Many Children Left Behind How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging our Children and our schools. Authors Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, Linda Darling-Hammond, Theodore R. Sizer, & George Wood Presentation by: Kelly Lambert, Marty McKenzie, & Melissa Fulton
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Many Children Left BehindHow the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging our
Children and our schools.
Authors Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, Linda Darling-Hammond, Theodore
R. Sizer, & George Wood
Presentation by: Kelly Lambert, Marty McKenzie, & Melissa Fulton
“Free public schooling has long been the primary engine for social and economic health and for individual social mobility. America’s economic, social, and moral strength still depends on it. As the culture changes, the shape of “public education” should change with it, but in a way that always keeps the public in “public education” secure.” P. XVII – XVIII
Theodore R. SizerBooks include:•Secondary Schools at the Turn of the Century (1964)•Places for Learning, Places for Joy (1973)•Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (1984)•Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School (1992)•Horace's Hope: What Works for the American High School (1997)•The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract (1999, co-authored with Nancy Sizer)•The Red Pencil: Convictions From Experience in Education (2004)
The Authors
George Wood•Executive director of the Forum for Education and Democracy
•Principal of Federal Hocking High School
Part One: NCLB’s effects on Classrooms and
Schools
Part One: NCLB’s Effects on Classrooms and Schools
Chapter 1 overviewChapter 2 overview
•NCLB sets an unrealistic goal for school systems. It then sets out to punish those that can meet that goal by reducing or removing federal funding and making the school provide services that require funds they do not have.
•Low performing schools tend to be located in high poverty areas. These schools are typically underfunded. Therefore, they are at a big disadvantage.
•NCLB does not create an equitable system for these schools. Every school is expected to perform on a high level regardless of socio-economic status and the specific issues that accompany them.•Many states have abandoned critical thinking to be able to meet testing standards
•The more diverse a school is, the more AYP goals that school must meet.
•AYP does not take into account student growth. A student can make considerable growth and still fail in the eyes of this mandate.
•Now there are considerably less school districts. This means that a good majority of the ones that are in place are large and very corporate in nature. The public is not as active and prominent in these large organizer. This has lead to a disconnect from the public and the individuals that run the school systems.
•The lack of ability to meet the unreasonable standards of NCLB has lead to a push to privatize education. Many believe privatization of education might be the underlying motive of the NCLB supporters.
•NCLB needs to be transformed into a supportive law that truly promotes improvement and backs that up with the funds and support that is needed.
•The principles that accountability should rest upon:
•Shared vision and goals, adequate resources used well, participation and democracy, prioritizing goals, multiple forms of evidence, inclusion, improvement, equity, balance bottom-up and top-down, and interventions.