No Child Left Behind

[fanwuq]

State standards are incredibly low. It's difficult to fail them. If you don't know the stuff they are testing you on, then you are in bigger trouble than you think. For one state test I had, rather than answering the essay question, I complained about the errors in the test and wrote about how counterproductive the test is. I still ranked 95th percentile.

You seem to have the attitude that if you did not have trouble with something than nobody else should. I think you need to understand that not everyone lives in the same conditions as you - it's completely useless (and not very nice) to respond to someone's complaint by saying that because you do not have the problem they should stop complaining or ignore the problem. It is certainly not true that every student can pass the state standards without trying, or even that every state's standards are the same (you do not appear to live in the same state V-te does, so your allegations that state standards are "incredibly low" aren't even relevant). I wouldn't be surprised if your school is better taught/organized than V-te's, too.

I agree with most of your points. What I described is the situation in Maryland.
http://www.mdreportcard.org/Assessments.aspx?WDATA=State&K=99AAAA#HSAgradGrade12all
Apparently 99.9% of the students passed. Even in 10th grade, over 80% can pass the test. Clearly the tests are pointless if so many people can pass without trying. I still don't know how they score them. Many people who pass do not actually understand the subject. The state just wants everyone to graduate from high school without learning anything. That said, I do know of some schools that care about the test. The students do not wish to learn and many teachers do not know their subjects. They need the test to keep them on track.
My school is quite strange. It is generally well taught, but it definitely is not well organized. The teachers for upper level courses are highly qualified. Half of the department heads do not know their own subjects. The Math department head was fired this year because for 4 years, she could not pass a simple algebra 1 final for students. The head of foreign language department is too lazy to teach. For 10th grade French, she did not teach my class at all. We just played on the computer (or cubed) in the computer lab. The principal is completely powerless and does not do his job. He only cares about school pride and image and in actuality facilitates the decline of the school. He is way to wimpy to stand up to students even when they constantly set the bathroom trashcans on fire. He doesn't do his job. I was supposed to receive my National Merit Semifinalist packet from him at the beginning of the school year and he had no clue what was going on until a friend outside my school told me when it was already too late. He cannot handle the school budget and waste money on stupid things. He tried to combine the Social sciences and foreign language departments, causing some of the best teachers to resign in protest. This sparked an underground rebelling among students. Students who aren't officially even in Student Government actually do the jobs of administrators because they are too lazy to do it themselves. But since they are so lazy, I was allowed to assign myself any course I want this year, even some that don't officially exist. Nothing gets done if you actually rely on the school staff.
I've had some horrible teachers too. I just ignored them and cubed all class. The only way you can possibly fail at my school is if you don't do the work. If you do all the work, even if it is crap, you will get over 80% in most classes. This attitude of making everyone pass is horrible. Failing is difficult. For that 10th grade French class I had, I scored lower than 70% on every single test, didn't hand in some assignments, and somehow got a 97% for my grade. In that case, a standardized test would have forced the teacher to actually teach that class and would have ruled out this mysterious massive inflation. Most of my other teachers would have given me less than 80% for that kind of work. Teaching to the test is only an issue when the teacher is incompetent or the students are incredibly slow. In most cases, it helps to keeps schools at fair levels and make sure that teachers teach what they are supposed to teach.
Only people who are much more advanced than the state tests complain about classes being taught to standardized tests. In that case, forget them and study whatever you want by yourself.

Kian,
A well written national test would be so much better than state tests. The state department of education doesn't do anything.

Intelligence isn't a single-dimensional thing. Solving a cube and being able to type a long post without huge errors are more based on how hard someone tries than how smart they are. If what LNZ says is correct, then he has enough trouble recognizing patterns that the government thinks he won't be able to find a job, but that doesn't mean he has intellectual problems in other areas. You just can't tell how well someone will perform one task by looking at how well they perform a totally different one.

You do not need to be intelligent to get a job. I don't know why people think manual labor is inferior to office work. Personally, if I can't do what I absolutely want to do, I would not get an office job requiring no real thinking or rely on others. I would gladly be a janitor, trash collector, or construction worker. Imagine OH cubing and mopping. I'm serious, this isn't bad. I might just do that for a while. Much better than spreading the epidemic of obesity by working at fast food places. At least that's one of the rare jobs that exists with absolute net benefits to society. I think it's much more rewarding to know what you do has a purpose. You do not need pattern recognition ability to get a job. You'll simply get jobs that nobody else wants, which I think is actually much more interesting. Thus, LNZ, if you are not physically disabled, why not? But if you are, then why should they even care about the mental test?

Edit:
Wait... I don't even remember my main idea and which side of the argument I'm on.

