Study Says Student Reading and Math Scores Are Improving
Reader Comments
Teacher Accountability?
This a sore subject for me. I believe that teacher compentency is of utmost importance. However, NCLB is not the panacea for this purpose. Improved student acheivement includes many othe important factors, including stuudent intrinsic motivation, family values, and economic factors. Holding the teacher and schools exclusively responsible for studnt performance is an error in judgement. Additinally, NCLB put too much emaphasis on standardized test results to gauge accountability. This single-mided focus does not give a true picture of achievement, especially among special education students. This is borne out especially when there are federally guided mandates that requires these children to be exposed to grade-level instruction and assessments without realistically considering the actual academic functional and cognitive levels of many of this students. Some special education students do not necessarily fit into the NCLB mode. NCLB needs to be revamped to include a more realistic assessment approach than what is currently availbale. A viable assessment instrument for thse students must be multi-faceted and based on a student's growth over a given period of time, not an arbitrary test score that is primarily base on one standard measurement.
Our Brightest ARE Left Behind
This continuing trend of ignoring our best and brightest students must stop. Educators must have support to encourage LEARNING. School should not be about memorizing facts, it should be about helping students build a basis from which to continue learning throughout their lives. Our best and brightest are being ushered through school, their curiosity and need for explanation and discussion has been left by the wayside for memorization and testing. The NCLB act creates a serious hole in an educational system so far behind the times that it is actually harming our country as a whole rather than assisting in our country's development.
math
why do students study math?
Despite No Child Left Behind, educators and states' efforts are making a difference
The following statement can be attributed to NEA President Reg Weaver:
"The report seems to confirm that despite six years of being saddled with the fundamentally flawed and overly prescriptive federal No Child Left Behind law, educators, school administrators and local school districts are making a difference in increasing student achievement.
"Imagine what would happen to student test scores if educators and local school districts didn't have to teach in the test, label and punish regime established under NCLB. Think for a second about what would happen if the law didn't force educators to view students as standardized test scores.
"The American public is ready for a new era in K-12 education, one that prepares all students for success with 21st century skills and the critical knowledge to succeed in our changing world, and gives educators the freedom to teach every child."
Hold on to your hat; beware of spin forced winds
Where is mention of the Fordham Foundation , High Achievers in an Era of NCLB"?
It shows the meager gains of the top performers in comparison o the much more ample gains of the bottom performers via NCLB. Are we closing an achievement gap by stifling the top and NCLB boasts? A new name for this act could be America;s Children Left Behind! Do not trust Education Trust.
Contrary evidence ignored
While the CEP study is commendable for its restraint in assigning causality to the trends it purports to have found, the trends themselves are in considerable doubt. As I point out on the Cato Institute blog, (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/06/24/conflicting-data-what-conflicting-data/) the CEP study ignores evidence of statistically significant declines in US student achievement on international tests since 2000/2001. Furthermore, the CEP study fails to acknowledge what is widely known and well documented: the modest upward trends in some NAEP test scores actually predate the passage of NCLB by several years, and in some cases the rate of improvement has actually slowed since the law was passed. Finally, the sort of high-stakes state-level tests also discussed in the CEP study are generally viewed as hopelessly corrupt and invalid measures of student progress over time.
Given the conflicting results of the reliable and nationally representative tests (NAEP, PISA, PIRLS), it cannot be said that US achievement has been improving under NCLB, so there is in fact no need to ascribe causality one way or the other.
