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 | | Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools by Deborah Meier (Editor), George Wood (Editor) ISBN-10: 9780807004593 ISBN-10: 0-8070-0459-6 ISBN-13: 9780807004593 ISBN-13: 978-0-8070-0459-3 Paperback 2004-09-29 Beacon Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description A citizens' guide to what's wrong with the nation's radical federal education legislation—and a passionate call for change The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has become the most fiercely debated education issue of this election year, and it will be at the center of the national conversation about schools for the foreseeable future. NCLB, signed into law in 2002, purports to improve public schools—and especially the way they serve poor children—by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing and sanctions. It is radically affecting the life of schools around the country. Many Children Left Behind is a devastating brief against NCLB. Far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the authors argue, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education—including Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, and Theodore R. Sizer—come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve: · How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools · How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools · How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms · How we need alternatives to construing the idea of accountability in terms of test scores and sanctions. Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here. | ||
Reviews | ||
This book should be required reading Every legislator in the country should be required to read this book, especially Chapter 5. The legislators who passes NCLB fell for the buzzwords and rhetoric--how could someone vote against improving education for poor children? But NCLB is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It turns out the people who dreamed up NCLB had as their ultimate goal the death of public schooling, and huge profits for themselves as they make money in the fallout of NCLB. NCLB is designed so that even good public schools will eventually be rated as failing--the book explains how this will work. On the other end of the spectrum law removes funding from the schools that need it most, the poor schools, hastening their downfall. Because private schools are exempt from NCLB, they will thrive, while public schools are systematically destroyed. And the people at the forefront of NCLB just happen to be the people ready to step in and make a fortune as education providers. They are already making millions from this scam. Look up William Bennett and his K12 company, and read about his connections to the Bush administration. You will be shocked, as I was, but I guess it's just politics as usual. It's not too late to stop this travesty, and I hope there will be a huge revolt against this horrible law. | ||
Required reading This book should be required reading for all legislators who are convinced that High Stakes tests are the answer to providing educational equity, school administrators who buy-in to the myth of one-size-fits-all education, public school teachers who are forced to administer such tests, and the public, who have been led to believe that constant testing leads to better students! | ||
All Children Left Behind No Child Left Behind is probably as awful as the authors suggest, although as a teacher, AKA education worker, I would be the first person to admit that my perspective is limited to a handful of schools; I do not pretend to have the wide vision held by researchers of the sort who wrote this book. I can only refute by anecdote which was admittedly limited in scope. The basis for the critique of NCLB is that the emphasis on testing distracts from the 'business' of education. Of course, this is true. If the schools had been educating the kids, however, this project would never have been conceived. The fact that is forgotten by the critics is that there was no education taking place. The test schedules replace movie watching, cheer leading assemblies, and other obsessions of American educators that have never enhanced learning. Suddenly, instead of doing one's own thing, education workers are being told what to do. This is an anathema to old-line educators but especially to those who hold all standards in contempt. Many teachers trained in Woodstock and devoted to counter-cultural values have no interest in teaching to standards of any kind other than those established by Tiny Tim and Malcolm X. They believe that testing is harmful to children. Secretly, they care not about the kids but about what low scores imply. They are in fact afraid that their performances as teachers are being scrutinized. Defeating NCLB is a way to defeat the accountability movement. Still, NCLB is flawed and can be adjusted and improved. Some of the criticisms are valid. On the other hand, were it not for NCLB, schools would never have to scrutinize spending. And the nasty truth is that the lack of funds has not kept school districts from paying to have superintendent's offices floored in marble or from hiring the cousins of school principals $1000 a night to provide security for back-to-school-nights. That is, there are indeed funding gaps created by NCLB, but that hasn't cramped the style of wasteful, corrupt school administrators. Fear is a powerful motivator. Many useful and wonderful projects have been initiated by districts looking over their shoulders for the first time since NCLB was enacted. | ||
Satisfactory I bought this product to complete some school work. Amazon's shipping was fabulous. The product itself was as expected. | ||
Excellent If you're looking for a short, cogent overview of NCLB and the major issues, this is the book for you. Edited by Meier and Wood, it contains chapters written by six different authors including Linda Darling-Hammond and Alfie Kohn. | ||