No Child Left Behind?... Why not? Leave them behind if they don't care and put in no effort to try. Tests should not be made just to pass everyone. What does failure mean? I would not mind it at all if I failed when I did not put in any effort. Sadly, most people around me put in even less effort.

 

[moogra]

I live in the same state as the original poster and I know what he is talking about with the standards and the stupid tests.
During my sophomore year in high school I took the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam), a extremely trivial test. To sum it up, 60% is a pass, and the math problems take about a few second to solve. There was an essay section, and many of my friends just doodled and one even drew a hand turkey since the other writing sections would compensate for the points lost.

However, when you take AP classes that prepare for the AP tests, you definitely want to learn what is on the test. I took calculus last year, and although I had previous calculus experience, if I slacked off the whole year, there would be no way I would have gotten a 5 on that test. I did not know series, and I was shaky on integration by parts and other integration methods.

Many of you are talking about not being challenged enough. This is also a common complaint on the math forum http://artofproblemsolving.com. Most of the members there suggest taking their math classes. They're advanced, fast paced, and are much more interesting than the classroom curriculum. The teachers there certainly teach you what you want to learn, whether be probability and counting, or number theory. (Advanced) Geometry, algebra are also taught.

For your friend's problem, that is definitely a big problem where I go to school. All the "over-achievers" work like robots. Go to school, come home and do homework, sleep, repeat. Some have sports, volunteering in the middle. The reason: to go to a good college.

I doubt this law would be repealed unless 40-50 years later, when everyone here is a statesman the people repeal it.

 

[PCwizCube]

I agree with most of your points. What I described is the situation in Maryland.
http://www.mdreportcard.org/Assessments.aspx?WDATA=State&K=99AAAA#HSAgradGrade12all
Apparently 99.9% of the students passed. Even in 10th grade, over 80% can pass the test. Clearly the tests are pointless if so many people can pass without trying. I still don't know how they score them. Many people who pass do not actually understand the subject. The state just wants everyone to graduate from high school without learning anything.
No Child Left Behind?... Why not? Leave them behind if they don't care and put in no effort to try. Tests should not be made just to pass everyone. What does failure mean? I would not mind it at all if I failed when I did not put in any effort. Sadly, most people around me put in even less effort.

Yeah, some of the state tests are just too easy. I haven't taken the test yet, but my social studies teacher said that the HSPA (high school test in New Jersey) is "designed for students to pass." lol It seems to me the state literally doesn't want to leave anybody behind by making sure they pass the test haha.

 

[cmhardw]

There is a similar situation with low standards for High School Geometry in North Carolina. In all honors Geometry classes, the students are taught how to do fairly challenging geometric proofs, that require a decent level of mathematical insight for a student with a high school math background. The tests the students see in the classes all use proofs at this level, and the students often complain of finding them to be excessively challenging.

The state mandated End Of Course test for High School Geometry in North Carolina gives one or two problems that are related to a geometric proof. On these problems the entire proof is worked out for them, with the exception of one step (and even then either the statement is missing only, or the reason why the statement is true only). The student must pick the proper completion of that step from the choices given.

The lower level geometry classes, the ones for those who struggle, do proofs in the same way as the End Of Course test, by simply filling in the blank of proofs that are already worked out for them, with the exception of a portion of one step missing.

There is definitely a double standard of sorts for the Honors Geometry students, which I think is a bit strange.

Chris

 

[V-te]

I agree with most of your points. What I described is the situation in Maryland.
http://www.mdreportcard.org/Assessments.aspx?WDATA=State&K=99AAAA#HSAgradGrade12all
Apparently 99.9% of the students passed. Even in 10th grade, over 80% can pass the test. Clearly the tests are pointless if so many people can pass without trying. I still don't know how they score them. Many people who pass do not actually understand the subject. The state just wants everyone to graduate from high school without learning anything.
No Child Left Behind?... Why not? Leave them behind if they don't care and put in no effort to try. Tests should not be made just to pass everyone. What does failure mean? I would not mind it at all if I failed when I did not put in any effort. Sadly, most people around me put in even less effort.

Yeah, some of the state tests are just too easy. I haven't taken the test yet, but my social studies teacher said that the HSPA (high school test in New Jersey) is "designed for students to pass." lol It seems to me the state literally doesn't want to leave anybody behind by making sure they pass the test haha.

Thus another flaw of NCLB. Bias.
This money should be directed at new 21st century teaching methods.

 

[Escher]

No Child Left Behind?... Why not? Leave them behind if they don't care and put in no effort to try. Tests should not be made just to pass everyone. What does failure mean? I would not mind it at all if I failed when I did not put in any effort. Sadly, most people around me put in even less effort.

