Criticism / "No Child Left Behind" Are you joking?
As I sit at my desk on that first day of school, I go over the seating charts once more. Middle School History classes. Six in all. Kids from ages 11 to 15 for a total of 188 students in all. As I look at their names, I realize that at least twelve of their names I can’t even pronoun, and at least thirty of them won’t or can’t speak English, let alone read or write it. I have to teach to them World Geography, Government and U.S. Wars this year. Do these kids really want to learn this right now? Do they really care? Let’s be honest…no.
Our government, for whatever reason, created this law called “No Child Left Behind”. This law requires that “all” students must be able to speak, read and write in English according to their grade level by the end of the school year (9 months). In other words, when Kadiatu from Sudan arrived in the US on July 29th of this year, her family enrolled her in school according to our laws. Kadiatu had never stepped foot in a school in her entire life. She is an 8th grader according to her age, who only speaks Sudanese (I think that’s what it’s called). Now according to the “No Child Left Behind” law, she is suppose to be able to speak, read and write English on an 8th grade level in nine months. Are you joking????
There’s the kid from Russia, whose name is longer than most signature lines on a legal document, who arrived in the US yesterday, and is starting school today. He’s in 7th grade. He most likely will sit in front of me with wide eyes trying so desperately to understand my words while his classmates teach him cuss words in English at lunchtime. He has had a wonderful education in Russia and has the mental tools to learn English fairly quickly, unlike Kadiatu. However, it will take time. Time that the government has restricted to a total of three years of school which actually comes out to about 27 months.
We have children from Afghanistan, terrified of people because of what they had to endured in their homeland; we have children from Iran who thinks that the people from the U.S. hates them because of 9-11. We have children from Mexico who wish they were back in Mexico, because if they were back in Mexico, they would only have to go up to sixth grade. But here in the U.S., they have six more years of torture, in their minds. We have parents who can’t speak English themselves, but we, as teachers cannot communicate with them the importance of their child’s education, because we don’t speak their language to communicate this message to them. I know all of you who are teachers can relate to this problem.
According to the “No Child Left Behind” Law, these wonderful gifts to the world cannot be taken out of a regular classroom to be taught basic English first before placing them back into a “regular” classroom setting. These children must struggle with so many issues like, culture shock, social fears, and language barriers, not even to say, emotional depression from missing their homeland and family and friend who where left behind, while learning the U.S. Constitution… in English. Are you kidding me?????
As teachers, we are now forced to increase our workload. What some of you might not realize, is that teachers never really stop working. While other people are able to leave their work at work, teachers lug work home every day. During the summer, teachers write lesson plans, create worksheets to help educate our children,take extra courses to enhance our teaching abilities (at our expense), go to seminars (at our expense),organize our lessons for the YEAR, etc. Every day after our work in the classroom ends, (after putting in 10 hours) we go home to take care of our own children, pets, spouses, etc. only to sit down and correct two to three dozen papers so that our students can have the results of their work back in a timely manner. Many of us can afford a “real” vacation only once every five years, due to such poor pay. It cracks me up to think the kid I flunked in history may one day make millions playing soccer, while I top out at $50,000 a year educating. But NOW, we as teachers, must add sometime three or four more “activities” to each of our lessons to “service” our non-English speaking children so they understand the lesson being taught. So now I have to come up with added activities to teach U.S. Constitution. Does this make any sense??
The bottom line is this. “No Child Left Behind” is just another way to keep all of our children down and sets them up for failure. If a child has a learning disability we make accommodation’s for them to help them succeed. But we make NO accommodations for a child who cannot speak English let alone read it or write it.We are not allowed to keep a child in a separate classroom ALL day to teach them basic English, but the government allows one-two hours a day to teach them English and expects them to be experts according to their grade level in 9 months. We set the teachers up for failure when they cannot teach these non-English speaking children the lessons due to lack of communication. Teachers all across the U.S. have lost their jobs over this issue. These students cannot pass state standardized tests, because…they can’t read the TESTS. Why are we allowing the government to make these regulations without confirming it with us first? Aren’t they (the government) suppose to be our voice? Hello????
This will probably be my last year to teach because my dreams have been destroyed. No longer do I feel like I am doing my job well. Because at the end of this year, those thirty-something students who will walk through my door today, will still not be able to speak, read and write in English good enough to appease the government or my boss…and the $110,000 dollars in student loans I owe to the government will still have to be paid, while I struggle with finding another career.
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
This 150 word review has not been unlocked.
I am a teacher at the college level, so I can relate to what you are saying to a point. College teaching is obviously very different from K-12 teaching on so a lot of different levels. I come from a family of teachers and school administrators and the “no child left behind” topic has come up in family conversation on more than one occasion. I was not fully aware of some of the things that you are talking about with foreign students and the government requirements about language. That puts the debate in a whole different light. I think that your piece was very informative, and a thought-provoking piece of criticism. I wasn’t even bothered by your personal passionate slant. Great Job. I wish there was some acceptable answer to the “No child left behind” debate. I sincerely hope that this doesn’t cost you your job or that it causes you to lose your passion for teaching.
- add/view comments (0)
My former fiance is a teacher, and she has expressed so many of the same issues that you have stated in your piece. I can’t say that I identify with what you had to say, but do know that a lot of it is true. I feel for your and your ilk. I also believe that you guys should be paid more, and hopefully oneday the government will feel the same. Until then, I guess you just have to fight the good fight, and try not to be overwhelmed by the hypocrisy that our country so readily heaps upon us. Good piece. I enjoyed it.
