Conformity vs. Individuality State education and student individuality are what causes much tension in public schools. Schools want to achieve the same goal of producing a good student, but through what means? Are mandatory classes going to teach students to think for themselves of how to blend in with conformity and obey authority? It is in the schools best interest to balance these ideas and not lean towards only one, and not have a school only based on conformity or individuality, but should balance both. Mandatory classes are used to set a basic system and to set standard classes for everyone, since everyone must learn the same things such as math, reading, and science.
Students have to take standardized tests, in which all the students have to meet a certain standard. What makes No Child Left Behind complicated are schools not being able to meet the needs of the Adequate Yearly Progress year after year, which forces schools to go on school improvement. For every year that a school is on school improvement, there are a lot of criteria that must be met. One reason that schools fail to succeed to meet the needs of Adequate Yearly Progress are the subpopulations: minority children, children with disabilities, children with limited English proficiency, and children from low-income families. Although they are taught to the test, these students have no special modifications while taking the test, which causes numbers to drop on the Adequate Yearly Progress report.
That means that out of a school of a thousand students, around 10 or nine students are on the Autism Spectrum Disorder; but that doesn’t include those other children with other different disabilities. Parents, educators and mentors expect for children to learn to read, write, and solve mathematical problem; and when children fail to do this adults become alarmed. The failure for a child to pay attention is also cause for concern. Many professionals, experts, educators and parents are working together to help children with disabilities succeed in life. Like many other, PBS designed ‘Misunderstood Minds’ to help teachers and parents
Standardized Testing and How it Impacts Children Standardized testing first appeared with the acceptance of the No Child Left Behind Act. This act was intended to uphold public schools to an extraordinary standard of education, measured by students’ scores in the statewide standardized tests. However, many faults exist with current standardized testing, that could hinder children’s educational growth and also inhibit the growth of a school district itself. Some of the faults found with standardized testing include increased pressure on schools and children, inaccurate measurements of learning, “teaching to the test”, loss of instruction time, score manipulation, cultural bias found in standardized tests, delay in return of test results, and
Teachers and administrators recognize, of course, that children bring a plethora of issues with them to the classroom these days...drugs, gangs, violence, family dissolution and stress, financial hardship, and social discrepancy. There are other factors which place children at-risk as well. The number of minority and limited-English-proficiency children in schools is on the rise. We have to do all we can to help these new students, but some teachers feel very ill-prepared to do that. Schools get labeled as failing when they can get all students to the level that the state says they need to be.
While there are several “rags to riches” stories that serve to encourage the members of the lower class to work hard and achieve their dreams, much truth lies in the fact that the government does not provide enough opportunities for them to do so. I would recommend revising the school choice provision of the No Child Left Behind Act in order to enable the mobility of students to schools located outside of their district. By doing so, many of the children within the working class would have the option to attend a school where they could receive the same opportunities as those of their high-born
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
Now, as a college student preparing to become an elementary teacher and as mother preparing to place my children into a public school system, I’m fully realizing the injustice that is standardized testing. There are seemingly few accurate advantages to a process that takes away so much from our teachers and students. The tests are a poor measurement of knowledge and growth, and have become the major focus in all schools, leaving what should be the most important factor of education, the children, out of the
What are the teachers’ roles? And what are the strengths and pitfalls? The “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001”, was reauthorized to be a program to improve the public school system in order to help children who were
This act is right along with the national standards and testing that is considered every students right to achieve their goals in school. I think that each student and the student’s parents are responsible for making sure the student passes the test that will move him or her along. Some will argue that the government is trying to control the education of our children by passing a law that states that if your child does not pass the annual test that he or she would have to retake the test until they pass it. Parents often feel politicians in Washington have no understanding of local conditions and needs. Even though the states assess the progress of the students by their test scores the assessments vary from state to state.