The president of Leslie University predicts that the No Child Left Behind Act will foster school violence, horrific school violence:

Across the country, schools are reporting that the pressures of No Child Left Behind-required testing regimes are crowding out teacher time and forcing cutbacks in such "frills" as art, music, physical education and recess. In their place: more test prep and drills and increasing levels of regimentation, student alienation and teacher stress. . . .

Performing well on math and literacy tests is not the only predictor of how one will perform as a member of society. The likelihood that a large proportion of the nation's schools will be labeled "underperforming" by the No Child Left Behind's narrow measures will raise the stakes even more. Teachers will be pressured to concentrate still more of their efforts on drills and tests rather than on developing broadly educated students who will become responsible and engaged citizens.

The danger is not just that the lessons of Columbine are being lost because of No Child Left Behind but that they may have to be taught to us again - at painful cost.

For sure, if poor Dylan and Eric had just had some more music, art, and recess, they wouldn't have killed all those people.

The Liberal mind is endlessly astonishing. (Link via Joanne Jacobs.)

Comments

[Brian]

1. I am still waiting for the teachers to "go postal" (no offense to the fine people at the post office), for the difficult position they are in.

2. Students and teachers should rise up together end in this "no child left behind" charade. I think art classes are important, but having them or not isn't addressing the cause(s), just a symptom of a complex problem.

3. Considering the potential power in the internet, students and teachers should boycott in mass these tests.

4. Maybe its just because I am from TX, but it seems to me that Americans are just becoming more and more like sheep, what happened to ingenuity, frontier spirit (doesn't mean you have to slaughter buffalo and native americans), we've become so blahh (for like of a better word)- I want to blame Bush, the irony it would be if I could, but thats simple minded to do so.

5. In my new location, San Franciso, (its like living in OZ)there has been a 35% increase in sexual assaults by male students on female students in jr high and high school, this year. I am not sure what art classes can help this problem (maybe the boys could take a sculpting class and assault their clay statue instead of a 12 year old girl)or what tests should be taught to, but maybe if the funding that the Fed gave CA that was required to be spent on homeland security and preparation, and the unfilfilled promise of additional funding for the education and health programs where the money was diverted from to meet the federal requiremnts, and if "no child left behind" had funding for more than the tests, and if CA would do away with locking in percentages of their state budget that can only be spent on X, Y,Z, then maybe we would at least have a less hostile education experience for teachers and students.

6. If I ever have kids and they say, like I did to my parents, "you don't understand, its harder now than when you were in school", then maybe they would be right. Kids only have some much "energy" if its spent deflecting assault, rape, bullies, and the usual BS, to then take an obviously stupid barage of tests, that the disheartened teeacher has to teach to, I'd be spent and looking for some way to cope as well.

[Jake]

The “No Child Left Behind” law is the sleeper law of the decade. It is going to force massive changes in the education establishment. The end result will be much better schools but it will be a tough transition.

The deafening screams, which are echoing throughout the land, are from the education establishment because now they will be held accountable for their failures.

No longer will textbook sellers create algebra textbooks with the first 183 pages detail how Amerika is destroying the environment (mathematics are not mentioned until page 184). No longer can a school refuse to teach English to immigrant kids because if they did, they would employ fewer teachers. No longer can school districts transfer non-english speaking students to another school each quarter so that each school can get a translator subsidy on the same student. (All of the above happened in Minnesota)

Teachers will have to change how they teach. Principals and school boards will have to change how they run schools. Teachers colleges will have to change their curriculums. Politicians will have to stand up to the government unions.

The biggest beneficiary is inner school children. This is a life-changing event for them. Now many of them will be able to realize their dreams of a better life.