A Look At Education

The purpose of this entry is to take a look at the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Liberal Education America's Promise (LEAP) in order to assess their similarities and differences. I will attempt to reveal the benefits and downfalls equally and fairly for each of these educational entities.

First we will look at the NCLB. What is it really? What the NCLB aimed to do is target school districts with low income families and provide federal funds to help improve their education. In order to receive and keep these federal funds however, the schools had to prove that the students were indeed learning and bettering their education.

This seems like a simple and helpful system. The fact of the matter is that it is a helpful system and should work in principle. Think about it, through this program, schools should be able to get better books, more computers, and better resources to further educate a child and give it the chance to succeed and get out of their low income situation and create a better life for themselves. It sounds so good and should work. These are the benefits of the NCLB and they look like they are flawless.

There are several major problems however. First of all, the testing standards that the schools must meet in order to obtain and keep the federal funds are quite strict and very high. Where we run into an issue is that these testing standards are so high that it becomes next to impossible for the students to meet them. Especially if they're currently in a low income area and don't have the resources to learn the material required for the test. This gives rise to another problem. When the students aren't performing as well as they should be, this puts stress on the teachers to make them perform better. The teachers have a couple choices in this situation. They can work their tales off and do everything in their power to make do with the resources they are provided and try to get their students to reach the goal, or they can make it seem like their students are meeting it. There have been several instances where the teacher has taken the students tests and changed the answers themselves in order to make it seem like the students are performing as well as they should when they have truthfully fallen short of the mark. My aunt is a vice principal in the Mineral County of West Virginia school district and has confirmed this for me. Another problem is that the NCLB requires the teachers to be "highly qualified". Now this statement in and of itself does not sound like a problem because we would all want our children to be taught by people that know what they're talking about. The problem comes in again with what standard a "highly qualified" individual must meet. The standards are so high that it is becoming increasingly difficult for any teacher to measure up to the standard. Some teachers teach more than one subject in a school because the school has no other option since they can't find specifically qualified teachers in the subject. Chemistry teachers are one primary example. Teachers are required to have a bachelors degree in their field as well as all licenses and certifications required and be able to demonstrate their knowledge of that subject. It is ridiculously difficult to find someone with a bachelor degree in chemistry to teach high school science. These are just a couple of the problems with NCLB. As you can see with these problems, when a teacher changes the students scores in order to keep the funding, the child is not really receiving a very good education. On the other end, with the high standards expected of teachers, it is getting increasingly difficult for schools to get funding in the first place because the teachers can't possibly measure up. So as you can see, the problems with NCLB far outweigh the benefits.

Now let's take a look at LEAP and what it strives to accomplish. This teaching philosophy has gotten increasing use and support in the university and even some primary education levels. The idea is to provide a liberal or very well rounded education to the individual and not just a narrow training.

This sounds like a good idea and it is in concept as well as in practice. It is actually the philosophy used here on Shepherd University. Through this system, a student will be able to not only pick the field of study they wish to pursue, but they will also receive education in other fields as well. This is a gerat way for students to get a feel of the world around them and allows them to get a taste of what else is out there for them. Through this system I have seen a student be set on one field of study and through a single class they took and enjoyed, completely change their major and be all the happier for it. This actually happened to me in my college experience. I was going for a pharmacy degree but through several liberal arts classes I was required to take, I ended up completely switching my major and becoming a mass communications major which is why I am currently writing this blog. I am personally grateful for this system and highly recommend it's use across the board.

However, there is one issue I have with this system. It requires that you take courses that you have no interest in whatsoever. For instance, as stated before I am a mass communications major and switched to this and plan on sticking with, therefore I have no desire or need for taking a physical education course. I understand that the purpose of this course is to help college students develop a healthy lifestyle but I am currently in shape and go to the gym regularly so the need for me to spend my time and my money in order to take this course just so i can further my education in my field of study is upsetting. I probably had the worst case scenario. The professor of the course was well into his 70's and would lose his train of thought halfway into a sentence and begin to ramble. His grading was sporadic and the course was confusing to say the least. needless to say I was highly upset that I had to spend money and time in the class in order to further my education.

As you can see, both of these entities are trying to improve the education of students everywhere. They succeed in some areas while failing in others. They are trying to achieve the same goal but going about it in a different way. As with all government or even just human policies, nothing is perfect, but we will continue to strive toward that mark.