According to Eric Hanushek and Steven Rivkin, “Such reprioritization is likely to be most pronounced in tested grades and subjects in schools that fail or at high risk of not making “Adequate Yearly Progress.” Teachers in those grade-subject categories will be under more scrutiny and, if performance of students is low, will be under new pressure and requirements” (141). The pressure to make sure students pass their standardized tests puts teachers in the position that they may have to base their curriculum around “teaching to the test”. Teachers have transformed their classrooms from an environment full of exploration into an environment full of worksheets that are filled with questions similar to the ones that are found on the end of the year standardized tests. Pressure to have their students do well has driven teachers to do some crazy things like cheating and changing student’s answers because if the students do not meet a level of proficiency four years in a row then the teachers may lose their …show more content…
According to Richard Simpson, Patricia Sampson Graner, and Paul LaCava, “In contrast, schools and school districts that fail to meet their state’s AYP criterion for 2 continuous years, either schoolwide or in any major subgroup, are slated to be designated as “in need of improvement”’(3). If a school, as a whole, does not reach a level of proficiency on their standardized tests two years in a row then they are labeled “in need of improvement” and their bad results may be publically released in newspapers. Instead of finding a positive way to help schools improve their test results, the NCLB embarrasses and puts schools down for the public to see. A school should be able to handle their academic affairs inside of the school building without being ridiculed for the public to see because the label “in need of improvement” comes only from standardized test results and not from grades students receive within their assigned everyday classes. Having student’s see that their school is on the failing list of schools may discourage them, and lead to them feeling that they are failures. That relates to a sports team consistently being labeled as losers. If a team is known for losing on a regular basis, they are more likely to keep losing because they are so used to losing in the first place. Being viewed as a failure is detrimental to a student’s self-worth, and may lead