As our country continues to face worldwide problems economically, socially, and environmentally it makes perfect sense to be concerned with our future. However, this concern could be turned into confidence if we were to focus more on education within our country. The education we provide today will be what sets us apart from other countries in the future. A possible solution proposed by President Bush in 2001 was the infamous “No Child Left Behind Act.” NCLB aims to improve the performance of primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of states, school districts, and teachers. At first this sounds like an ideal program but here has been much controversy about NCLB because of its inability to test all students equally. Many individuals believe that teachers are now “teaching for the test.” Curriculums are no longer focusing on what is needed to be successful in life, but rather are focusing strictly on what is needed to be proficient in terms of NCLB. By doing this, we are lowering the standards for many students who are naturally above proficient. Our government needs to stray from the idea that everyone should be the same. We shouldn’t be trying to reach a happy medium. We should be looking at every student individually as a whole, not off of one test. If we are hiring highly qualified teachers like we are supposed to be doing it should be the teachers who are setting the standards and making improvements accordingly.
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Your voice here echoes so many others who fear that we've strayed too far into standards and accountability that we've forgotten the students themselves. This is not an easy issue for any leader to tackle - there are many, many school systems that were failing their students and NCLB was supposed to fix that. That is a noble ambition, to insure quality education for ALL students -- but ambition and execution are not the same here. As a leader, ask yourself...
1. How do we measure quality in education?
2. How do we afford quality in education?
3. Who should have the greatest authority in public school systems?
The history of special education in this country is a powerful example of local control being taken away from schools (in many cases, rightly so) but at what cost? You should attend a few school board meetings to witness local leadership that works for public education.
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