book reflection- sroth

Book Reflection – S. Roth
I have never been much of a fan of ‘No Child Left Behind’. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that every child has the right to a quality education and it’s our job as educators to try our best to provide every student with that education. My issues with NCLB have been the fact that they aren’t showing progress or lack of progress with the same group of kids. You compare last year’s juniors to this year’s juniors…not progression from 8th grade to 11th grade with the same group of kids. And the price of not meeting YAP is so high that teachers are teaching to the test instead of teaching for students to learn the concept/standards. This book has served to cement in my mind that NCLB is actually doing a disservice to our students. NCLB has served to decrease our student’s critical thinking and analytical skills because all we test is basic knowledge on our standard tests. We may be closing the gap between the test scores of our white middle-class students and our economically disadvantaged minority students, but are losing out to other countries when it comes to producing graduates with the abilities to compete in our new global work place. For me, the book has pushed me to reflect on my own teaching practices and make some changes. I am now more conscious about pushing students to think critically and creatively with more analysis of what they are studying.