Papyrusandpen
I have to say I’ve never been a big fan of Bush and his education policy. This man as you say expects children to learn profiency in less then three years. The man is what in his earlly sixties and still can’t speak English his native tongue properly half the time. What irks me even more is to realize his wife has I want to say an MA in English. How the hell can’t she stand to listen to him? Maybe Cheny is footing all the bills for her happy bills with his profits from Haliburton. My thoughts have always been quit being a damn stepford wife and work with teachers to create a realistic and goal driven progress system. As far as anything wrong with the piece all I could see were minor typos and the line of “Are you Kidding Me” just weakens the piece in my mind. Good luck with revisions.
The No Child Left Behind Rule was a wonderful law . . . in theory. But so was communism. This law, once implemented, has many flaws, as you’ve clearly stated in your piece. Who’s getting hurt by this: the children and the teachers. And who’s gained anything from it? . . . Hmm, I can’t think of an answer to that one. It breaks my heart to think of the poor children who aren’t given a fair opportunity to succeed, and the teachers who do care but (despite their good intentions) simply aren’t superhuman. It makes me sick to think that teachers are being fired and students “failing” because they can’t even read the tests. We’re only going to lose more good teachers, and where are we going to get more who are willing to work themselves constantly to keep up with the impossible criteria (for little pay)? I, personally, was going to school to become an English teacher and had to drop out for financial reasons. It sickens me to think that, like you, I could have racked up thousands in debt just to service our country’s children—and then be fired for it. This one reader is truly sorry for the pain this well-meaning (but unworkable) law has caused you, and especially your srudents.
I can understand being frustrated, but you sort of devolve into whining by the end. It would help a great deal if you could provide the applicable excerpts from the law that are causing you so much pain. Also, when you mention that there are some kids that won’t speak English, you kind of weaken your argument.
One thing I’ve learned is that when you are posting anything about English, you should take extra care to proofread your work. Otherwise, when you use “pronoun” instead of “pronounce”, or say “read and write in English good enough”, you will get ridiculed mercilessly.
And when did a $50,000/year salary become “poor pay?” Did I miss an e-mail?
I got confused when you had stated that the government requires grade-level comprehension by the end of the school year, but then say that the Russian 7th grader had three years. He’s got until 10th grade to learn 7th grade English? What about his last two years in school? Shouldn’t he have until 12th grade?
to be understood = 10
I am a biological, adoptive, and foster mother, and I totally agree – No Child Left Behind completely sets up children to fail, and teachers for unjustified termination. Even for the kids that CAN read and write English, sometimes there are much more pressing issues occupying their young minds, but the pressure is so great to achieve academically, that these emotional issues are ignored or compounded.
to be published someday = more of a “good luck” rating. Who am I to say?
to be reviewed = 10. Urbis is good for that :)
to be me = always a 10.
best critism on Urbis = 9. Positive reinforcement is good, but too much will just expand your head beyond it’s ability to think logically. (My gran told me that.)
voice of all teachres = 9. I think you are a very strong representative, but I just can’t go 100%, because you know there’s some highpaid dork out there that thinks this program is great.
yea, the U.S. education system is pretty sad..i heard that at cal tech 10% of the student population comes from middle to lower class american families…but it’s weird how standardized the U.s. system is, in Europe classes are much more flexible and allow for more individual expression i guess ou could say whereas here everyone must conform…”United we stand” but what about the individual? and isn’t the individual the most important thing in life? Giving a poor education is like cutting off their legs, it’s such a handicap, but instead we have to spend money on wars and big businesses…writing from a teacher’s perspective is very powerful adn you sound like a great teacher and people realized the problems then everything would be fine, but instead we have more and more standardizations…
I really sympathise with your situation. It pains me to say it, but when it comes to the US, the education system is a shambles. More or less all european nations have free education (i’m a Masters student and i have no student debt). You obviously care very deeply about your students and the education system in total. Perhaps you could consider joining an educational lobby group in Washington? I don’t know, maybe that idea sounds ridiculous to you.
If you do wish to teach, you should come to Britain or Ireland. The pay is better, you have longer holidays, there are MUCH MUCH better rights and work practices, and the quantity of non-english speaking students is much lower.
One other thing, since the US does not have an official language, you are within your constitutional rights to request a translated copy of your constitution in every world language. Maybe that would help in teaching it.
Exceptional article, by the way.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we required the same of students for whom English is their first language—that they also be required to speak, read and write fluently in it? (I’m not holding my breath on that one.)
I hear what you are saying. I’m not a teacher, but I have a degree to teach high school. It was my disgust with the way things were going in this state’s education system that made me decide that I’d rather let my college education ‘go to waste’ than use it to do something I found so counterproductive. (I was told, among other things, to give an A to certain students whether they did any work or not, whether they even sat down and let the rest of the class do their work, because not giving them an A just for having their name on the roll would ‘make them feel bad.’ And no, this wasn’t a Special Ed class. Surely this isn’t what all those education reforms were meant to have us do!)
If schools would treat not speaking English as a ‘learning disability’ (meaning something that keeps a normal-or-smarter person from learning to the fullness of their ability), maybe we’d see some improvement, because as you say, there are programs (although not enough, or good enough) to help the learning disabled, but we have nothing in place across the country to help non-English-speaking students get caught up with their peers.
Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Next →
Review item
Add to faves
GENERAL
REVIEW QUEUE
Ratings & Rankings
