This chapter mainly talks about the “No Child Left Behind Act”. Aside from the obvious purpose this act serves as given in the name, it’s objective is to improve the academic excellence of every child. One way to approach it as the chapter mentions is giving out a standard curriculum where teachers must follow when teaching the class. The problem with that is the government did not think about the students’ needs when coming up with this plan. Just thinking about the idea is going to work where one standard curriculum is given out to all schools already sounds bizarre. How is it possible when every student has different paces in learning? Students do not learn at the same rate because some students might be able to grasp the concepts quicker while others might not. To show how this is ineffective, when I was in high school, my math teacher was teaching at a very fast pace and some students weren’t getting the concepts. When students asked questions to get a better understanding, the teacher kept telling us to see her after class because we had to go through everything that was going to be in the final exam. In the end, students failed the regents. Once again, the idea is to provide an equal education opportunity for every student, but the outcome seems to hurt our education. Most importantly, students future.
The government needs to involve the students into their decision making, because that is the heart of the problem. I do not think it is solely the structure that is at fault, but it’s due to the lack of understanding how students can be taught that can get them to enjoy what they are learning. When thinking about why we are failing to reach the goals in the education system, almost every reason leads to the problems in students’ learning. As we all know, their environment and people around them influence students. Sadly it influences the government as well. Government are funding based on the excellence of the school, meaning if one school does better than another, then they will get a larger funding. This reflects on a students learning. Here they are saying that they want to provide an equal opportunity for every student, but how is that possible when schools that are in lower income neighborhoods are receiving less funding. Therefore, do you think equal funding and the “No Child Left Behind” Act go hand in hand?
Another focus that the chapter mentions is how success is determined by the exams. I disagree with that mentality completely. I do not agree with the Idea that if a student scores high in an exam, he or she fully understands the material that was taught. Basing the students intelligence to scores, takes away the purpose of education. Disagree if one feels differently, but I think the purpose of education is to learn, to take in important information that can help one towards a better understanding and future. However, this cannot be achieved if the focus is mainly on a student’s scores. In today’s society, students only care about getting a good grade. They know that the higher their grades are, the more opportunities will be provided to them. This mentality will cause a Negative impact in America’s education system and it shows. The government constantly tries to come up with new ideas and leaving the problems alone. What they need to do is to use the money that is spent on these new ideas to help fix the problems. Do you think that the problems that our education system has are too big to be resolved?
