No Child Left Behind
There is a petition available that you can sign showing your support for the dismantling of the No Child Left Behind act. If you would like to view/sign this petition, you can find it here.
I’ve separated this page apart from my normal blog posts so that it doesn’t get lost in the archives. As I find great links to share regarding NCLB, I’ll post them here. Further down, I’ll also post some great quotes I’ve found by some of the folks who have already signed the petition.
Links to NCLB Articles and Commentary:
- Protesting No Child Left Behind
- No Dentist Left Behind - a very witty analogy of applying the NCLB to dentists, and what the outcome would be. Written by John Taylor, retired superintendent of schools in Lancaster, S.C.
Quotes from petition signers:
“Education” comes from the Latin “educere,” which means “bring out.” Not force, cram, or otherwise dictate. Learning should be a fluid, natural process unique to each child dependent on their interests and their personal rate of learning.
–Geneva Anne Dillow
NCLB replaces learning with accountability. Accountability is merely a method of reporting indoctrination progress. Education worth the name puts learning first.
–Eric Crump
It is getting more difficult to recruit creative and thoughtful teachers into the profession when we can only promise them a career of following scripted curricula and working under pressure felt from the superintendent on down to the students.
– Anne Ginnold
NCLB is designed to obliterate critical thinking, the very thing we need to keep our country strong! No more MacLearning.
– Doris Maha
I believe Ms. Maha meant “McLearning”, in reference to McDonald’s. One size fits all, drive-thru education? Yep, that pretty much describes NCLB. McLearning it is.
NCLB is only concerned with short term standardized results. What happened to lifelong learners who are able to think critically? NCLB is creating a generation of children who are learning that the right answer is all that matters.
– Yasmin Sitabkhan
I am a teacher and have observed first hand the injustice of NCLB. Many students lose confidence and become frustrated with education. What is even sadder, is that I am speaking of elementary school students. I am a teacher, let me teach!
– Guadalupe Chavez
The students I have the honor of teaching this semester are so complex — and delightful in their complexity. What is delightful about the art of teaching is working with students and encouraging the whole learning community to use the imagination to create, recreate the self and the community of learners. Teaching is the art of empowering young people from within. One cannot base a whole child/young person — dire I say it — human being — on such a bill. NCLB disenfranchises students, teachers, school systems, and on. Students end up with such a narrow view of the possibilities of this wonderful life. NCLB does not offer opportunity; rather, the student is relegated to a single number, single tasks, and tasks with rules without a living context. John Dewey said education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. NCLB doesn’t prepare young people for life, and certainly, education has become so far removed from life itself, discouraging imagination and promoting education as drudgery.
– Anna M. Ragghanti-Crowe
What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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