President Obama is pushing for a 3.5 billion dollar revamp of the Bush administrations No Child Left Behind Act. CNN.com reports that the goal of this overhaul is to change the focus entirely. The Bush administration created the bill back in 2001 and did so in order to track school progress and success with standardized tests in grades 1 through 8. The law was ultimately a failure. The plan was to have every student in the country on their grade reading level by 2014; but it wasn't funded nearly as much as it should have been. Now the Obama administration wants to, instead of having every student at their grade reading level by 2014, make sure that by 2020 everyone graduating high school is college or career ready. They want to make sure that teachers and principals are effective; and if they aren't, that theyre being fired. Instead of dummying down our expectations so that every student, teacher, and school can easily reach them without putting forth any real effort, the Obama campaign wants to strain the system. They want to reestablish the US among the smartest countries in the world, a list that we have fallen too far down on.
Its about damn time that the government did something about our education system. Teachers are way under paid, our work force is getting dumber, and we as a country are too busy focusing on our military and GDP. The youth represent the future, and education is only going to brighten that. Enough with kids dropping out of school or not going to college because their teachers made them hate learning; enough with teachers under achieving or being under paid; and enough with the belief that teachers are all the same because they are not. Great teachers are extremely rare, but have the potential to inspire children and young adults to do incredible things. The future lies in the minds of this country's youth, their future lies within their education, their education lies in the hands of their teachers; so in the end the teachers have the ability to influence the future, lets start paying them like their job has some significance.
I mean how many times do you drop a class because of a teacher? Or even pick a class because of a teacher? Imagine if you could have done that in elementary school? College has options, whereas middle school and high school really do not. Now Im not saying that teachers are always the reason why kids drop out of school or dont do well in classes, because that simply is not the truth. Some kids just do not try, they bluntly do not care; and there isnt much to be done about that. But lets say we removed every single ineffective teacher and replaced them with inspirational ones. Would we see improvements in grades, graduation rates, college attendence, etc.? You bet.
4 comments:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/03/15/am.intv.no.child.cnn?iref=allsearch
That's the link to the article, I suppose I should include that huh?
Before I say anything, let me say that I support nationalization and standardization of education in the United States. Second, let me remind you that the US has fallen behind in public education, not private and that the US still maintains the most prestigious colleges and universities internationally.
As an individual who went through one of the best public school systems in the nation, I would say that the majority of the blame for public education's decline lies with the students. There is a lack of motivation or desire to learn in our culture. The students who came to my school were there because their parents knew it was one of the best systems, unfortunately the majority were not the best students and still we were ranked very high nationally. It scared me knowing that my school was at the time #1 in New Jersey knowing that every other school must be worse than the one I was in.
This new legislation puts a very heavy burden on teachers, not students. Students in Singapore reach calculus before high school. There is no reason American students could not do that if they put in the effort. The problem is, they won't. Teachers can raise standards and make their classes harder, but that won't fix the problem.
I agree that students need to try harder; and that if they don't want to do something, it won't get done regardless. However, it is the teachers that make learning fun. Truly amazing teachers can inspire students to do most incredible things. Great teachers are out there, we just have to find them and give them that chance.
I would put more blame on who was the Secretary of Education during Bush's time in the presidency. I seriously doubt President Bush developed no child left behind him. Those involved in the U.S. Department of Education should be the one's getting the blame for this. The no child left behind act seemed to just push kids through the system as well. Teachers also did not have much freedom to teach as they pleased because they now had to teach specifically for these standardized tests the students needed to take and do well on.
As far as kids having to learn things they do not want to, it’s a part of life. Even in college you take general education classes that you could care less about. If people do not like it that much, try and makes changes when you're older so kids will not have to go through the same stuff you did.
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