Home Members & Educators Parents & Community     > Issues in Education         > ›   "No Child Left Behind"/ESEA ›   Special Ed/IDEA ›   Achievement Gaps ›   Professional Pay ›   Vouchers ›   Other Issues Legislative Action Center Press Center Special Events               >		NCLB Member Stories Listed by State An index of all NEA Member Stories on NCLB by state. NCLB Stories: Wayne Ward, Texas "The testing in Texas, and the evaluation of schools based on the test results has caused so much concern in our school that almost all resources are directed to those students who are at risk of not passing." More NCLB Stories: Colorado Additional stories about NCLB by Colorado NEA members. More NCLB Stories: California Additional NCLB stories by California NEA members. NCLB Stories: Videos of Member Stories View these video clips to see and hear what these NEA members are saying about ''No Child Left Behind.'' NCLB Stories South Carolina NCLB Stories South Carolina NCLB Stories Janet Agnew, South Carolina NCLB Stories Janet Agnew, South Carolina NCLB Agenda Positiva NCLB data in Spanish NCLB Stories: Susan Strada, Pennsylvania Now for the kicker: For the last two years we have been in 'school improvement' because of the scores that our special education students are getting on the PSSAs. This just doesn't make sense to me. NCLB Stories: Jim Sando, Pennsylvania I see my job as helping my kids grow as much as they are capable of growing in all academic areas, but that's not enough. NCLB Stories: Susan Grimm McCoy, Pennsylvania When I told them that their daughter had worked hard on the state test, they did not understand the need for government tests when they had only just arrived in this country. I hope that I alleviated their fears about this test. Please do not have people new to our country take a test before they have some knowledge of the language. NCLB Stories: Anne Loeffler, Pennsylvania Each year, the special education classroom teachers I work with spend hours preparing to give the alternative test to their students. NCLB Stories: Kristie Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania We are here for our students in every way. We should care for them, nurture them, and educate them. Doing so will create the best students of all. ESEA allows only for testing and pressure -- this does not create successful students. NCLB Stories: Richard Erickson, Pennsylvania How can administrators forget the real needs of children? Can a few points on a test be more important? How? NCLB Stories: Jean Eller, Pennsylvania What is happening to early childhood education in our country? Once upon a time, the kindergarten classroom was filled with singing, laughing, speaking, listening, doing artwork, sharing, and so many more developmentally appropriate practices. NCLB Stories: Need to Improve Assessment and Accountability These stories by NEA members about NCLB's impact illustrate why we need meaningful accountability that accurately measures student learning and school success. The goal should be to promote improved student learning, reward success, and provide meaningful assistance to students and schools most in need of help. NCLB Stories: Requirements Don't Meet Needs of Students with Disabilities These stories by NEA members about NLCB's impact illustrate why we need to tailor tests to the individual needs of students, particularly those with cognitive disabilities, and to measure individual student progress over time. NCLB: Voces del aula NCLB que ningún niño se quede atrás, maestros, escuelas, Spanish, español NCLB in Spanish Que ningun niño se quede atrás, NCLB, maestros, escuelas, español NCLB Stories: NCLB Unfair to English Language Learners These stories by NEA members about NCLB's impact illustrate why we need to treat English Language Learners more fairly and recognize the progress that students make in learning English as they are also learning subject area content. NCLB Stories: Why We Need a Comprehensive Curriculum These stories from NEA members about NCLB's impact illustrate why we need to provide all students with a comprehensive curriculum that includes social studies, foreign languages, the arts, music, and more -- rather than focusing narrowly on preparing students for standardized tests in reading and math. More NCLB Stories: Wisconsin Wisconsin NEA members' stories about NCLB. More NCLB Stories: Washington Washington NEA members' stories about NCLB. Top Concerns with NCLB/ESEA The problems caused by NCLB/ESEA-related requirements and rules most commonly identified by NEA members fall into four broad categories. Here are actual experiences of NEA members that help to illustrate each category of problem. More NCLB Stories: Oregon Oregon NEA members' stories about NCLB. NCLB Stories Tennessee NCLB Stories Tennessee NCLB Stories Tennessee