No Child Left Behind Act Essay

In principle, it is now believed that the traditional emphasis on passive learning through lectures and textbook methods of instruction are far less effective than active methods of academic instruction. Whereas modern educators have been pushing for public education systems to move away from passive learning methods, the NCLB creates the exact opposite incentive: to waste classroom modules memorizing information for the test and practicing test-taking instead of learning (Darling-Hammond, 2004; Murray, 2006).

Similarly, modern education theorists have been suggesting that the traditional educational emphasis on reading, writing, and arithmetic are already too narrow a focus because that method neglects the needs of many students. Human intelligence represents so many different types of talents and abilities that the range of subject matter and teaching styles should be increased rather than decreased even further to accommodate the need to drill students in specific areas for the express purpose of representing their schools favourably on the state-wide exams required by NCLB (Sonnenblick, 2008).Finally, NCLB undermines the efforts of some of the best teachers in the public school system, precisely because it forces them to abandon the creative and productive teaching methods they have worked so hard to develop in order to fit in instruction intended to increase student scores without much specific concern about student learning.

References

Darling-Hammond L. "NCLB Implementation Challenges: The Local Superintendent's

View" Peabody Journal of Education, Vol 80, pp. 156-169; (2004).

Murray C. "Acid Tests: No Child Left Behind is Beyond Uninformative. It Is Deceptive"

The Wall Street Journal, (7/25/06). Accessed 27 Jan 2010, from www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008701

Sonnenblick, J. "Killing Me Softly: No Child….....