Today's interview question deals with a topic that is almost as controversial as politics: The No Child Left Behind Act.
Interview Question:
What effect has the No
Child Left Behind Act had on your teaching and your students’ learning? Provide both positive and negative examples
to describe the effect you think it has on classroom life.
My Answer:
I feel that NCLB takes the focus off of authentic learning. Instead, it places classroom focus on the
results of a test that does not actually demonstrate a student’s academic mastery. I believe that this is a very ineffective
method of measuring a student’s retention of grade-level concepts. A student who is a good test-taker may be
able to figure out correct answers based mainly on the possible answer choices
as opposed to actually knowing the information and concepts being assessed. Despite these faults, however, I feel that
NCLB does help to discourage poor teaching practices. Teachers who formerly would spend the year
simply showing videos or going over tests that they were going to give the
students have to actually do their job.
While this is very much a necessity, I’m not sure that it
counter-balances the negative points of NCLB.
I believe that there are other methods that would be much more effective.
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