Eliminating Creativity Throughout The Classroom

“If my future were determined by just my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be her. I guarantee you that” - Michelle Obama. Once upon a time our education system was based on one 's knowledge of the simplicity of things; however, now a days a children 's knowledge isn’t based on whether he or she knows the different countries or how to answer 2+2 unless they can relate it to a real world situation. It is based on the pure skill of how to take a test. Standardized tests and Common Core (CC) have recently started denouncing our school system more and more. Children are starting to get lost and confused on topics, parents deem them excessive and unnecessary, and teachers feel inclined to teach to the test and emphasising relating everything back to a real life situation instead of teaching their students a broad spectrum of ideas.

The American public educational system is filled with an assortment of problems. Most students are graduating with less knowledge and capability than similar students in other industrialized countries. Classroom disruptions are surprisingly common, and in some classrooms, nearly continuous. The public education system is having difficulty adjusting to the no child left behind act. The No Child Left Behind(NCLB) is a landmark in education reform designed to improve student achievement and change the culture of American’s schools.

No Child Left Behind, one of the biggest social engineering projects of our time, put fifty million students and their three million teachers under pressure ("A Failing Grade for No Child"). On January 8, 2002, President George W Bush’s NCLB Act was signed into law. NCLB is an education reform bill created to narrow the racial achievement gap. Recently, NCLB has made its way back into the news, simply because it has been up for renewal for over four years now and nothing has happened. This is significant because NCLB dictates how students are educated. NCLB has already affected student learning for many years now, and if renewed, it will continue to do so. The NCLB Act has failed in its mission to improve our schools and narrow the racial achievement

For the past decade, our country’s education system has reached a flat line in results. Studies show that the United States is the number one country in education spending in order to improve our results, but standardized test scores have plateaued. During President George W. Bush’s term, he initiated a program titled “No Child Left Behind.” No offense to President Bush, however his educational initiative is the most ironic title due to its produced results. So far, no state in our country has reached one hundred percent proficiency in mathematics and language arts and the system has gotten deficient and is failing the millennial generations. Education is a key component to success in our fast-paced society and our system needs to change, for

Education in America has drastically decreased in efficiency in the last fifty years. Schools in America do not care about their students, or their education; they care about the test scores achieved by their students. The American education system is severely flawed in many ways. These flaws are more dire than they are made out to be, since they incapacitate the ability of their students to learn the material taught. This occurs because it is more important to pass a class than to retain the information they obtain.

This article in the Times newspaper, points out problems and flaws with the 2002 U.S. No Child Left Behind educational legislation, which was designed to improve education in the U.S. Topics that are discussed include, teachers complaints that No Child Left Behind policy sets impossible standards and forces teachers to teach based on the test material, and how the bill originally came to life by the proposal of former U.S. president George W. Bush. The other topic

The American educational system has proven to be insufficient in training our children to be well rounded citizens. With so much emphasis placed upon standardized testing, there is little room for personal growth and individuality; instead, our current classroom design forces kids to remain in a box rather than teaching them how to work with their strengths and weaknesses as individuals. With so much emphasis placed upon memorization and drilling, important aspects of childhood development, such as critical thought and the cultivation of creativity, have been abandoned. Rather than instilling a sense of accomplishment and motivation in our students, the educational system has become a force of fear as futures are determined by a test score.

Education is the essential foundation for the progressing of our nation as well as the stimulation for our children. Now, as some may or may-not know that learning gives forth children the accessibility to succeed in physical, intellectual, and even emotional endeavors. Education tends to incline us to widen the door towards attainment in the future. As individuals receive an education, they are more capable to obtain better employment. Views tend to be various to our educational system. Throughout America’s history, students, parents, educators, and government authority have discussed what changes must be made in America’s public school system. We agree changes need to be made to reach goals that will prepare our future for the future properly. However, the voices and cries for positive changes have yet to be heard. Sometimes, many of those changes are established far too quickly for results to be thoroughly examined. The most popular cries for education changes comes from Geoffrey Canada’s stating that “billions of dollars spent on testing, the data cannot be used, because the results come back too late (Canada, 2013). Now, the average person may not be too alarmed, but when companies, like Microsoft or Apple, has to hire computer programming engineers from other countries to fill positions since American’s are academically unqualified, which brings this education system to light on such topics (Moore, 34-36). In all, the public school system is

After the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2002, the U.S. dropped from 18th to 31st place in the world in math with a similar decrease in science, and no change in reading. Standardized tests are not objective and focus on a narrow curriculum. This limits America’s ability to produce critical thinkers. Although many believe standardized tests are a reliable and effective way to measure a student’s abilities, standardized testing only measure a small portion of one’s capabilities, don’t prepare students for productive adult lives, and are an inaccurate measure of teacher performance.

