NCLB reformed to improve success

The blog was titled "How to Overhaul NCLB to Help Schools Improve: Implement Common Elements of Success." This article focused on NCLB's fallbacks and its lack of effective implementation in the classroom. It's obvious that students with low SES are falling behind and it's those students who need more of the attention. They need the extra attention because they might not have that support system at home in order to effectively get schoolwork done. The parents of low SES children don't necessarily help out at home and it's those students who need extra attention. The article gave five elements to implement in the school so teachers can teach lifelong knowledge and not test knowledge. Leadership, instructional improvement, curriculum, climate, and parent and community involvement and support all outline the elements that are needed to be implemented into the classroom to effectively achieve true success of the students. Students expect to learn for the test and the students slack as a result because they cram right before the tests in which students might forget information on that test. On standardized tests, there's no real outline to study so students are not as likely to succeed on standardized tests if they normally cram because standardized tests cover too wide of a range of topics to be able to cram and know most of the questions. The five elements seem to be effective because leadership is a big element that students don't necessarily experience. Many teachers solely lecture their students and they don't talk about the life aspect of knowledge or the fun of knowledge and students don't feel supported in return. Students need effective community support because people are more likely to do well in school if they feel the support not only of their family, but of the community. Community support goes a long way and I will give an example using sports. The fans make up the community of support. The team who receives a big fan base are more likely to succeed if they are receiving that community support because that heightens the team's emotions which each player feels. Having the community support gives a mental edge to the team with the greater amount of support. The climate element is an essential element because this sets the mentality for the students. Climate is basically setting high expectations for the students to succeed. If the students don't have high expectations in the classroom, they are likely to slack and in turn do poorly in school. All five elements need to be collaborative to achieve the 100 percent proficiency goal in 2014. While tests should not be stressed, it should be the lifelong knowledge aspect that students need to learn. Having expectations  in lifelong knowledge allows students to achieve the should-be goal of NCLB.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-m-ratner/how-to-overhaul-nclb-to-h_b_839130.html

School Funding for Equal Opportunity

     The summary of the blog is as follows: the man wrote a letter to the governor to ensure the students upstate don't get a cut in their funding for schooling. He noted it was important to create an equal opportunity of schooling and he noted that it is not the people who should be at fault of where they live to take a cut in funding.

     He makes a very good point by giving an equal opportunity of schooling. This is the dream that many people have come up with--equal opportunity in schools. Regardless of SES or where you live, Horace Mann felt it was a necessity to give equal schooling. Without that, you won't do the USA much justice. After all, it is the people who are in school now who will eventually take over as leaders of this country. Do people really want future leaders to have a limited education? I wouldn't assume they would want future leaders to have limited education opportunities but rather the opposite. It is essential that students with lower SES be given more of an opportunity because they are the ones who lack that experience and mindset that people with the higher SES already obtain. I believe the students with a high SES already have that knowledge base of the school system so it would be feasible to taper off some of their funding and donate that to schools with students of lower SES;  it would be essential to those schools with low SES because that would aide the teachers in giving a better education to the students. The students need all of the opportunities they can because they lack nearly everything that wealthier people have. The wealthy have all of the better opportunities whereas the poor have worse opportunities. Students shouldn't be held accountable for their parents' lack of education and wealth because they are the ones who are given a second shot for the parents who have a limited amount of wealth. The wealthy children are just going to become more wealthy all because of what their parents have achieved; this gives little opportunity to the poor. I keep talking about the wealthy and poor because I can't stress enough how difficult it is for a poor student to maintain that support system along with keeping a good GPA and maintaining good test scores. Poor students need more of an opportunity to succeed and that is where funding is crucial. If people give more funding to the schools with less money, those who do won't be sorry they did because they will see an increase in progress until the students start achieving more than they have before.









http://thebatavian.com/howard-owens/hawley-calls-governor-ensure-equal-school-funding-rural-and-urban-districts/24763