Theoretically, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was constructed for the overall betterment of public school students and was to serve as a means to raise academic standards, close achievement gaps and encourage more accountability onto parents, teachers and students. In reality, NCLB impairs the quality of teaching by forcing instructors to emphasize on raising test scores by teaching to the test rather than focusing on the individual needs and learning abilities of children and encourage meaningful learning. It also does the complete opposite of its initial goals by widening the gap between socioeconomic classes due to the difficulty of test which has caused many students to subsequently fail.
By definition, standards are a level of quality or excellence that is accepted as the norm or by which actual attainments are judged. According to the Educational Research Newsletter & Webinars, by imposing standards on students’ minds we are, in effect, depriving them of their fundamental intellectual freedom by applying one standard set of knowledge. Standardized tests oversimplify knowledge and do not test higher-order thinking skills. These mandatory assessments cannot work unless teachers understand and accept the philosophical underpinnings of standards. One-size-fits-all standards either dumb down instruction to the lowest common denominator or condemn low-ability students to frequent failure.
The common influx of information ingested by students is usually memorized where the majority of the material retained does not transfer into their long-term memory. Scientists have concluded that the key ingredient that facilitates long-term storage is meaningfulness which refers to the degree to which it can be related to information already stored and learning it in a meaningful context. Students are no longer being allowed to test their curiosity; being forced to recall certain information becomes exhausting and a bore. How does this effect students in the long-term once they’ve reached high school and college? Does this encourage students to continue to cram information rather than truly understanding and appreciating the information retained? How does this method measure intelligence and what does this really say about students and teachers?
http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy6/edpsy6_long.htm
