NCLB; Something to be proud of!

Many of you discussed that Education was an important issue for you in these elections. Perhaps it is an issue that should be of importance to you all the time, and not just now seeing as we live in a society that values entertainment higher than education.

Soon after Bush took Presidency he enacted the "No Child Left Behind" act and oh what a marvelous thing. Equal education for all. Right? Sure, if that's what you want to believe. We need to hold our schools and teachers accountable. Great! Right? Sure. We need to ensure our children are Literate. Yeah! Why didn't anyone think of this before?? Well, they did, this was just a new twist to it.

Either way the federal government feels the itch to enforce, or ensure, whichever way you wish to look at it, that parents and teachers are doing what they are supposed to do because leaving it at the local level is insufficient. Or perhaps it is a way to make it "fair" for all, to prevent children from struggling in school, to help children "believe" that they are succeeding when they really are not because the schools have the ability of lowering standards according to the demographics. Perhaps this is the best thing for our nations education, or perhaps it's the reason why we are the one of the worst in education?

Poet Lamont Carey voices his thoughts on the issue:

So, arguing whether or not this act was a good one really has to be dissected and analyzed. But one thing that I tend to always believe, is that if the government or a bunch of beuracratic politicians came up with the idea, chances are it's not going to work very well. But hey, you never know right, one of these days they might actually prove us wrong.

In the case of "No Child left Behind", it is in my humble opinion, that the best judges of this act would have to be the ones who deal with it every single day in the classroom trying to "abide" by it: TEACHERS.

Below you'll find a clip of a young teacher making an argument against "No Child Left Behind". SHe makes a fair and objective argument, as she does not pointing the finger at Bush or other politicians but rather keeps her focus on the plan itself. Rather than ranting and complaining she analyzes and interprets and concedes to certain points in the Act (which is really important when you are trying to pursuade your viewers to agree with you).

It's starts off a bit wierd which could lead to a horrible introduction and turn viewers away or it could be a grasping introduction that makes viewers want to keep watching. You be the judge of that.

More importantly though, now that most of you are getting ready to vote for the first time in your life, it's important that you educate yourself on issues like these. Do you know where your presidential candidate favorite stands on NCLB? Youtube held a presidential debate back in July and this was one of the questions they asked the Democratic hopefuls. They were asked if it should be scrapped or revised. I found a video of Huckabee answering this question in an interview as well, so to be fair to the opposite point of view I am including a hyperlink to that video as well.

NCLB; A teachers argument