No Child Left Behind? What it means to us.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/issues273.shtml

From this article I expanded my knowledge on the actual content of the No Child Left Behind Act. It is a twelve hundred page document that President Bush implemented to call for more standardized testing of third through eighth grade students and increase the accountability of teachers and principals in public schools nationwide. This act was modeled after the Elementary/Secondary School Education Act of 1965. President Bush significantly increased public school funding to those schools that had high test scores and proved themselves accountable. He also gave money to Title 1, to reading programs, and for professional development of the educators. With this act come pros and cons. On the pro side, educators are given professional development opportunities they otherwise may not have had the chance to experience. It also increased public school funding by 27%, totaling 22.5billion in the year 2001. On the con side, educators are now forced to "teach to the standardized test." This means that educators now spend the majority of their time worrying about standardized test scores rather than making the classroom a fun and enjoyable learning environment in order to receive the much needed classroom funding. The teachers simply are not able to use creativity and ingenuity when developing curriculum and lesson plans. In my opinion test scores do not show how much one child has learned, or prove anything about how well the teacher taught over the course of the school year. I think most students, especially in the younger grades learn more under less pressure with no testing.

Questions from this article:

1. Have the test scores improved since the NCLB program began?

2. How has the act been changed and improved since its debut in 2002?

3. What is the percentage of teachers for/against NCLB?