No Child Left Behind, setting a standard. Options

[Melissa]

(it was a thing for my university writing class that got me kind of interested in this and what other people think about it)

For those who don't know, the No Child Left Behind act was introduced by our very dear president George W. Bush as a way to end the "soft bigotry of low expectation" mainly in reference to minority groups and students who come from "dysfunctional and impoverished environments." It sets a standard for each grade for what should have been learned in reading, math, and science and progress is measured by what everyone in public school should have taken at some point in time - standardized tests.

One problem with this is that people are arguing that schools aren't really teaching for the sake of learning anymore - they're teaching students to simply pass a test.

Dolores Umbridge ( ): “It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examinations, which after all, is what school is all about.”

John Newman also talked about students becoming "test-taking machines" and that everything they learn to take these tests are forgotten immediately after.

That aside, there are a lot of schools that don't meet the standard and are in danger of losing their funding. People are also arguing that this system is only perpetuating what it's trying to stop. Studies show that Hispanics and Blacks typically do worse in the standardized tests and because of this, their schools lose funding.

Obviously, there are some serious flaws in the NCLB act - but at the same time, there should be a standard, right? We can't just let anyone graduate to the next grade.

Okay, so I'm pretty much cheating a little bit since I'm supposed to lead a 30-min discussion in class about this next Monday with my group. I'm pretty much using this debate forum to get ideas about what other people's viewpoints are on this. If it's not really a debate, you can move this to the lounge.

What I'm basically asking is for people to discuss these following ideas:
Does the NCLB act work? Do we need it? If not, what is a better system to follow?

Also, a lot of people seem to think that a child's future is mainly dependent on their parents. If his or her parents don't have anything higher than a HS degree, chances are they he or she wont, even with a NCLB act in place. I highly disagree with this statement, but the other members in my group agree with it completely, so different viewpoints on this would also be great.

Go!