Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools | 
|  | | | Title: | Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools | | Author: | Deborah Meier (Editor)
George Wood (Editor) | | Publisher: | Beacon Press | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 29 September, 2004 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0807004596 / 9780807004593 | | List Price: | $13.00 | | You Save: | $2.60 | | Amazon Price: | $10.40 | |
 This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $6.99. |
The HTML code below can be pasted onto your web-site, your MySpace page, or blog - or any number of similar places - to create a link to this page: If, instead of a text link, you'd like to create a link to this page which will display the book cover, if it's available, then the code below will do exactly that:
Check for the same book at these other US book sites:
• [ Abebooks ] • [ Alibris ] • [ Barnes & Noble ] • [ Half.com ] • [ Powells ] … or check UK bookstores
| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
A citizens' guide to what's wrong with the nation's radical federal education legislation—and a passionate call for change
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has become the most fiercely debated education issue of this election year, and it will be at the center of the national conversation about schools for the foreseeable future. NCLB, signed into law in 2002, purports to improve public schools—and especially the way they serve poor children—by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing and sanctions. It is radically affecting the life of schools around the country.
Many Children Left Behind is a devastating brief against NCLB. Far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the authors argue, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education—including Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, and Theodore R. Sizer—come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve:
· How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools
· How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools
· How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms
· How we need alternatives to construing the idea of accountability in terms of test scores and sanctions.
Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here.
| Other Items You May Enjoy:
Browse Books From These Related Subjects:
Customer Reviews:
• All Children Left Behind 05 June, 2008
No Child Left Behind is probably as awful as the authors suggest, although as a teacher, AKA education worker, I would be the first person to admit that my perspective is limited to a handful of schools; I do not pretend to have the wide vision held by researchers of the sort who wrote this book. I can only refute by anecdote which was admittedly limited in scope. The basis for the critique of NCLB is that the emphasis on testing distracts from the 'business' of education. Of course, this is true. If the schools had been educating the kids, however, this project would never have been conceived. The fact that is forgotten by the critics is that there was no education taking place. The test schedules replace movie watching, cheer leading assemblies, and other obsessions of American educators that have never enhanced learning. Suddenly, instead of doing one's own thing, education workers are being told what to do. This is an anathema to old-line educators but especially to those who hold all standards in contempt. Many teachers trained in Woodstock and devoted to counter-cultural values have no interest in teaching to standards of any kind other than those established by Tiny Tim and Malcolm X. They believe that testing is harmful to children. Secretly, they care not about the kids but about what low scores imply. They are in fact afraid that their performances as teachers are being scrutinized. Defeating NCLB is a way to defeat the accountability movement. Still, NCLB is flawed and can be adjusted and improved. Some of the criticisms are valid. On the other hand, were it not for NCLB, schools would never have to scrutinize spending. And the nasty truth is that the lack of funds has not kept school districts from paying to have superintendent's offices floored in marble or from hiring the cousins of school principals $1000 a night to provide security for back-to-school-nights. That is, there are indeed funding gaps created by NCLB, but that hasn't cramped the style of wasteful, corrupt school administrators. Fear is a powerful motivator. Many useful and wonderful projects have been initiated by districts looking over their shoulders for the first time since NCLB was enacted.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2JXAQ92WYPAAR
• Excellent 19 March, 2008
If you're looking for a short, cogent overview of NCLB and the major issues, this is the book for you. Edited by Meier and Wood, it contains chapters written by six different authors including Linda Darling-Hammond and Alfie Kohn.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AEHX13G70AHRJ
• Deb Meier Is The Real Deal! 23 December, 2007
I highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants to know about NCLB and the real effects it has on the public education system. She (along with several other progressive education advocates Kohn, Darling-Hammond, Sizer, etc.) tries to get the word out on how detrimental this legislation is for public education: NCLB has made those low-performing schools pleases where no one wants to teach: increased emphasis is placed on some subjects while others are neglected in order to raise standardized test scores. Meier et. al. tries to talk sense to anyone who will listen!!! I want everyone who cares about public education, as well as the future of our democracy, READ THIS BOOK!!!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A29D5DUX25877K
• Satisfactory 09 May, 2008
I bought this product to complete some school work. Amazon's shipping was fabulous. The product itself was as expected.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1AZZD36EYU0V6
• "no Child Left Behind", A Catchy Title For A Lousy Law 15 November, 2007
The "No Child Left Behind Law" has now been in effect for about 6 years, and although this book was written 3 years ago, the material is as valid today as it was when it was written. The book consists of essays written by various people with ties to education about what is wrong with the law, and although there is some overlap, much of the information is useful.
Did you know, for instance, that the law does not allow a sub group to drop year over year, even though such drops are within the standard deviation of the statistical results for such tests? That s but one gem to be found in this book.
There is one area where I found they were lacking. They do not address gifted children and how they are being hurt by the law. My daughter is GATE, and I have been fighting the problem of testing for years. She is always in the 99-100% and should have been moved up. Each time I complained, schools gave me various vague answers. Finally, I was taken aside and told she wouldn't be advanced to where she was challenged because the school couldn't afford to lose her top test scores. If she got to where she was challenged, her scores would drop and wouldn't help keep the school at the level it was at. I also knew of at least 10 other parents in the same trap.
So, in addition to hurting the poor and poorly performing, we are now also holding back the gifted kids. Amazing!
We are leaving droves of children behind and wasting precious fiscal and human resources teaching children how to test. Read this book and become prepared before the law causes you to have issues at your school!
- Reviewed by customer ID: AE61FFT0GUD2G
|