NCLB Stories Tennessee NCLB Stories Tennessee NCLB Stories Tennessee NCLB Stories: Cyndi Underberg, South Dakota ''As a primary school teacher, I've found that ESEA/NCLB has taken much of the joy of learning out of our classrooms.'' NCLB Stories: Ann Tornberg, South Dakota ''Someone is making millions while public schools continue to be underfunded. Over 100 Sioux Falls special education teachers were forced to take the Praxis 146, regardless of how long they have taught. All passed!'' NCLB Stories: Susan Wiegand, Rhode Island ''This idea of robotic students all achieving at the same pace goes against everything we know about how children learn and grow. Due to the unrealistic expectations of NCLB, educators spend an inordinate amount of time assessing and documenting the acquisition of each skill.'' NCLB Stories: Tia G. Scigulinsky, Rhode Island ''NCLB has had a devastating effect on our school curriculum because many students did not meet standards on our state English and math tests.'' NCLB Stories Spanish NCLB Stories Spanish More NCLB Stories: Ohio Ohio NEA members' stories about NCLB. More NCLB Stories: New Jersey New Jersey NEA members' stories about NCLB. More NCLB Stories: North Carolina North Carolina NEA members' stories about NCLB. 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Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories Iowa NCLB Stories: Roberta Yamamoto, Hawaii ''In Windward, we call NCLB the No School Left Standing law. Teachers aren't teaching children to love learning anymore; they're told to prepare the students to pass the NCLB tests to show that the schools are improving.'' NCLB Stories: Evette Tampos, Hawaii ''The teachers with whom I work are now going through what I can only express as NCLB-PTSD (NCLB-post traumatic stress disorder), and there's no treatment or cure.'' NCLB Stories: Laynie Sueyasu, Hawaii ''By the time they leave our academy program, they have raised their achievement levels, raised their attendance rates, and they feel good about themselves. However, when it comes to reaching NCLB-mandated test requirement percentages, the students do not meet them.'' NCLB Stories: Jamie Stidger, Hawaii ''Because of NCLB, all we do is practice for the tests, and then take them. We need to educate the whole child, but we are all being robbed of that opportunity. Please help us.'' NCLB Stories: Edwina Shazar, Hawaii ''Financial cutbacks have reduced high school counseling services. With NCLB unfunded, many of our youth cannot access education.'' NCLB Stories: Cynthia Sallee-Brown, Hawaii ''By the year 2014, all schools in Hawaii will be in corrective action for not being able to meet AYP.'' NCLB Stories: Sally Pestana, Hawaii ''As I hear more and more stories of programs, such as band/orchestra/choir, speech/debate, art, PE, photography, and foreign languages being cut to allow more resources and time for teaching to standardized tests, I have been dreading the day, down the road, when those students will enter my classroom at the college level.'' NCLB Stories, Diane Aoki, Hawaii ''One year, we feel like failures; the next, we cannot honestly take pride in making AYP because making it was due to a technical alteration. How can we focus on achievement when the premise by which we are measured is so absurd?'' More NCLB Stories: Indiana Indiana NEA members' stories about NCLB. More NCLB Stories: Illinois Illinois NEA members' stories about NCLB. 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NCLB Stories: Pat Pepper, Georgia ''All this is being done to satisfy a statistic and just shows what local boards are doing because of the stress put on them by NCLB.'' NCLB Stories: Lorraine Lassiter, Georgia ''All students are individuals and should be judged on their own efforts and not constantly expected to reach the same point, all at the same time. Stop this insanity.'' NCLB Stories: Marchi Kuykendall, Georgia ''Although I have been teaching for 28 years, I was unable to teach my own students reading and math without a teacher present who had met the NCLB definition of highly qualified.'' NCLB Stories: Sylvia Controy, Georgia ''There is no way that a special education student can be held to the same standard as a regular education student.'' NCLB Stories: Elaine Colwell, Georgia ''Repeal the law or pay for the costs associated with it.'' NCLB Stories: Anne Marie Wolfe, Florida ''ESEA has taken and will continue to take the joy out of teaching and learning.'' NCLB Stories: Peter Wilmarth, Florida ''ESEA has done considerable harm to the self-esteem of students who perform at levels considered by their state system of accountability as meeting learning gains, but considered by ESA standards as failing. As my grandmother would say, 'shame on you.' '' NCLB Stories: Teress Willbur-Williams, Florida ''My huge concern