No Child Gets Ahead
January 27th, 2008Otherwise called the No Child Left Behind Act which Bush signed early in his first term, this piece of crap legislation insures that we have a bunch of kids bored out of their mind. The more creative the kid, the more bored.
What it is - schools have to pass tests. So the schools simply teach kids to pass these stupid tests instead of a well-rounded education. You want boring, one dimensional kids? Well, support the No Child Gets Ahead.
So, if the school’s test scores aren’t too good, they drop anything interesting. Gone are the music, art, shop, Gifted education, or anything else that actually nourishes the soul. In their places are basics, over and over again, and of course ESL for the children of our illegals who consume $17 billion annually in tax money to educate.*
I was already bored out of my mind in high school. Geez, glad I’m not a young one today. I’d go nuts. Critics of No Child Gets Ahead specifically mention that the kids this dumb ass act hurts the most are the ones with intelligence, you know, the kids that will actually create JOBS in the future. That’s just great for our already bad economy.
We don’t need more tests. We need a well-rounded education. We need school to be interesting, and the last thing kids need are more tests. Heck, ask them.
If I were running this country, I’d immediately repeal this crap. Kids should graduate with ideally knowing all seven continents, all four oceans, at least rudimentary foreign language skills, some musical and/or artistic knowledge, and a blue collar skill. That’s on top of knowing how to read and write and ideally passing one semester of Algebra. Plus, they should know the Bill of Rights, which are Ten Rights, not nine.
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Source: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
They also need life skills. They need to know how to balance a checkbook and how to be on time. You need to know life skills. If you can’t balance your checkbook, you’re screwed.
yes, my son is a casualty of this shitty piece of legislation. he’s incredibly bright and creative and used to love learning. i mean the kid drew maps of the 50 states and labeled the capitals for fun. taught himself square roots and square facts, for fun…but he sits in school bored out of his mind, shackled to a desk (the disservice we do to boys in school is a whole different matter but just as significant.) i’ve watched excellent curricula gutted in favor of teaching to the test.
as for gifted education schools are still legally required to provide that because it actually falls under special education which is covered by federal law. the thing is they are artificially inflating the standards and criteria for giftedness though so they aren’t required to provide for as many students. the kids on the opposite end of the spectrum have to be remediated so they can pass the damned tests. the school figure the gifted kids are shoe ins so they don’t need to bother. it’s infuriating.
Ditto Kate with the life skills.
Did Bush get this from Blair?
We have something similar here and it’s a load of old codswallop!
I agree with you, Kate, and Lime. No Child Left Behind is yet another example of a man that should have never been entrusted with anything greater than a used car lot.
Kate - Those are excellent ideas. Balancing a checkbook is very important in life. That’s something some of us take for granted, but some folks just can’t do it.
Lime - I feel bad for your son. I used to love drawing maps as a kid. Then got to high school and was bored out of my mind. Now, twenty years later, it’s even more boring. I feel bad for kids these days. And yes, smart kids are taken for granted in school nowadays. I’m sure we agree on how they treat boys in school.
Miladysa - I don’t know who started it, if it was Bush or Blair. Both seem to be complete blockheads.
Beach - Agreed. How he got to be President, I have no idea. I never voted for him.
Right on Z. No Child Gets Ahead is accurate and it is painful for grandparents to watch.
Last week on Ellen, she had some young country singer (Kelly Pickler, perhaps) who had gone on the show “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” The answer was no. The question was “What country is Budapest the capital of?” (Probably in correct grammatical structure, unlike mine.) This girl didn’t have a freaking clue. “I thought Budapest was a country.” Dear heavens, lets teach some geography in this country!!
I agree with you. The No Child Left Behind Act is pure idiocy. But then again, it was put forward by a complete idiot, so what do we expect?
I always got the sense that schools used the legislation as an excuse to take away things like art and phys ed instead of embracing the idea that they needed to do a better job. If I were running a school, I would take it that way: a challenge. Still, I’m not there and I don’t know for sure.
Hey there. You know that is part of why Jeff walked out of school our senior year and besides getting into a fight a teacher.
There should be some way to make sure that schools are doing a good job, but NCLB ain’t it!
I agree with Scott, we need accountability from our schools, not the schools helping the kids cheat on the NCLB tests.
Granny Annie - Not just Grandparents.
Kathleen - I wonder if our President knows the answer to that one.
Scott - Art and Physical Education were 2 of my favorite subjects too.
Tweetey - I can’t blame him. I almost dropped out twice. I hated school until I got to college.
Tshsmom - They just teach kids to pass the tests, nothing more. That’s how bad it’s gotten.
Why is it always the responsibility of the parents who care and prepare their children to make sure the kids of the parents who don’t care are taken care of too? It seems like this bleeds over into society as well. Where the hell do you think these slacker kids are going to go when they grow up? Into society, so we can take care of them.
Ben O.
You know you two would get along great. I know you have talked on the phone but if we ever meet in real person before or after a packer game if you ever get up here…. We will all get along. Oh by the way I now have the whole set to Harry Potter…
ZS, the situation’s the same, perhaps a bit worse, here in the Great White North. My little bro is a victim (at age 52) of being bored stiff by the school ’system’. He resorted to many challenging activities, the kind you smoke, as a consequence. It’s damaging his health (mental and physical) to this day. I am certain that if we had not moved here, his life would have been far better. We even have the one room schoolhouses up here! One teacher for two grades in the same room! No streaming for advanced or delayed kids. Can you imagine the chaos?? Plus the teachers are forced by admin to pass students even if they can’t read or multiply (mathematically that is).
Argh. Glad I wasn’t educated here in grade school. If I had been, I”d be working at MacDonald’s.
Hey come to think of it……
BIG THUMBS UP!
My son is one of those bored kids. He is a junior in a high school that already has been determined to be failing in reaching target grades and graduation. He is also a genius in the literal meaning of the word, having an IQ so high I need a telescope to see it.
He needs to be challenged and at the same time find school interesting. Neither happens because they have to set the curriculum at a level all the other kids, who 33% by the way are still learning English, can learn. So my son is screwed.
Another thing they ought to do in all schools is during high school have a work ethics class. Teach these kids about pride in work, showing up on time, doing your best. To pass this class they would be required to go work in some pisshole job, doing manual labor 8 hours a day for a week. Then they might have the burning desire to get that education so they won’t end up doing that work for the rest of their lives. As it is they have no idea of what the real world is like and when they graduate and enter it, it slaps them in the face and they can’t handle it.
Just my two and a half cents…(inflation)