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75 recommendations made for 'No Child' law - Politics - MSNBC.com

 

You know when "No Child" first was announced, I was excited.  I honestly thought this would be a great thing for all kids, including my oldest son who just happens to have Down Syndrome.  Unfortunately, I've come to find out the way it was written has been disasterous for all involved.  The premise sounded good...no child would be left behind, our schools would have to educate every child not just pass them on to the next grade!

In actuality what has happened is school systems are being punished because they can't reach the goal set by the feds.  No one is actually measuring how much our kids are actually learning.  And our teachers are being forced to teach children how to take and hopefully pass a standardized test so the staff and the school can get a 'passing' grade!

What I'd love to see is teachers teaching children to think and reason, not spew facts.  What I'd love to see is every child have an IEP (I know you teachers probably hate that idea, but think doesn't every child deserve an education that takes into consideration their individual strengths and weakenesses?).  What I'd love to see is teachers' effectiveness at teaching measured.  How would we do this?  Well, one way would be to see how much a child actually learns each year.  For example, a 5 year old starting kindergarten who knows his ABCs, 123s and is writing his name and leaves only knowing that...what did he actually learn that year.  Whereas, a 5 year old starting kindergarten who knew nothing (academically speaking) and leaves knowing his ABCs, 123s, etc. has made great strides and in all likelihood had a teacher that taught him/her something!  So test the kids at the start of every year and then test then at the end, measure their improvement (or lack thereof) and if a teacher consistently has students who show no signs of progressing put that teacher on probation or re-educate them on their art.

JMHO.