According to the American Federation of Teachers, since the law's enactment, the Bush administration has underfunded NCLB by $70.9 billion.
How so? What programs are underfunded. Specifics would be nice. Say there is a shortage of books? Is NCLB budgeted to fund books? Or is that the usual strawman?
Teachers are forced to teach to the lowest common denominator and for the goal of performing well on a test.
Is that what you do?
How so? What programs are underfunded. Specifics would be nice. Say there is a shortage of books? Is NCLB budgeted to fund books? Or is that the usual strawman?
Well, specifics will come out when Obama cleans house, Bt.
Is that what you do?We are pressured now to raise test scores. It's not the system of the past. I might add.....we are pressured to make %. Daily, weekly, and monthly. Then we are "pressured" to make those %'s each trimester. The very tests we give are not spelled out in the NCLB act, but they are a result of the 'encouragement' if you will, of the act itself.
Our district has mandated what and how we are to teach and assess children both in reading and math. Teaching has become a one size fits all nightmare. Why? Somewhere in that loophole of an act there lies your answer. Obama knows is, and now I see first hand that there are teachers in the country who see that this NCLB act is a complete rip off for kids. I live it!
Reading; In our district, we are mandated to teach reading (and math) using a scripted program for 90 minutes a day- to all students at the same time no matter the child?s individual reading level. K-5. Kindergarten? Be darned early childhood education. Those ?kinders? sit for 90 minutes chanting letters! Why? we demand that they read! But, at what cost? Same for the other grades. If a child can not read at grade level, we have to give them a quick bite instruction and assess them using "grade level" tests.
Again, that's not what used to be the case. We spent time on all children. We taught them at their level, according to how they learn, methodology was supreme. Now, it's one size fits all...brought to you by Houghton Mifflin or Harcort Brace. That is a direct result of the reading first grant, which comes from the NCLB ACT.
We used to have the time to teach the individual child at his/her level (differentiated instruction) as well as assess students in order to drive instruction. Currently, we are ?mandated? to teach these specific research-based basal program using
their script (a map of sorts). The worst part of these state mandates (offspring of Fed mandates) is that we are given VERY little time for differentiated instruction. Money would be well spent on fixing this particular problem.
We test so frequently that there is no time to teach. Scores, scores, and higher scores. The pressure comes from the ACT, BT. Children are falling farther behind. I believe that the punitive actions are doing more harm that good. Children are losing out on so much in terms of receiving well rounded education.
So, when Obama is president, I have hope that he will NOT ignore this problem.
