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A computer class at Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md. Lauren Drell/MNS
WASHINGTON—Ask a teacher what should be changed about No Child Left Behind, and you might hear something like this:
“Do you have 500 hours?”
That’s what Mary Tedrow, a high school English teacher from Virginia, said.
Indeed, the Bush administration’s version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has become a controversial and oft-lamented issue. Its standardized testing has had the unintended effect of narrowing the curriculum by focusing on only math and reading.
“Schools definitely feel the pressure to cram in those two main areas, which we all would agree are very important,” said Mike Bayewitz, principal of Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md. “But certainly science, social studies, music and the arts have taken a backseat.”
The law has had a negative effect on ”what it means to teach and what it means to learn” in America’s schools, said Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association. Eskelsen wants to encourage more students in a pipeline to STEM careers, which stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These careers are in high demand, and they’re some of the highest-paying jobs in the country. But most schools are busy focusing on getting students to the year-end benchmarks in math and reading to worry about science.
Eskelsen refers to NCLB as “No Child Left Untested,” since that’s been the result in the past eight years. The good news is that the Obama administration will be reauthorizing its own version of the ESEA. The lengthy health care debate may have pushed ESEA reauthorization to 2011, but many teachers and education organizations are making their pleas heard now for a better, more comprehensive education law.