillo
January 6, 2007
The First Post…
I want to explore English in the Inner-City classroom with this blog. I am nervous as I have never blogged before, but I am excited about what I might find. I hope to keep this topic fairly focused, but since I am new to blogging, I may end up with information overload. As long as I keep interested in research I think I will do well.
I have the education sections of the New York Times and CNN.com, as well as Allendale’s weather from weather.com in my feed. It is always a good idea to know what the weather will be. I have the Dehavilland Blog and Education Wonks in my feed as well. Finally, I have google news searches for ‘Inner-city English’ and ‘Standardized Test English’ in my feed. I can’t wait to explore the capabilities of this blog and my feed in greater depth. English seems like a ‘dusty book and chalkboard’ subject; I’m excited to learn about a different technological approach.
