The Tight Wire Structure of the American Education System
Since then, test scores haven’t grown as much as they were projected, and most schools, even our school, Prairie Ridge is barely making its goals.
When asked about our district and how they were dealing with this act, Mr. Emory Swinney had stated the following, “if you look at our district, it hasn’t affected us to much because it targets lower achieving students. We are [already] doing what it requires, by targeting lower achieving students.”
So really, the testing setup by the act hasn’t done too much to us because living in a town like Crystal Lake, and especially going to a school like ours, most do have the utensils to succeed whereas some sections of the country do not have such advantages like ours. Schools who do not meet their test quotas get funding slashed, and further slashed if they don’t meet them year after year.
Administrators, teachers, and most importantly, students are all feeling the hurt.
Mr. Joseph Terhaar, a social science teacher here at PR had this to say “the problem is, is that funding is being pulled from the poorer schools, and being diverted to the succeeding schools. So essentially, the majority of the kids are failing, while the small percent of kids succeed..it looks good on paper, but it’s impossible to actually execute.”
So yes, some schools are succeeding in this program, but the majority are not and that is a big problem for America.
Over 55 billion dollars were dedicated to Title I grants for local education agencies in 2004. Some argue that we need to severely put more money into education, especially with a biased program like this. If the funding isn’t where it should be, then we need a mass reform of education once again.
We need to insure that everyone can achieve and have equal opportunities as the rest of the country. Start by focusing on poorer areas, with lower incomes, and move outwards while pushing little to no reforms on schools or districts that are actually meeting their quotas.
It is a clear fact that the education system is broken, we just need to find a fiscally responsible way to reform it while making sure teachers and administrators aren’t cut out of the deal.
America was ready for an education reform, one that would shape the next generations of students but unfortunately No Child Left Behind did not accomplish this.