Started a New Class....School Law

It has been a very interesting week.  I have learned alot about legislation on NCLB and IDEIA which directly protects Special Education children.  IEP's were also studied in detail on what they were and how to implement them.  I also interviewed personnel at both of my campuses to get a feel on their thoughts on NCLB and the whole Special Education System.  The following is a recap of what I found out.

I am an Instructional Math Coach at two (Title I) Junior High Schools.  NCLB has changed the way my schools operate in many ways. The initial way NCLB has affected both of my campuses is that it has made everyone feel more accountable for every student.  This has caused the administration to be more involved with individual student performance.  It has also caused our campus to come together and help all students when in the past some teachers would only have concern for their class.  I feel it also has focused more attention on our special education and LEP populations.  The implications from NCLB have caused my campuses to become more data driven.  .  We give 6-week common assessments that are used as check-points to figure out the needs of our students.   The results of the test data are discussed in formal PLC’s and formative decisions are made based on the data. These decisions may involve individual students and curriculum for the next 6- weeks.  Both of my campuses feel the stress from the NCLB legislation.  NCLB has also changed the way my campuses set goals and priorities.  Our campus improvement plan usually reflects back to goals that factor back to NCLB.  Differentiated instruction has also become a focus this year within my district which I feel is directly related to the pressures of NCLB legislation because we are trying to meet the needs of all students.  Most of the colleagues on my campus feel the legislation has added additional stress and they wish they could more time to teach the curriculum deeper and integrate more student centered projects especially, with the special education and LEP students. However, I feel the most positive impact has been with the fact that teachers are amazed of the achievement level of our special education and LEP students.  In this regard, I feel NCLB legislation has done what it set out to do.  The negative impact is the standards keep being raised and in 2014 the passing rate for all students is 100% which is an unrealistic accountability.  My campuses always strive for Exemplary but one does not need to be punished and splattered all over the newspapers if you miss the goal when the majority of the teachers have done everything they could do.