is for teachers who have come into our profession in the past five years. They are overwhelmed. They have no time for their families or for even building relationships so that they can have families. The result is that they are not staying in education, which is a huge loss to our nation's future. I am worried.'' NCLB Stories: John Perry, Florida ''Eventually, NCLB will force us all into insanity.'' NCLB Stories: Barbara Miller, Florida ''NCLB has had a negative effect on my students, rather than improving their education.'' NCLB Stories: Mary Lou Fitzpatrick, Florida ''I strongly believe that NCLB and ESEA are designed to inhibit academic freedom, creativity in lesson preparation, and enthusiasm for teaching and acquiring knowledge.'' NCLB Stories: Angela Dunmore, Delaware ''NCLB has not improved education. It has created a false sense of accountability that is founded on misunderstanding and on training and resources that are inadequate to help dedicated teachers and administrators do what they want to do the most: help students to learn to the best of their ability.'' More NCLB Stories: Connecticut Connecticut NEA members' stories about NCLB. NCLB Stories: Terri Vitti, Connecticut ''I do not believe the thought behind NCLB is bad; however, it was not executed properly nor was it thoroughly thought out.'' NCLB Stories: Marie Petitti, Connecticut ''I hold an endorsement in math and have taught ninth through twelfth grade math since 1982 in Bridgeport. In June 2006, I was told that I was not highly qualified in math but I was highly qualified in world language (Spanish) and ESL.'' NCLB Stories: Louise McMinn, Connecticut ''As NCLB and testing requirements become more ingrained in our curriculum, the option to incorporate integrated curriculum and to relate curriculum to current events becomes limited.'' NCLB Stories: Dot Logan, Connecticut ''Special education students, who are putting forth fantastic effort with slow amounts of academic growth over time, are still required to take a test on grade level when they have no chance of meeting with success. Please press forward with this issue.'' NCLB Stories: Kathleen Kalt, Connecticut ''NCLB really hurt me and made my year teaching in Union even more difficult.'' NCLB Stories: Sheila Johnson, Connecticut ''If they could do grade-level work, many of them wouldn't be classified as special needs. What a Catch-22.'' NCLB Stories: Bill Jacobs, Connecticut ''I am one of many special education teachers at ACES who teaches low-cognitive-level students who range in age from six months to five years.'' NCLB Stories: Joy Gaiser, Connecticut ''I'm a special education teacher...I spend all year trying to build up their self-image, and those 10 days of testing undoes everything I worked for. It would be like us having to take a reading test in Russian, and everyone getting mad at us if we weren't proficient and brought the group's scores down.'' NCLB Stories: Debra Beveridge, Connecticut ''My concerns regarding NCLB include the fact that, to my knowledge, no provisions are being made to provide an effective preschool program to children entering the public school system.'' NCLB Stories: Elaine Jackson, Connecticut ''As a reading specialist, I live to empower students through literacy. However, the ESEA has limited my ability to promote true learning.'' NCLB Stories: Virginia Villafranca, Colorado ''True education in our school is being beaten down and destroyed by this legislation.'' NCLB Stories: Irma Valerio-Garcia, Colorado ''ESEA has made it extremely difficult for our district to hire support personnel because of declining enrollment and lack of funds.'' NCLB Stories: Mary Beth Solano, Colorado ''One recent student's story is a prime example of how NCLB legislation, by unfairly labeling students, is demoralizing and needs to be changed.'' NCLB Stories: Marylou Rogers, Colorado ''Our ESL students gained 40 points, but that was not good enough for them to meet AYP.'' NCLB Stories: Gwynn Moore, Colorado ''Teachers who best meet the individual needs of students through creative teaching methods and the professional assessment of student needs can't teach to the best of their abilities.'' NLCB Stories: Mike Lindstrom, Colorado ''At another school in my district, the kindergarten kids no longer get recess because that would interfere with their literacy block!'' NCLB Stories: Brenda Isaacs, Colorado ''As president of the Aurora Education Association, I have heard from members regularly about how the current version of ESEA has siphoned joy from the work they do with students and the passion they originally had in coming to our profession.'' NCLB Stories: Karen Hampel, Colorado ''I hope that we can get back to focusing on the whole child when we take a new look at ESEA.'' NCLB Stories: Kathryn Freidel, Colorado ''We