According to a USA Today editorial, “ Fine-tuning provisions to increase federal support and remove unreasonable demands could prompt more schools to strive to reach the law’s goals.” Some examples of these fine-tunings would be making tutoring available to students before they could transfer to a school that is not failing. Another example would be to revisit special education rules. The current law sets a goal of making sure that 90% of special education students learn at the same level as other students, which may be unrealistic. The opposition believes that the U.S. department of Education is making some accommodations but has failed to smooth out most of the bumps along the way which could help the nation reach its’ goal of a better
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), for example, aimed to “close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice so that no child is left behind” (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). A provision of this act, known as Choices for Parents, allows low-income parents to choose another public school for their child if the school that they currently attend has been labeled as “in need for improvement” for two or more consecutive years” (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). This provision may sound promising in the sense that it provides an alternative option for students who may not be receiving an adequate education but it does have its shortcomings. While the parents were given the option to move their children from one school to another, they were only permitted to move to a school within their district. This provision is ineffective because the majority of the schools under the same district suffer from the same inadequacies.
The next issue on board is that year round school would improve the social life of a student. a. Elaine Warrick-Harris says in her book (Childhood Educaiton) that families have more opportunities to take vacations during the off-season, so they can enjoy lower rates and less-crowded areas; though this may seem helpful some families this may lead to problems in families whose children are on different school calendars b. Since vacation times are staggered and may interfere with system-wide teacher training this can create stress by conflicting schedules will not depreciate the time a teacher is usually home with their family III. Finally the third problem that arises is cost for year round schooling a. Instead of nine months of cafeteria food for the kids it would be a year’s worth, this goes too for the electricity, and also the payroll of the teachers.
While using the revised school schedule, ‘Children have the advantage of not losing information over the long summer,’ says Judith Jackson, who holds the post of principal of Franconia Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia. ‘They retain all that and it's great… Teachers don't have to spend a month to six weeks reviewing.’ Jackson's school has been making use of a modified schedule for the past five years” (St. Gerard). To continue, here are my reasons year round school should be mandatory. Some may over lap but this means they are strong reasons in others opinions as well as
The neighborhoods where blacks and Hispanics live are made up of families where both parents usually work at lower wages to make ends meet. The children who live in these neighborhoods do not have the same advantages as those students who live in the more expensive suburbs. They are forced to attend the neighborhood public schools. Their parents would never be able to afford private schools or live in the suburbs. In Jonathan Kozol’s essay, Still Separate, Still Unequal, he writes “One of the most disheartening experiences for those who grew up in the years when Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall were alive is to visit public schools today that bear their names or names of other honored leaders of the integration struggles that produced the temporary progress that took place in the three decades after Brown v the Board of Education and to find out how many of these schools are bastions of contemporary segregation” (Kozol 240).
Helping these kids stay in school would deminish the issues in the future. Not getting their diploma would give them a higher potential to continue in the viscous cycle. "Congress established the McKinney Act’s Education of Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program in 1987 in response to reports that only 57% of homeless children were enrolled in school. The EHCY Program provides formula grants to state educational agencies to ensure that all homeless children and youth have equal access to the same free, appropriate education, including
One pitfall is teaching to the test, parents and teachers feels that the NCLB encourages, and rewards, teaching children to score well on the test, rather than teaching with a primary goal of learning. As a result, teachers are pressured to teach a narrow set of test-taking skills and a test-limited range of knowledge. A few more pitfalls are: problems with the standardized tests, teachers’ qualification standards, and failure to address the reason for lack of achievement just to name a few. This often resulted in teacher discouragement, role ambiguity, and superficial responses to administrative goals. A few strengths are: standards are set for teacher qualifications, NCLB emphasizes reading, writing, and math, and NCLB requires schools to focus on providing quality education to students who are often underserved, including children with disabilities, from low-income families, non-English speakers, as well as African-Americans and Latinos.
Kristi Polk Phi-105 April 12, 2015 Val Ierley Charter Schools Better then Public Schools When parents do not like the public school that their child goes to and they do not know what to do, but know they want the best for them, what do they do? As a parent, trying to find the best for them is right here. “Educators predict that the growth of charter schools will infuse completion into the public school, forcing traditional public schools to improve the practices they engage in to educate student,” (Davis, Dec 2013, p. 33). “Charter schools have existed for about 2 decades. The first charter school legislation was passed in Minnesota in 1991.” (Kelly, Andree, Aug 2012).
He wants the best education possible for the young people in America, and it starts with improving the k-12 education system. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that was passed could have been a success, but without the proper federal funding, the NCLB failed. Instead of tracking how students are doing by filling out standardized bubble tests, Obama plans on improving the tests for readiness in the workplace (The Blueprint for Change). He feels that schools that are struggling should not be punished for doing poor, but given extra attention to help improve the struggling areas. His plan includes helping teachers increase salary for mentoring younger teachers (The Blueprint for Change).
Therefore, instead of squandering federal money into programs that have ceased to end homelessness for the past 23 years, it would serve best to commence funding elsewhere, mainly educational programs and homeless awareness programs. If children learn of homeless prevention and the benefits of secondary education from an early age, they will be much more likely to reap the rewards of such education. Serious reform must take place within “The No Child Left Behind Act”, however. It is imperative that the United States break away from the traditional standardized test focused curriculum, shift focus their curriculums to critical thinking, and problem solving, using exams that require students to conduct research and scientific investigations, solve complex real-world problems and defend their ideas orally and in writing. Changes in education are directly tied in to how successful a child will be in school and thus out of school.