High Stakes Community School

Before the lecture, I was very confused about what was exactly going to happen during lecture. I didn't know we would actually be standing up and presenting our sides about the issue. Since our class was never assigned a role to play we didn't think we would have to do much with our role. It seemed that it would be an informal debate. I think if we would have actually been assigned a role in class and told more of the layout of what was going to happen in lecture we would have known how to prepare.
Once we got into the lecture/debate though, I found it to be very interesting. It was good to hear how different groups would support or not support the proposal and why. It made me think about NCLB more and what I think actually needs to be changed in it. I'm not really sure that I completely understand everything about NCLB. What level does it specifically require each student to be at? Are there exceptions for students with disabilities or in special education? What happens to teachers if they do everything they can to prepare their students for the tests but they still didn't pass? Are these standarized tests really the best way to see what level students are at? Some students are intimidated by tests and freeze up on them. I think we need to spend a little bit more time learning the guidelines in NCLB before we learn what needs to be changed. It would help us understand why current teachers feel the need to change NCLB. I know that with the upcoming election NCLB could change in the near future but to understand that change we need to know what the current guidelines are.
The role playing helped us form opinons about education methods but as far as NCLB goes we just learned what is wrong with it, not just the general outline of how it works in the actual schools.