6 More Years & Millions of Standardized Tests Scores Later They Will Still Be Left Behind

Almost six years ago to date President George W. Bush signed the “No Child Left Behind” federal law and according to this program, with exactly six more years of work our nation's students will be perfect - assuming that perfection is attainable. Initially, the program was formulated with good intentions but some of it’s expectations have proven to be unrealistic. It is ridiculous to think that 100 percent of any student body will ever be able to pass all the standardized tests given today. Furthermore, standardized testing is not an accurate way to measure whether a student is meeting grade level requirements.

According to a press release from reuters.com, President Bush spent one morning at Horace Greeley Elementary School located in Chicago, Illinois speaking on the “No Child Left Behind” program. He stated that “test results are all a part of making sure we achieve a great national goal, and that is, every child be at grade level by 2014.” This idea is not effective or realistic in any way. There is nothing magical about the year 2014 and standardized tests do not always demonstrate a child’s intelligence. Some children just do not perform well in this kind of test setting.

The Northeast Mississippi Online Daily Journal quotes Kevin Gilbert, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators saying “’No Child Left Behind’ helps school districts actually see where achievement gaps are.” Taking time and money to raise these failing subgroup’s test scores is taking away from those students who passed and are ready to excel further. I do believe these subgroups should be helped but others shouldn’t have to wait on them to succeed before they can.

Ironically, although the goal is a perfect test score, another objective presented to teachers is to teach their students higher order thinking skills and critical thinking. Connie Harding, an advanced placement teacher at Stephens County High School in Toccoa, Ga, said, “I believe that the most serious outgrowth of all of this is that many teachers are now teaching the ‘tests’ instead of teaching.” “No Child Left Behind” is stripping teachers down to teaching with what Reggie Clark described as a “drill-and-kill mentality” according to an article from mydesert.com. Mr. Clark switched teaching from one school to another in 2001 when he predicted that the program would affect his teaching to the point where the government would regulate everything to be taught. He knew this would in turn decrease the chance for teachers to show any creativity in their teaching.

“Student minds are not marketable products that can be perfected by ‘quality control’”, Harding said, emphasizing the point that it is not necessary to aim for perfection. Being successful means learning from your mistakes daily. This is such a better measurement than the number of “multiple guess” questions one can answer correctly on a standardized test. Sure, Bush may think the national passing averages are rising, but the reason is the teachers are teaching the tests, and not the material, which does students no good for their futures and makes the program not effective.