are losing great people who love students, who work with disabled students unable to add one plus one, and who give our students the love and support they are not getting at home.'' NCLB Stories: Melissa Fike, Colorado ''We must have a shared responsibility to educate our children. Don't penalize us because our kids might come to school unprepared to learn. Let us help make them better.'' NCLB Stories: William Dosher, Colorado ''We will be creating a generation of students who cannot think critically and who have little or no cultural awareness. This must end.'' NCLB Stories: Lynn Comaianni, Colorado ''With No Child Left Behind, some of the most creative and talented children are being left behind. We need to instill a love for learning in all of our students, and they will rise to the occasion, succeeding in academics and the arts.'' NCLB Stories: Susan Banning, Colorado ''I am not making excuses for the great gains my students make; however, the ESEA one-size-fits-all idea has left my co-workers and students discouraged because all of the creativity has been taken out of the curriculum.'' NCBL Stories: Stacey Willett Due to NCLB's new requirements, students face the same obstacles, but they now have no promise at the end. NCLB Stories: Suzie White-Gomez ''Please change the way NCLB sets its goals, so that we may be given credit for the subgroups that do make their goal and not punished for the one group that doesn't.'' NCLB Stories: Cheryl Wester, California ''Testing, testing, testing! What happened to teaching, teaching, teaching? So much to cover and never enough time!'' NCLB Stories: Michael Weilein, California He simply asked, 'Is there anything we will be learning this year that we need to remember for longer than the test?' NCLB Stories: Sindi Wasserman, California ''I am listed as a highly qualified teacher under the NCLB legislation guidelines, but I am treated by my district as if I know nothing about my area of expertise.'' NCLB Stories: Beth Sivrais, California ''No Child Left Behind sounds good on paper, but I have a classroom of students who will be left behind by virtue of their IQs.'' NCLB Stories: Gloria Simosky, California ''Can you imagine getting in trouble for teaching to the needs of the child? Yet, we do.'' NCLB Stories: Rozlyn Scholze, California ''This program I am now teaching meets all of the state and federal needs, but it does not meet the main social needs of my students. My student graduation rate was higher prior to NCLB, as was the rate of graduating students who went on to attend college.'' NCLB Stories: Laura Sanders-Duncan, California ''My fellow teamworker (my paraprofessional, with whom I had teamed for the last 11 years) was forced to retire sooner than she wanted because of the requirements of NCLB. She was a dedicated, hardworking, capable assistant who served the children for 30 years.'' NCLB Stories: Randall Robinson, California ''I have yet to see any positive benefits to NCLB. Teachers are being forced to cease teaching what the students need to learn and instead to teach them how to pass the test.'' NCLB Stories: Karen Robinson, California ''A drill-and-kill approach to learning will eliminate curiosity and the desire to continue in school. NCLB and constant testing are doing this.'' NCLB Stories: Michael Riley, California ''I have watched the erosion of a viable resource year by year since the 1964 establishment of the ESEA: the voice of the teaching professional.'' NCLB Stories: Lisa Peterson, California ''Teaching has turned from a joyful voyage of discovery to drudgery. I must prepare students every day for the test.'' NCLB Stories: David Ouch, California ''But in recent years, I have seen bright eyes, that had been full of life and ideas, turn dull with boredom and stress. Why?'' NCLB Stories: Theresa Nutt, California ''Because of ESEA, we have been expected to follow a scripted curriculum, although we don't have enough time in the day to cover it as well as the arts, sciences, and physical education.'' NCLB Stories: Tim Nichols, California ''My principal has asked me to lie to parents about the true nature of state testing. He wants me to tell them that it is mandatory and provides a benefit to them. If I lie to parents about this, how can they believe anything else I say to them?'' NCLB Stories: Diane Moss, California ''LAUSD's interpretation of NCLB is that only teachers who are credentialed in a specific subject area at the secondary level are qualified to teach.'' NCLB Stories: Nancy Moralez, California ''I have seen parents complain at school site council meetings because all the fun is being taken out of education.'' NCLB Stories: Shari Megaw, California ''We need to get the joy and wonder of learning back into our schools. We are training a generation of students who don't know that learning