politics

I spoke to various people at Riverside Elementary this week about politics, but certain parts of my conversation with the school librarian and an instructional assistant stuck out to me. The librarian thinks that No Child Left Behind's intense focus on testing, teaching the curriculum, and fulfilling standards is majorly impeding progress in the school. Ms. Lowe believes that the real focus should always be on the teacher/student relationship and the students' relationships with each other. The emphasis on testing makes it impossible to have enough time to develop students' critical thinking and social skills to the degree that is necessary.
The instructional assistant to the special education classes that I spoke to also sees the negative impact of No Child Left Behind. She told me that the mandated testing makes her job much more difficult because it is absolutely impossible to prepare some of the students with disabilities for the testing. The students are still required to participate in the testing. She said it is extremely frustrating for the teachers and the students to attempt to prepare for something for which they could never possibly be prepared.
The one thing that struck me about both of these conversations is that both of these teachers spoke about No Child Left Behind like there was nothing that they could possibly do about it. This hopelessness was discouraging, and these teachers' opinions are not being valued. Teachers are obviously not given much say in what is mandated by the federal government, and it is important to feel empowered to enact change to inform and change the field in any way.