But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." ".
Furthermore, test scores should not be the determinant of a student's success in school and teachers should not be punished for students who are not good test takers. An example of a way that teachers are punished for a student's low test scores is the practice of merit pay. Merit pay in the teaching community is when a teacher is paid based on the performance of the students. This does not create an environment where learning is the most important thing. Instead, it creates an environment where the material on the test is the only material deemed important. ("Examining Merit Pay ").
Admittedly, No Child Left Behind is no longer in action. When the vote was cast as to whether or not it should be kept, it was voted out. Even though it no longer exists, the test-based mentality that resulted from it still remains and things like merit-pay are still considered by lawmakers to be effective. .
All things considered, I disagree with the practices of No Child Left Behind and think that there are better ways to measure a student's intelligence. My solution would be to use things like gifted programs, STEM clubs, and methods of teaching that teach kids why learning is beneficial, and get rid of the mindset that the more facts you know the smarter you are. Hopefully, this would discourage teachers from teaching to the test, and get rid of practices like merit-pay. .
Because our education system is kind of shifting gears, after being under the No Child Left Behind policy for so long, new policies are being made to educate students. An example of this would be Common Core. The idea of Common Core is that all states should have the same curriculum; the same standards for students. So that if you walk into a classroom in Florida you will be learning the same information as students in California, Pennsylvania, and so on.
