I know Obama hasn’t told us that he is giving No Child Left Behind the axe, but he should. The NCLB program that Bush pushed onto the American people is still doing what it does best, hurting American students and holding them back from achieving to their highest potential. Anderson Cooper did a report on the NCLB program on his blog which can be found at cnn.com.

What is happening now is that American schools are dumbing down the curriculum so that their students pass the standardized tests. If the students don’t pass the tests the Federal Government takes away money from that particular school. There are some gross errors in this system.

For one, a school can be top in the county one year and below the line the next. Why is that? Well, it’s simple. All the kids who were at the failing schools the year before are now switching schools and going to the one that passed. With so many students who are behind, it causes that passing school to fall behind. Threats are made and teachers are put in the crossfire. What happened to a free America?
Teachers go into teaching so they can help shape young minds and inspire students to learn. With standardized tests that President Bush instituted it takes learning out of the classroom and now teachers are forced to teach to the test.
All across America schools are lowering standards so their school won’t be sanctioned, “The federal study found some states had been lowering their proficiency standards which made it easier for lower test scores to qualify as proficient. Isn’t the idea of going to school about raising students proficiency and making kids smarter? It was when I was younger.

What is more important, avoiding sanctions or giving kids a better education? Parents, if you’re reading this, how would you feel about your child’s school making it easier for your child to get by (Anderson Cooper, cnn.com)?”

Something must be done to education today. Do state standards really matter much? Or is there another way?

I think students would like to learn on their own, or at least be in charge of some things they learn. Teachers should be positive role models, but also be more of a facilitator to learning rather than all the focus be on the teacher. How can we expect students to be more responsible if we are constantly telling them what to do, when to do it, how to do it and how to pass?
Is the grading system really beneficial? I think educators should teach (facilitate) their classrooms where everyone is learning together, but at the same time working at individual levels and mastering material. Isn’t that what we want? Are we really ok with a passing grade or do we want mastry of material?

No Child Left Behind seems to have placed the children behind and it’s leaving them there. While Washington fights over test scores and makes their decisions over which schools get more money our nation’s children are getting pushed to the back of the bus.

-Kyle