I am really sick of this "No Child left Behind BS"

I am sick to death of listening to the politicians and the news reporters talk about this so called "No Child left Behind " crap. Its crap, its always been crap, it will always be crap. The name of it should have been the "More crap from the politicians act" or the "No child left behind except yours act".

Somehow these political PINHEADS think that by teaching a test or a series of tests, then by measuring various factors they can use some magical algorithm to say whether or not a school, a school system or a teacher is any good. What a load of stinky smelly useless crap.

It is drivel to the highest degree.

I would venture to say that this single act has done more harm than good and I would also say that I would be hard pressed to say anything good could ever come of it. How are you going to be doing things "better" by taking funds away and by not measuring the same things in every school system ?

Look, here are my concerns and this is not even everything that is wrong with this stupidity, not even 25 % of what is wrong with it.

First - There is no such thing as a standardized test. Not one state uses the exact same curriculum or test as any other. So if you don't use the same test, then how do you rank the results? The answer is you do it arbitrarily. You assign a value that projects how you think the test in one area measures over the test in another area. No value is given to what really matters , which is the rate of increase or decrease in knowledge gained by students. The only value that really counts is the rate of increase or decrease in your students versus my students. Anyone even competent with logic or math will tell you if the variables are not the same they are not directly comparable. Anyone with any sense will tell you that people who already have high test scores will have a much more difficult time raising their scores when measured against a school with already low scores. What are these idiots measuring ?

Second - This act was approved into law and signed by the President (GWB) and took affect a lot of years ago. The paperwork requirements to meet the stringent requirements of this law are staggering. Everything from accounting for each paper copy of each test to individual assessments of each student are required to be tracked by this law. There are hundreds of individual elements that all require attorneys to interpret and tons of manpower for each school district to be able to meet the onerous requirements of the act. So ? You ask? So what? Well one tiny detail wasn't attended to. Congress mandated the law and mandated the requirements, and then didn't actually fund the implementation. Each school district has to pay for this crap on their own basically. Where do you think the money came from to make this happen?

Third - As soon as this law went into effect guess what happened. Funding for all extra curricular activities dried up. To be a cheer leader your kid has to have a car wash or sell candy to pay for it. Teachers worried about losing their jobs started teaching the test, and that is the emphasis of their day. No more creativity, no more passion, only worry about pensions. School districts started seeing the writing on the wall and began to measure the variables. Guess what happened next ? That's right, schools actually for the first time in history started encouraging students to drop out of high school or were encouraged to switch to adult schools. Why ? Because the students that were encouraged to quit were those who have a lower chance of graduation (thereby hurting the graduation rates), had a greater chance of dropping out , without a school plan (and it doesn't count as a dropout if you checked the box that says "Going to Adult School"), and most importantly these kids were the ones scoring the lowest on the tests, thereby hurting the districts improvement rates. So if you eliminate the kids who are hurting your rate, you have increased your rate haven't you?

So do me and everybody else a favor and the next time you want to tell me about how great the "No Child left behind act" is , save it and just shut up. You are lying to me and everybody else if you think this piece of crap has done anything for our children except make teachers fearful of losing their jobs and drove our educational problems deep underground.

If you are dumb enough to think it has done one bit of good, then I feel pretty sorry for you.

I also think you probably have what it takes to be President.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.
Join my face book group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888.

We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!