Why do people hate nclb

What I learned ten years ago still sticks with me today. When I become a teacher, I hope to inspire my students as much as she inspired hers. Last week, I received a call from Niecy, another student from that class ten years ago.

She was calling from southern Illinois to tell me she was graduating from high school this month and had just found out that she has won a scholarship to a college in Indiana. I was ecstatic in my happiness for her. We laughed, and I told her I was looking at a photo of her on my wall, building a pyramid out of paper bricks with her classmates.

I also had a recent conversation with Manuel in a grocery parking lot. He reminded me of my promise eight years ago to attend his high school graduation. I plan to be there. Cayla and Niecy and Manuel are three of the reasons I teach.

They are the reasons that some days this still feels like a passion and not a job. When I pick up the broom at the end of the day to sweep my class due to budget cuts, I remember Cayla.

When I drive home demoralized after another meeting where our success is dissected with a knife manufactured in Texas, I remember Niecy. When another new program that is going to solve the reading disparity, resulting in higher test scores, is introduced on top of another new program that was supposed to result in the same thing, I remember Manuel.

They are the fires that fuel my passion. They are the lifeboats that help me ride this current wave in education. Eight or ten years from now, I want other former students to contact me and tell me a success story from their lives. Susan J. Hobart, M. The Progressive Inc. Skip to main content. I am told these are invaluable skills to have. I am told if we do a good job, our students will do well.

I am told that our district does not teach to the test. While racial gaps have narrowed slightly since , they remain stubbornly large. The gaps in math and reading for African American and Latino students shrank far more dramatically before No Child Left Behind—when policies focused on equalizing funding and school integration, rather than on test scores. Short answer: The big change in the new bill is that it significantly reduces the power and the role of the federal government in holding schools accountable.

Students are still required to take yearly tests in math and reading from third to eighth grade and once in high school. Schools still have to report the results of these tests by subgroups such as race, English-language proficiency, poverty, and special education. States will still be required to intervene in schools that are not meeting their goals.

But they, not the federal government, will decide how to turn things around. This means schools can ditch some standardized tests for things such as evaluations of student work and parent surveys.

And the federal government will no longer require using standardized-test scores to evaluate teachers. Short answer: Maybe. But, on the other side, Heritage Action and the Club for Growth argued that the bill didn't go nearly far enough — because it maintained some federal role in education.

And in a week when House Republicans were also fighting over spending on the Department of Homeland Security and the Conservative Political Action Conference was holding its massive annual meeting, that conservative message resonated. House leaders struggled Thursday night to get enough votes for the bill, according to Politico , and postponed the Friday vote. The window for a bill that was conservative enough for Congressional Republicans but able to get Obama's signature or enough help from Democrats to withstand a presidential veto was always very small.

Now it's looking nonexistent. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all.

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Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Obama with Rep. John Kline, who leads the House committee on education, in Delivered Fridays.