Saturday, July 31, 2010
Blog 5: When I first felt the impact of Government
I have always been a proud American and strong supporter of the American Government. I had faith in the system. Granted, I was young, naïve, and just barely learning about government when President Clinton took office. My parents were democrats, so naturally, they were often expressing approval of the Clinton Administration. That led to my political involvement as well as my trust in the system. Then, when I got into high school, George W. Bush was elected. I was really surprised to see how quickly political changes, could greatly effect the American People. For me, the first negative impact I felt was the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act. Being a new high school student, I was of the first generation of students to begin the mandatory TAKS Testing. This didn’t seem like such a big deal at first, until the course curriculum of my core classes began to change drastically. Instead of learning the material the instructors felt were of the most benefit and necessity, we were spending most of our time cramming for these ridiculous exams, that were more often than not, below our intellectual levels. We would often have to trudge listlessly though eighth grade level readings and elementary level math. These tests were required for every single high school grade level in order to graduate. Consequently the idea of prepairing us for the college world was thrown out the window. When it came time to take the SAT or the ACT most of us were completely unprepared. We certainly did not receive any SAT preparedness courses much less help in the actual administering of the test. When My parents were in school, the SAT was something prepared for and administered in the classroom. After the No Child Left Behind Act, the SAT was something the student had to do themselves. The blame for the lack of college readiness for my generation does not lie with the teachers, faculty, or education board. The blame lies solely on the Bush Administration’s efforts to overhaul the public school system.
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This comment is in response to Rachael's post-- When I first felt the impact of Government.
ReplyDeleteRachael is making an argument against the "No Child Left Behind Act", she thinks that this act has made the standard of schooling worst and has forced students to do tedious repetitive work that is below their intellectual level. She also believes that because of NCLB high school students aren't prepared for college as well nor are they prepared for the SAT or ACT. I unfortunately am going to have to disagree with her. Don't get me wrong I'm by no means a supporter of the Bush Administration but I think that NCLB is actually something that is beneficial for high school students.
Mandatory tests for each school is actually a great way to see how well the schools are doing according to district it also acts as a great way to measure which schools need more improvement than others. I'm thinking you probably went to a school that was very good and didn't need to have these tests to show where the students needed improvement. Plus, if the course work was below the average intellectual level than the teacher wouldn't have to spend so much time teaching it because everyone would know it already. So, maybe it was your teachers and your schools fault for not realizing that the students at there school were more qualified and could move on to harder material.
I actually did some research and I noticed that most of the websites say that the past nine years have been the best since 1971 for standardized testing. Also because of these tests we have been able to do a lot of research which shows that because of these tests students have improved in all subject categories, there is a negligible difference between the white students and the minority students, and it also has given a better scope of where parents need to be involved more.
Most other countries actually have more rigorous standardized testing, which actually acts as the basis for your grades that colleges look at to accept you. For example, England uses the O levels and the A levels Test that act as your grades more so than what you actually make in school.
I think that if we could improve on this idea we could actually compete with the rest of the world when it comes to high school and middle school education. Maybe there wouldn't be such a divide between the states and we could improve the education in the rural areas as well.