The article can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/02/02/education.reform.reut/
index.html?section=cnn_education
After the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, MEAP testing continued as normal at the elementary school where I attended third through fifth grades and where my mother has worked since I was born. However, after the last round of testing, the school day could not continue as normal, as the school did not make adequate yearly progress according to the standards created by the act. Since then, drastic changes have had to be made, resulting in the cutting of a recess per day and less music and gym classes. Students must also sit through a mandatory two-hour block of time designated each day for language arts instruction. It is a welcome relief to me, after hearing news about what happened back at home, to learn that there are organized efforts against the requirements spelled out in NLCB. The state of Connecticut, according to the article I read on CNN.com, is taking legal action against the federal government on the grounds that the state is not being given enough funding to actually implement the testing in an effective way.
Drawing from my own experiences again, I know school funding can be a huge problem, not only at the state level but at the local level as well. For the past thirty years, my old school district has been trying to pass bond proposals to increase the millage they receive from taxes, and for thirty years their efforts have been consistently shot down by the voters. In Connecticut, the lack of funding will force school districts to use multiple choice testing instead of more expensive writing tests that use better testing methods, just one of the many reasons that they are suing over the requirements of the law. The financial situation could get even tighter, as arguments earlier this week focused on legal technicalities about the lawsuit that would give the federal government the opportunity to suspend millions of dollars of education funding to Connecticut. I know all of us in education have been hearing about the argument over NCLB for several years now, but I thought it important to point out the fact that the government will go so far as to take even more money away from a cash-short education department even as they file reports that they do not have enough money in the first place. For me, this is just one more in a long list of problems with the way our government is dealing with the issue of education in our country. “Do it our way,” they seem to be saying, “or we’ll give you even less.” I think Attorney General Richard Blumenthal put it best in the article: “There is always the option of dumbing down the test to the point that would be inadequate, and we are not willing to do that,” he said. “We’re left with no choice but to either defy the statute or (follow) an interpretation that we believe is mistaken and misguided.”
