Has No Child Left Behind gone too far?

Republicans are unbelievably cynical and stupid - to push anything as dreary, Soviet and horrid as NCLB!! I think you'll also find that somebody in the Bush family produces textbooks for all this too.

Mostly NCLB was a disguised way of destroying the public schools so they could sell their nasty, elitist little private schools to the country. Notice that Bush had a program of vouchers that went along with this NCLB scam.

It's too bad there's republicans!

The main problem with NCLB was that the states got to decide what the standards were. In an extreme case, a state could claim that 95% of students were reading at grade level or better, when in reality they were barely reading at all. Same thing with math. And yes, giving a standardized test to kindergartners is more than ridiculous. Kindergarten is designed for teaching little ones how to get along with each other and how to follow simple verbal directions, plus learning their colors and other things which are preparatory for the first grade.

And another thing: after 9/11 the Bush Administration shifted its focus from 'No Child Left Behind' to 'No Terrorist Left Behind', so the program did not receive the support it should have.

I had the same exact reaction you did when I first heard about them

However:

In Georgia, the kids don't fill out the test, the teachers do. That doesn't mean that the teacher sits and asks the kids 300 questions and fills in bubbles. It means that the teacher gives the students certain things to do throughout the year (point on the square, color the circle red, ect), and fills out the test for each student based on those performances.

They also include things like social behavior in this.

Whether it's effective, I don't know. I do agree that we have WAAAAAAY to many standardized tests in schools now. When the entire second semester of a high school has to be set up around standardized tests, it should be incredibly clear that things have gone too far.

again, not saying the tests in K are good things.. just that they are a different kind of test. (or at least the ones in my state are)

Who knows where you information is coming from but NCLB was funded in Washington as a Pilot Program to see if it made a difference if the kids learned more under public schools or school choice.

To date the facts came out last week that the kids who had school choice were about 2 years ahead of the public schools they used to attend.

Since 1 week ago The Obama Administration Scrapped the program and now the kids all the way up through 12th grade have to leave their school and go back to the failed public school system.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste to the public education system ran and controlled by failed liberal teachers.

First off, the fed should not be sticking its nose where the states should reign. Second, NCLB is ludicrous. Children as so different & excel & fail in such a variety of encironments that schools would be best served taking care of the middle of the bell ccurve & let parents deal with the extremities. Trying to help[ that last 2 or 3 percent is a detriment to the rest.

I think NCLB has gone to far. It started out okay, but now it is overpowering. I think it should start to be reeled in, and quieted. I do not think it should be obliterated, though. Definitely not.

Why would they give standardized tests to kindergartners??? What is the point?

How could the possibly help children not fall behind?? If anything, it would generate stress in their poor little minds, and hurt them.

Our whole school system has gone too far. We include in classrooms children who disrupt the class so those 5% have opportunity, but this takes opportunity away from the 95%. We have special classes and teachers for mental and physically retarded children many of whom can not benefit from that education. That is money and teachers that is taken away from the same 95%. We protect incompetent teachers from losing there jobs, which means they are in our classrooms and the students suffer. We spend more money on tests, administration on overhead which takes money away from that 95%.

We should go to the african method of one teacher under a tree with 20 students. I think the progress would be amazing.

If there are no relatives willing to keep the baby, it goes into foster care. I think if a pregnant woman is doing something that breaks the law, she should be incarcerated like any other person. She went into that crime knowing she was pregnant and the possibility of going to jail. I watched a show on mothers in prison. There is a jail somewhere, I can't remember where, that has a wing dedicated to mothers who keep their child in there with them. I think it's only until they are 2 years old. There is a nursery, staffed nurses 24/7, etc. I don't even know what my opinion of that is.

I totally agree with you... my son is in kindergarten i think they push way over the limit... there are 15 students in my childs class , five attended pre-school and ten didn't so they had to start learning from scratch... I think the standarized testing is making the teacher push the kids harder and put more stress on the little 5 and 6 year olds.... even older children are extremly stressed during testing time -which is this week in my county- I feel like it became more of a race between schools on who would score higher and I just don't agree with.

I agree with you that NCLB is an epic fail. That said, my kids' school does not administer standardized tests to kindergarten students and they're in a public school system. Maybe it's a state thing?