This week’s in class brainstorming workshops benefitted me greatly, as I was able to identify a possible topic for my paradigm shift essay: the arrival of standardized testing era. The 2000 presidential election of George W. Bush ushered in new republican legislation, including the No Child Left Behind Act.
The No Child Left Behind Act was passed by Congress in 2001 and signed into law by Bush in 2002. The act served as an amendment to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, establishing an even stronger federal hold on public schools. Bush’s goal for the act was to increase academic achievement by implementing yearly progress requirements- with accompanying sanctions for when requirements are not met- as well as the creation of general advanced, proficient, and basic levels of performance.
Most importantly, the No Child Left Behind Act obligates public schools to give students in grades 3 through 8, as well as 1 grade of high school, standardized reading and math tests. While these tests are not legally required, schools that refuse to implement testing would suffer the consequences of losing federal funding. Student performance on these tests is evaluated and used to decided if sanctions are prescribed.
The creation of the act can be attributed to not only the inauguration of republican president George Bush, but also to the realization that the American school system was not ranked number one in the world. The perceived inability to compete with other nations in regards to the field of education spawned the administration’s desire to construct an effective and efficient school system.
Unfortunately, with the implementation of standardized tests, and the pressure put on schools to produce high test results, the span of public education has narrowed incredibly. Despite the protests of many teachers, school districts prioritize subjects that will be directly tested and seem to disregard subjects that are not tested, but still hold an important role in shaping smart, kind, and well rounded students. This, paired with the 2010 Common Core Standards educational initiative, has built an era of education uninterested In individuality and unappreciative of diverse forms of intelligence.
This is definitely an interesting topic because this is something that my mom looked into for years. In New York we have these tests called the English Language Assesment and the Mathematics test. These tests are taken from grades 3-8, and during my times in these grades, everyone took them. Although, when I was taking them it wasn’t used to judge the teachers. Once people realize this they started to “opt” their children out of these tests. Many teachers were pro opting out, however, some administration was against opting out. The reason being was that the higher the districts opt-out rate, the more money would be taken away from that district.