One of my criticisms of NCLB is that it causes too many schools to focus all of their attention on the bottom 25% of a school’s population while ignoring the middle- and upper-level students. Some of the effects of this focus in my school are:
- fewer upper-level course choices in order to create more lower-level courses,
- larger class sizes for middle- and upper-level students because of smaller class sizes for low achievers,
- teacher time used to create new courses for lower-level students rather than refining other courses,
- school resources (support, supplies, etc.) diverted away from the majority to the minority,
- less teacher time for upper-level students because of the forced paperwork and attention on the lowest achieving students,
- curriculum cuts to lower the bar for students (to create higher passage rates), and
- the focus of the school’s efforts being on the teachers’ shoulders rather than placing a focus on the parents’ and students’ involvement as well. Read the rest of this entry »
