Week 9 Blog: Obama Calls for Major Change in Education Law by Sam Dillon

The administration would replace the law’s pass-fail school grading system with one that would measure individual students’ academic growth and judge schools based not on test scores alone but also on indicators like pupil attendance, graduation rates and learning climate. And while the proposal calls for more vigorous interventions in failing schools, it would also reward top performers and lessen federal interference in tens of thousands of reasonably well-run schools in the middle

The above excerpt from the article sums it up pretty well. The Obama administration, while it has been discredited for many things unfairly, has sold me on the provisions to the No Child Left Behind Act. My initial issues with NCLB came when I first saw President Bush at my High School speaking on the plan. While the idea was a good one, it was poorly executed and was not well thought out. My biggest issue however was that the ways schools would be judged encouraged a "coldness" towards the students. Teachers have been concentratng so hard on making sure that students are getting proper scores (even if it means only memorizing the right answers and not remembering content) that they are also forgetting that their influence is bigger to children than many of them realize. I believe these provisions will help put the heart back into teachers, while still getting across the message that no child will be forgotten and that all children will be given all instruments necessary to be successful.