The No Child Left Behind Act was the biggest educational step taken by president Bush and his administration. Its main goal included the increase of achievement in education and completely eliminate the gap between different racial and ethnic groups. Its strategies had a major focus on uplifting test scores in schools, hiring “highly qualified teachers” and deliver choices in education. Unluckily, the excessive demands of the law have not succeeded in achieving the goals that were set, and have caused multiple opposing consequences. These unintended consequences affect students negatively which are who the law is most intended in helping. These consequences include a high focus on the low‐level skills which are reflected on high stakes tests; bad assessment of students who have English as a second language and students with special needs; and compelling incentives to eliminate students who score very low from school, so the test scores are achieved to their full potential and their goal (Darling‐Hammond, 2007).

“After No Child Left Behind (NCLB) passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009” (Standardized Tests). They are a tool used to measure the comprehension of students within certain academic areas. These tests also hold schools and teachers accountable for educating our children with high quality education. However, many students are labeled failing because they do not pass these tests. Our country has placed too much importance on test and not on our students as individuals. Every student learns and tests in different ways. What may work for one student may not work for another student. We cannot expect the same outcome from each student because they are all different. Our government made efforts to change these tests when they passed the Every Student Succeeds Act 2015, which reformed the No Child Left Behind Act from 2001; however, there are still issues regarding the accuracy of these

Ever since the establishment of modern schooling in 1911, experts have debated on the best ways to educate a child. Whether it be through teacher lectures, group discussions, or individual study, the importance of educational methods cannot be understated. Yet, contrary to our emphasis on education, the United States is ranked 35th in mathematics and 27th in science out the of the 64 countries examined by a Pew Research study in 2015. George Bush tried to counteract this historical trend in 2001 with the “No Child Left Behind Act”, which paved the way for the establishment of Common Core State Standards throughout the country. These standards aim to improve education through “common” assessments and

According to Diane Ravitch, the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, after the No Child Left Behind Act passed, there began to be a lot more focus on teaching students how to be efficient test takers. In turn, knowledge has become second to test-taking skills (Ravitch 107). Edward Davis, the author of Lessons For Tomorrow, said “Kids are taught how to outsmart tests by recognizing trick multiple-choices” (Davis 95). There becomes more and more evidence proving how much curriculums at school are becoming centered around what will show up on the test (Ravitch 16). This causes students to learn only the basic facts and questions on the test rather than being encouraged to think and explore other ideas and concepts. Lynn Olson, author of Study Questions Reliability of Single Year's Test Score Gains, said in a study, “... 50 percent and 80 percent of the improvement in a school's average test scores from one year to the next was temporary and was caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning or productivity” (Olson 9). This shows that according to the study, tests are not helping students overall to improve their knowledge and learning. The knowledge teachers put into

The United States is no longer the leader in education standards and in fact is no longer even making the top ten when it comes to reading, math, and science literacy rankings among the world for education (Learning Curve, 8). The repercussions are that college graduates are not as competitive globally as they once were and obtaining desired careers are more competitive than ever, having an ultimate result of slowing down the economy. Due to these conditions, education reform needs to be dealt with immediately as it will take years of implementation before any positive results are actually achieved. Despite the introduction of common core, and no child left behind, the school system is still failing students who are unqualified to even enter

Perhaps the most controversial law enacted by President George W. Bush is the No Child Left behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). This is a landmark educational reform designed to improve student achievement and drastically change the culture of American’s schools. In fact, President Bush describes the law as the “cornerstone of his administration.” Because children are our future, President Bush wanted to ensure our neediest children were not left behind. This paper will discuss the pros, cons, and impact on students, teachers, and parents due to the passage of NCLB (www.ed.gov).