No Child Left Behind Concept Essay

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One of the most damaging results of the NCLB program was the way that many schools began focusing on standardized test preparation through drilling instead of on substantive academic subjects (Sonnenblick, 2008). In many states, educators began devoting inappropriate amounts of time to preparing students to perform well on the state-wide tests while neglecting their primary academic purpose of teaching. Unfortunately, the increased attention to reading, writing, and arithmetic necessarily reduced the amount of time available for other subjects; it also increased reliance on passive learning, rote memorization, and testing mechanics (Sonnenblick, 2008).

Meanwhile, the weight of contemporary educational research suggests that the exact opposite approach to education is what is necessary to increase student interest and achievement in school. Namely, the key to improving modern education lies in expanding the range of subject matter and the spectrum of human cognitive intelligence beyond the traditional narrow focus on linguistic intelligence and symbolic logic (Schroeder & Spannagel, 2006). Likewise, modern educational theorists have reached a consensus that the traditional model of public education based on passive learning primarily from lectures and textbook assignments is much less effective than more active, hands-on teaching methods. In particular, the more inquiry-based active learning methods are much more conducive to promoting and cultivating student interest in scientific and other technical fields (Schroeder & Spannagel, 2006).

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By comparison, critics of the NCLB program have argued that the Texas data upon which the Bush administration relied so heavily in justifying NCLB were scientifically flawed at best and deliberately deceptive at worst (Murray, 2006). At the state and local level, several high-profile instances have come to light where teachers purposely drilled their classes using actual questions from the scheduled state examination; in other instances, teachers had actually changed the answers of students on scoring sheets to help maintain satisfactory ratings for the school (darling-Hammond, 2004).

Conclusion

There is no question that the quality of American public education needs improvement on a national scale. However, the NCLB initiative is not capable of achieving that objective. Instead of promoting greater interest in academics by presenting broader subject matter NCLB narrows the focus of educators even further; instead of increasing the attention available to cultivate academic interest among students with diverse intellectual talents, NCLB emphasizes only linguistic skills and mathematics. Similarly, the NCLB program discourages creative teaching or increased incorporation of more active and intellectually stimulating types of learning environments. It reduces teaching to test-taking coaching and gives educators more incentive to worry about what is good for their schools instead of what is good for students.

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