is exciting.'' NCLB Stories: James Megaw, California ''My students now believe that a test is more important than they are. With ESEA, students feel that tests are more important than thinking, creativity, and motivation.'' NCLB Stories: Luisa Martinez, California ''I am writing today to inform you of the injustices of NCLB, and its adverse affects on students' and teachers' emotional health as well as students' academic performance.'' NCLB Stories: Melody McGill, California ''The question remains, how many times can we tell a student that they are below basic or basic before they curl up into a ball and quit trying?'' NCLB Stories: Laura McCutcheon, California ''Last year in California, we didn't meet our API goals. We knew it was just a matter of time, because we'd exceeded the goals quite nicely in the past, raising our bar (I guess we should have slowed our growth).'' NCLB Stories: Kathy MacLennan, California ''Because of the higher goals that are set in NCLB, the number of administrators at our district office has increased by at least five.'' NCLB Stories: Carole Latter, California ''NCLB needs to address the issues, which are real, and it needs to give schools the individuality that we should be giving our students.'' NCLB Stories: Celia Lamantia, California ''As an alternative education teacher working with expelled students, I have been forced to teach only academic subjects.'' NCLB Stories: Martine Korach, California ''I have students who are in tears every April because our high-stakes testing in California comes two months before the end of the school year!'' NCLB Stories: Geri Kenyon, California ''The NCLB program has severely restricted our ability to provide necessary support to needy children.'' NCLB Stories: Matthew James, California ''I have shown that they do not have to fall behind, if taught in an appropriate manner, with relevant materials and with mastery learning in mind. ESEA/NCLB is having a disastrous effect on education.'' NCLB Stories: Crystal James, California ''I am a fifth grade teacher in a Title I school, where the curriculum has been narrowed to language arts and mathematics.'' NCLB Stories: Pamela Gibberman, California ''What's really criminal about it is the fact that all those teachers are so frustrated about the tremendous number of subjects they are no longer able to teach, and for the students NCLB is tantamount to child abuse. Please, NEA, do everything in your power to change this law.'' NCLB Stories: Natalie Gaza, California ''I became a special education teacher for two reasons: I wanted to teach and to advocate for people with disabilities.'' NCLB Stories: Roberto Garcia, California ''I find it frustrating that no matter how much progress my students make, they will always fall short since they enter my classroom speaking limited English.'' NCLB Stories: Karen Garcia, California ''Some day, I'm confident, we will again be allowed to make our curriculum exciting and relevant, to show students the wonders of the natural world, and how education empowers us to understand it.'' NCLB Stories: Linda Fiddler, California ''Accountability is necessary, but it should be used to foster student achievement -- not punish those who need the encouragement the most. If something is not done about the irrational accountability of NCLB soon, I will have to look for my magic elsewhere.'' NCLB Stories: Stephan Early, California ''... Two years ago, Newsweek listed our high school as one of the top schools in the country. At the same time, the school was listed as a failure because it hadn't met its annual yearly progress (AYP) goal.'' NCLB Stories: Mildred Dodd, California ''I am a teacher of Special Day Class students, who must be tested on standards and who are functiong at an academic level where they will most likely never go to college. It is unfair (look up the definition of fair) to deny them access to the skills they need to use in the adult world.'' NCLB Stories: Ray Clark, California ''As an inner-city middle-school educator in the second-largest school district in the United States, I am strapped with all of the restrictions of NCLB.'' NCLB Stories: Audra Ciasullo, California ''NCLB's one-size-fits-all assessment plan is detrimental to students. Although I strive to ensure that all my students are learning state standards, some are just not good test-takers.'' NCLB Stories: Connie Chavez, California ''We need to let everyone (parents, store owners, husbands, politicians, and media) know how terribly wrong NCLB is for education, and especially how wrong it is for our children.'' NCLB Stories: Tobin Brinker, California ''NCLB has greatly diminished the learning opportunites for these children. They will never again have an opportunity to learn the middle-school social studies and science curriculum. Their attitudes