Students say NCLB ‘dumbing down’ education

When it comes to her education, Alicia Mathews has never been afraid of a little hard work.

The 18-year-old Hixson High School senior is on the cheerleading squad, enrolled in advanced placement courses and plans to attend either Belmont or Lambuth universities in the fall.

But like some other Hamilton County teens, Ms. Mathews said the No Child Left Behind Act, which targets schools with low-performing students, is partially responsible for “dumbing down” her education. Teachers feel the pressure to make sure students pass and therefore set lower standards, she said.

“Students are passing, but it’s because it’s easy. Their education is being given to them,” said Ms. Mathews, who once dropped an accounting class because it did not challenge her.

Students such as Ms. Mathews said they would support a bill introduced by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., that would give up to 12 states greater flexibility in meeting NCLB requirements in exchange for setting higher academic achievement standards.

In January, the Tennessee Board of Education voted to toughen the state’s high school curriculum and testing standards and increase graduation requirements. Educators and state officials said they expect a dip in test scores when the new standards come into effect in fall 2009 but that the increased rigor would pay off for Tennessee graduates in the end.

During a meeting at the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Thursday, Sen. Alexander said if his bill passes, he hoped Tennessee would be one of the states to apply to the U.S. secretary of education for more flexibility under the law.

“I would love to see Tennessee be a pioneer in saying, ‘OK, we’ll have higher standards, but we’d like to show the nation that we have simpler ways and better ways to reach those standards than the federal government has prescribed,’” he said.

After Sen. Alexander proposed the legislation in November, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings called the bill “reasonable and responsible.”

“Senator Alexander’s legislation also offers incentives for states to strengthen their standards, helping to ensure students are challenged to reach their full academic potential,” she said in a prepared statement.

Hardy Elementary School principal Natalie Elder recently spoke in Washington, D.C., to a panel of House and Senate staff members working on the reauthorization of NCLB. Ms. Elder admits the law is not perfect, but she believes the accountability it forces on teachers is valuable.

She said she has heard several high school students say they feel course work has gotten easier since NCLB but wonders how that is possible.

“Why would any teacher dummy down anything?” she asked. “Your goal is to teach beyond the curriculum.”

Dale Dworak is in his second year of teaching history at Brainerd High School and said he thinks the federal law has forced him to make his classes more challenging.

“Rather than just (memorizing) names and dates, we want students to pay attention to why things happened,” he said. “It certainly includes (getting) students involved in upper-level thinking skills.”

It’s not teachers’ fault they have to teach differently because of NCLB, said Rudy Foster, a senior at Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences.

“I think a lot of times teachers do have to dumb things down so they can get everything in that’s going to be on the tests,” he said. “They have to take away things they want to teach and think are important.”

Patrick Morrison, a junior at CSAS, said he always felt it was his responsibility to request help from a teacher if he was struggling in class but lately has found his teachers catering to struggling students.

“In some of my classes, teachers will focus on the students who are struggling to the extreme,” he said. “I excel in my classes, and teachers look over us and restrict us from moving on to greater things, more important lessons.”

A reauthorization vote for NCLB is scheduled later this year, as the federal education law is set to expire at the end of 2008.

TWEAKING NCLB

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced Tuesday that up to 10 states will be given greater flexibility next year on how they spend federal money to help struggling schools as part of a new No Child Left Behind pilot program. Participating states must focus the most intense intervention on the schools that are furthest from their achievement goals under the No Child Left Behind Act, and schools that are closer to target would receive less intensive state interventions.

Source: Education Week