If a child has been brought up in an environment of anti-intellectualism, where neither of their parents have a job, and none of their peers go to school or attend school regularly, do you think they would have any reason or motivation to care and put in effort at school? No, of course not.
Is it still fair to let somebody fail just because they've never been taught to work?

NB; I am not defending NCLB

 

[PCwizCube]

I agree with the points that a lot of students aren't really learning because of the different teaching styles because of the NCLB. But I think there might be a different reason. It might sound absurd but this is my opinion.

In the US, we have honors classes, then something like middle level and then a lower level. In some Asian countries where people claim they get better test scores like Taiwan (I'm only talking about Taiwan because that's the country I know most about), they only have one level of class, for everybody.

Now I think we can all agree that most peoples' parents would not be happy if their child got straight Ds or mostly Ds on their report card. In lower classes, it's easy for people to get at least Cs. All they have to do is do at least some of their homework and do decent on tests. For them, it's not that hard. Consequently, they get at least mostly Cs. However, I think because of this work ethic, they're not really learning anything.

Now imagine putting all this people in honors classes. If they continue to use their lazy habits, they definatly will get Ds or lower. This is what it's like in Taiwan. Most students don't want to get mostly Ds, so they actually try. They actually try and learn things. But if you're in a lower class in the US, you don't really learn that much, you learn something but you don't practice it enough or care about it that much and you forget it a couple of weeks later.

In Taiwan, many years before, it was like the US. They had high level, then middle level, then lower (something along the lines of that). But in Taiwan it's different, you are in the same class (with the same people) for all your subjects, so you would either get high classes in all your subjects or low in all of them. Then the parents of the lower classes got upset and then they banned it.

So what do you guys think. Hypothetically, if you put everyone in Honors classes, what do you think would happen? Do you think people would work harder? I would like to know all your opinions on this

 

[qqwref]

Is it still fair to let somebody fail just because they've never been taught to work?

That's a good question, but the answer really depends on how you feel about school itself. Is the goal of school mainly to grade students (i.e. decide who is the smartest) or to teach students? If we want to teach students, why is it - are we trying to bring everyone up to a certain level, or to bring the highest people up to the highest level we can get, or to improve everyone equally, or what? I think a lot of people will have different viewpoints on this.

Your question also brings up an important counter-point: is it fair to force someone to work harder because you want them to match a certain standard? Personally I think that if someone wants to learn they should be given the opportunity, but if they clearly don't want to be in school then there is no reason to waste resources on them. It's better to use our resources to help the people who will benefit most than to just hand out the same education to everyone and not care who gets the most out of it.

 

[fanwuq]

So what do you guys think. Hypothetically, if you put everyone in Honors classes, what do you think would happen? Do you think people would work harder? I would like to know all your opinions on this

That does not work. Officially, all the classes are called honors in my school, but in reality, the styles of each teacher vary a lot. There are many classes with the exact same name that are clearly of different qualities.

Is it still fair to let somebody fail just because they've never been taught to work?

That's a good question, but the answer really depends on how you feel about school itself. Is the goal of school mainly to grade students (i.e. decide who is the smartest) or to teach students? If we want to teach students, why is it - are we trying to bring everyone up to a certain level, or to bring the highest people up to the highest level we can get, or to improve everyone equally, or what? I think a lot of people will have different viewpoints on this.

Your question also brings up an important counter-point: is it fair to force someone to work harder because you want them to match a certain standard? Personally I think that if someone wants to learn they should be given the opportunity, but if they clearly don't want to be in school then there is no reason to waste resources on them. It's better to use our resources to help the people who will benefit most than to just hand out the same education to everyone and not care who gets the most out of it.

Interesting. I don't think there is a correct or wrong answer. I don't even know if it is to the benefit of the society how well I do. I actually sometimes think that I shouldn't even apply to college-- what if I get into a college and take the place of someone else who valued it more than I do? I guess we really shouldn't even care about this at all. Each person values education differently. Learn whatever is you want and is available and dropout if it is necessary. Give everyone freedom and equal opportunities. That sounds fair, but it may decrease the overall quality of life of the entire society.

At the moment my marginal benefit from taking AP English is negative. I'm being blasted with a whole bunch of BS philosophy rather than actually practicing writing. It would be so much better if the teacher was teaching to the test. Most of my other classmates love the teacher and that class, but that is the only class I've ever truly hated in my life. I know I'm wasting the resources provide by that class, but I'm doomed to stay in there. It is impossible to make sure everyone is receiving maximum benefits from classes. It was my fault for choosing that class and that's ok.
Teaching to the test is not the issue. The problem is forcing people to study subjects they have no interest in. Of course it can be argued that they could unconsciously learn valuable lessons that benefit them later on; children do not know if what they like to learn is what they should learn. Then again, is failure even a bad thing?