towards school have changed. The joy is gone for many of these kids.'' NCLB Stories: Diane Brantley, California ''...Since the inception of NCLB, more children are being referred for tutoring because they do not read fast enough and are, subsequently, receiving lower grades in reading.'' NCLB Stories: Tyrone Borelli, California ''Before NCLB, I taught physical science to ninth-grade (mostly Latino) kids and physics to twelfth graders...After NCLB, my school district eliminated ninth-grade physical science, and in its place substituted earth science.'' NCLB Stories: Holly Barkalow, California ''I have been a special education teacher for 30 years. I have always worked to have my students make as much progress at their level as they could...Now, I am told to teach the students at grade level, to disregard the previously written goals, and to teach the students no matter how frustrated they become.'' NCLB Stories: Christine Michele Alvarez, California ''I am a veteran teacher and former Association vice president, who also has the dubious distinction of working at the first and only elementary school in California to enter into fifth-year program improvement. Two-thirds of the school's teachers and all of the administrators were reassigned to other school sites because of test scores.'' NCLB Stories: Mary Ellen Abilez, California ''I teach students with severe and profound disabilities. My CAPA test would be great, if I could use it as an assessment tool; instead, it is used like a sledgehammer against my principal and my school.'' NCLB Stories: Elaine Upham, Arizona ''I teach second- and fourth-grade students with learning disabilities. I love my job, except during the week of our state-mandated test (AIMS).'' NCLB Stories: RaeAnn Rumery, Arizona ''Standardization of assessment and accountability cause me to use my precious teaching time to conduct student assessments that are far above the ability levels of my students.'' NCLB Stories: Judist Lopez, Arizona ''No Child Left Behind has taken the joy out of teaching in many ways.'' NCLB Stories: Mary Pat Eul, Arizona ''With the requirements on state standards and the obsession with covering all of the standards in a given school year, it has become more difficult to make math fun.'' NCLB Stories: Denise Halliburton, Arkansas ''My experience with NCLB has been quite negative. One of the most important things that I've noticed is that our students are almost tested to death, which over a period of years has caused them to shut down in different ways.'' NCLB Stories: Sarah Barton, Arkansas ''My students struggle. They are second-language learners and, in ideal situations, they would have been given opportunities to receive instruction in their native language to build those skills that they need, but that is not always the case.'' NCLB Stories: Connie S. Myers, Alabama ''As a teacher of children with special needs, I am desperately aware that the students I teach will never attain adequate yearly progress, according to the standards as they are now written. No law can change the ability level of these precious students.'' NCLB Stories: Rebecca Mosley, Alabama ''In August 2006, I will observe my tenth year as a teacher in Tallapoosa County. When I began at my current school, I was told that I would be implementing a new reading program, that we needed to improve reading scores on standardized tests, but that we had no materials, no funds, and no real direction.'' NCLB Stories: Michelle Harris, California ''The idea that all children can learn is great. The idea that every child learns at the same rate, at the same time is one that no parent should accept as accurate! Experience with children will tell you that this is not true.'' NCLB Stories: Robert Taylor, Alaska ''I have seen the number of students enrolled in chemistry drop since the implementation of testing. I have also noticed a drop in the level of student preparedness for chemistry.'' NCLB Stories: Heather Mildon, Alaska ''NCLB has had a tremendous impact on my community, my school, my classroom, and myself. While this legislation may have been well intended, in practice it has been devastating to educators and districts across the country that are attempting to provide quality educational services at a reasonable cost. It has been particularly devastating to early childhood education practitioners and participants.'' NCLB Stories: Cindy Lou Aillaud, Alaska ''As an elementary school physical educator, I know that physical education is the most important subject in school. A healthy body is key to a healthy mind. Unfortunately, NCLB's unintended consequences are the lack of time and importance placed on physical education in our schools.''   Archives     Printer friendly     E-mail    Subscribe
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