No Child Left Behind means no Civics courses?

[jackofallgeeks]

OK, so... I've heard a lot that "No Child Left Behind" is dumb and has
probably hurt schools a whole lot more than helped them. I've always
figured that it pretty much revolved around the SOLs and school "teaching to
the test" because they'd lose government funds otherwise. But I just read a
comment on teh webs here that Civics courses have been removed from school
curriculums because of "No Child Left Behind." That seems not just dumb but
actively counter-productive.

Does anyone other there know what NCLB is, what it does and how in
the world we ended up with it? (That last is probably answered by this
post, reprisentative of our general lack of information on a national policy
that's several years old now.)

Comments

[dikaiosunh.livejournal.com]

You've actually got it, more or less, and in a nutshell. NCLB imposes standards on schools, that mostly have to do with performance on standardized tests and teacher certifications. At the moment, AFAIK, the tests only cover reading and math skills, though I've heard they plan to add science as well.

The penalties for schools that don't make adequate yearly progress on the tests is withdrawal of some federal funds, and federal support for parents to take their kids out of failing schools (and bring the money attached to the students with them).

I'm not sure what the situation is with Civics courses, but the overall complaint is because of the importance placed on the tests, and the fact that the tests cover only reading and math, there's pressure to put everything else by the wayside - if your school underperforms in math, the fact that it has a great civics course isn't going to preserve its funding.

There's a lot of other stuff in there, too, not all of which I know off the top of my head - more support for charter schools, etc.

I think the way we ended up with NCLB is that the problem it identifies is real - holding schools accountable and encouraging improved school performance. But quantifying school performance is legitimately difficult, and NCLB has taken a pretty unsophisticated approach to measuring it. So you end up measuring *something*, but not what you wanted to - and schools end up having perverse incentives to be really good at what you're measuring.

[metis2be.livejournal.com]

Another problem with NCLB is that it revolves around the bottom students in each class. The program is based on how many children fail the test in each school, so the school focuses on getting the children who are doing poorly up to the marginal level. Children who pass with flying colors don't matter, because they're already passing, so schools are cutting advanced programing since there's no reason to support it other than helping out the children who should potentially become the brightest minds later in life. So it is good for the remedial students to help encourage them to catch up and find their true potential, but it also ignores advanced students of any kind to the point where schools aren't letting students skip grades anymore in case they don't do quite as well while being challenged which would hurt the school's score. But yes, teaching to the test is the main problem of NCLB and I've actually heard of some schools teaching children how to properly take tests, rather than trying to teach them the material. I remember my teachers and principal getting as angry as I'd ever seen them while talking about the program.

[nif.livejournal.com]

Basically, the actual text of NCLB is a lot of funding drivel. It stipulates what goes where, when, and to whom.

But it's guided by specific goals such as these little gems:

-All students will attain proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2013-2014.

-All students will be proficient in reading by the end of third grade.

-All students will graduate from high school.

Which leads to rampant stupidity such as "In Pennsylvania, for example, the State Board of Education has defined proficiency in reading and mathematics achievement as 'above average', which means that in order to meet the conditions of NCLB, 95% of all children are expected to perform at levels that were average in 2001."

Furthermore, NCLB stipulates yearly monitoring of each school's progress. If a school fails to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), then it is taken over by the state or privatized. Meaning all the teachers will be fired and the school will essentially start over. So teachers are scrambling to meet these impossibly broad goals while being monitored to death and afraid for their jobs.

Also, individual states have helpfully instituted statewide standardized tests like the SOL or FCAT to show compliance with NCLB, when all they are really doing is taking more time out of the useful curriculum.

Additionally, NCLB gives more funding to high performing schools, and far less to under performing ones. Needless to say, these low schools are often in economically disadvantaged areas and need the most help. So really, NCLB is helping to keep the uneducated poor down. Good job, federal government. As a result, teachers are under even more pressure from the administration to keep scores up because if they slip, funding becomes a vicious self perpetuating cycle of decline.

Aaaaanywho. That's NCLB. Quotations and info in this passage was taken from "Content Area Literacy: An Integrated Approach" by Bean, Readance and Baldwin.