What do you think about the No Child Left Behind Law which has generated much controversy in Arizona and around the nation?
Tuesday marks the 6th anniversary of President Bush signing The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) -- the main federal law affecting education from kindergarten through high school.
NCLB is built on four principles: accountability for results, more choices for parents, greater local control and flexibility, and an emphasis on doing what works based on scientific research.
NCLB however has been the target of much controversy in Arizona and across the nation. Congress is considering a major overhaul of the law and there are many proposals being considered.
For more information, please see:
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings visited leaders in Arizona to talk about NCLB: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2007/04/04022007.html
Arizona Department of Education: http://www.ade.az.gov/asd/
Forum on Educational Accountability: www.edaccountability.org
Commission on No Child Left Behind: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/b.938015/k.40DA/Commiss...
U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml
National Education Association: http://www.nea.org/esea/index.html
Education Week: http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/no-child-left-behind/
Lori Baker is mom to two daughters, 21 and 23 years old. She is
editor for the Valley and State section's Education and Environment pages in the Arizona Republic.
As I understand it NCLB also
As I understand it NCLB also included an allowance for armed service recruiters to access to your childs contact information, unless you opt out.
I am not an educator, but my friends and family that are do not think NCLB betters education.
Lovemy4 is a discussion leader for North Central Phoenix, tired mother of 4 great kids and wife to one great husband.
I think that NCLB has
I think that NCLB has unfairly put schools under a lot of pressure, especially when it comesto ESL students. With such a high ESL population in our state, our schools getting under perfroming labels because they can't pass the tests required. Then there's the problem of special needs students. Our state does a decent job of educating special needs kids, but there are no provisions for them to test. When they don't take the required tests, the schools get punished. That's terribly unfair! There needs to be exceptions for students who are not typical learners.
I moved here from another
I moved here from another state and have found myself researching schools for my daughter who will be starting soon.
Where I'm from you didn't really have to choose and aside from specific teachers there wasn't a problem w/ schools in general. You went to the public school in your neighborhood or you paid for private school. That is it.
Here is what I've found...
There are three schools in our area we looked at here...
Hern Academy
Valley Academy
Constitution Elementary
Both Hern and Valley are “Excelling” and Constitution is performing.
Constitution received 61% on 3rd grad Aims reading test and about the same on the math, they got 37% on the terra nova reading and about the same on math.
Hern got 82% on the aims reading and about the same on math, and about 63% on the terra nova test.
Valley got 96% on the aims, and 74 on the terra nova tests.
Ok, here comes the clincher…
Constitution percentage of kids learning English 36%
60% of constitution’s students are Hispanic and 30% are white.
Hern percentage of kids learning English 0%
17% Hispanic population, 74% white
Valley percentage of kids learning English 0%
10% Hispanic population, 71% white.
I find that very amazing. The number say a lot about about a very complicated problem that legislation has tried to solve with the no child left behind act.