The future of our nation...........

How did NCLB harm schools? Finally they had to deliver the goods. Teacher unions hate it because they got real comfy keeping their jobs even though kids couldn't read, and they sure didn't want to be accountable for results. I'm a teacher, and I'm a huge fan of the benefits reaped by all the schools I have worked at/my children attended since NCLB was implemented.

Because it teaches children to test instead of how to learn... I am in college with kids much younger, and the effects are there. They act like the DESERVE to be in college, and they are just a steady stream of sheep with no concept of how to think for themselves. Deliver what goods? A "standardized" test score? So you are saying that every child is the exact same? This would explain the ever growing population of "sheeple".

^This. It goes back to my stance that school's purpose should be to teach us how to learn/think/problem solve and not how to memorize crap and take tests.

Have you honestly forgotten what it was like to be that age? Of course he was serious. We were all serious at that age. We knew everything and adults were idiots.

I used to think the same thing about English. I speak and write more coherently than most of the people I see posting to message boards but I still couldn't pick anything other than the Noun and Verb out of a sentence. Seriously, Does having fancy names for the parts of speech help you speak/write any better?

How did NCLB harm schools? Finally they had to deliver the goods. Teacher unions hate it because they got real comfy keeping their jobs even though kids couldn't read, and they sure didn't want to be accountable for results. I'm a teacher, and I'm a huge fan of the benefits reaped by all the schools I have worked at/my children attended since NCLB was implemented.

Because it teaches children to test instead of how to learn... I am in college with kids much younger, and the effects are there. They act like the DESERVE to be in college, and they are just a steady stream of sheep with no concept of how to think for themselves. Deliver what goods? A "standardized" test score? So you are saying that every child is the exact same? This would explain the ever growing population of "sheeple".

^This. It goes back to my stance that school's purpose should be to teach us how to learn/think/problem solve and not how to memorize crap and take tests.

I have children in middle and elementary school. I hate the NCLB program. I have seen the affects firsthand by working in the schools that they are just learning to test well. They aren't able to teach the kids to learn for themselves. Also, when did giving homework over the weekend become an evil thing? We used to get tons on weekends growing up and it didn't kill us. My mom and sister are both teachers and hate NCLB. They have to deal with its affects everyday as they teach at the middle and high school levels. When did it become okay for the federal gov't to step into our schools and tell our teachers how they are allowed to teach? When I went to school our teachers used all sorts of methods from visual to hands-on exercises to get through to us. But now teachers hands are tied to standards and tests. And our kids are the ones that are really going to suffer the consequences of all of this.

re: NCLB
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Deliver what goods?

The ability to read, for one. NCLB mandates that every child can read by third grade. THIRD grade. By the time they are 8 or even 9 years old, we are requiring that the teachers actually get around to teaching them to read. At the "Basic" level, it doesn't even require that they test "proficient" in reading.

This is just awful. When I was 14 years old I thought every subject in school was extremely useful and important, I can't believe what the world is coming to.

If there's anything I ever need to know/remember, Google's there for a reason. I know it's not ALWAYS the answer, but my brain would never remember all that unnecessary info.
Good for you that you're well rounded, and I see what you mean, but for MY life I don't think I'll need to know anything more than the basics. Trying to teach me and 99% of teens/kids out there anything more than the basics for math and some other subjects is a waste of everyone's time.
Those classes should be changed for money management classes or something to prepare kids for things they'll actually need to know.

But in money management people do use algebra, it isn't unnecessary. (And alegebra includes using many basic math functions.) For example: You earn $1000 and have $950 in bills/expenses, so you are left with $50 to do with as you want every month. You want a PS Vita with 3G and WiFi which costs $300.00. At minimum, how many months (X) will it take you to save for it? $300 = $50X (Yes this is a very basic algebra problem and is basically division, but it's still algebra.) If you throw in interest rates or more complex money management ideas and algebra and other higher mathematics will be necessary in the class.