An exasperated Florida teacher takes her students to task in a Sun-Sentinel opinion piece:
...what is most interesting under the No Child Left Behind Act is this tidbit about accountability: "No Child Left Behind holds schools and school districts accountable for results. Schools are responsible for making sure your child is learning." Schools are responsible, yet it seems low-performing schools have fewer and fewer resources to help promote learning gains.As a teacher, I think the goal of increasing student achievement has much merit. However, we good teachers beat our heads against walls day-in, day-out trying to get our students to grasp not just the standards and benchmarks, but also the importance of reinforcing their education with homework and reading. When I tell students they have to do independent reading, they groan. I actually had an advanced student, when told the School Board expected students to read a new book every two weeks, ask, "Don't they think we have lives?"
The more important word in the phrase "student achievement" is "student." Until the students take responsibility for their own learning, test scores will not improve....
I don't think I would have been able to get away with the "Don't you think I have a life?!" argument in high school.
I'm sensing a link between this teacher's aggravation and this parent's downplaying of the importance of science:
With the single goal of boosting standardized test results, a third year of science will now be required for all incoming freshmen (Class of 2010) at Paso Robles High School. This is the latest action in a continuing trend to force students into academic courses regardless of ability, strengths or interests. While added courses can be a good thing, this change comes at the expense of electives and vocational programs. Many parents and teachers feel that such a reduction of electives will have a negative impact on all students.All students need a curriculum rich in sensory opportunities, with a chance to do, play and move, and opportunities to learn teamwork, discipline, leadership and hands-on skills. There is not a test score out there that measures this kind of learning, but watching our performing arts students, I, for one, know success when I see it!
...student enrollment in courses such as art, drama, music, life skills, social studies and vocational programs will drop considerably with this change. Inevitably, Paso Robles schools will begin to lose their very qualified and dedicated teachers as well.
Let me get this straight - the entire school is going to go down the tubes just because now students will have to take earth sciences, biology, and chemistry? Are you kidding me? Has it really been announced that all the elective courses are now cancelled because one more science course is required? And has it also been announced that the work in the additional science course is utterly contrary to discipline, hands-on learning, teamwork, and all the other concepts this author believes are important?
Visual and Performing Arts classes are beneficial to high-schoolers - but so is science. I'm failing to understand why, at this high school of all high schools, the two are considered to be in opposition to one another.
Posted by kswygert at December 20, 2005 09:11 AM