I see a push for higher teacher salaries is coming. That would help solve the lack of qualified teachers.
I do not like NCLB. It sounds good. It's a noble goal. But, from what I've seen, it ends up diverting a huge amount of resources to students with special needs who just aren't going to be at grade level. That's nobody's fault. But I wish we could see the situation fo what it is.
I know a woman who works at a local school. There is a first grader there with epilepsy and mental retardation. The girl cannot recognize the letters that make up her own name. She has seizures and empties her bladder in the classroom about once a week. Two full-time professionals are attachd to her to help her meet qualifications to enter second grade (ain't gonna happen).
Cost of two full-time professionals? Maybe $70,000. Impact of emptying a classroom during a seizure (and loading all the kids into a neighboring teacher's classroom? Substantial. And what's the benefit? No benefit at all.
I'd like to se NCLB cancelled.
I understand your frustration with the situation - special needs kids will not read at grade level, though eventually many of those who have been mainstreamed will read and write well enough to hold jobs like clerks, cashiers and stockroom personnel instead of "busy work" at some government sponsored program. Before mainstreaming, these kids were shoved into a corner of the school where no one checked on their progress and teachers were not expected to "do" anything with them. They were written off. There has to be a middle ground between NCLB and neglect for these kids - they're human beings (and could have been aborted, but for the grace of G-d). My ire is reserved for the millions of dollars taxpayers have to spend building new schools and hiring new teachers to relive overcrowding caused by non- English speaking children of illegal aliens ("migrant children" Bush calls them in the text of the law).
The problems you mentioned are not a result of NCLB, but rather IDEA. If No Child had never been conceived, that child would still be in the classroom, with two assistants, without a zero change because of the requirements of IDEA. This law was put into place by Carter and reauthorized by every president since.
Not nearly as well as pay for performance.
The trick is how to make that system work in the education sphere. Some teachers excel at communicating new and/or difficult ideas. Others are great at motivating the kids who simply are unwilling to try. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and not every administration will value a particular skill the same. Add in the fact that any random draw of students will invariably skew the playing field to some degree, and it becomes a bit problematic to find a "fair" system. Of course, since we've utterly destroyed the concept of trusting in schools and teachers over the past few decades, everyone will want to challenge the "fairness" of any new pay system.
I've seen that statement before and I'm not sure it's true. My perception is that there just aren't many people who would really like to be teachers who aren't because the pay is too low. The people who are studying, say, engineering aren't doing it just because it makes money, they're doing it because it interests and challenges them. Most engineers or scientists would be absolutely miserable in a classroom full of fourth graders. Or if not, the stupid moronic education classes they'd be required to take would drive out the interest.
As an undergrad, I frequently had non-major classes with education majors. To hear them complaining about how much work they had to do - and it was all stuff like "Make a poster to teach the water cycle" and stupid things like that. I wouldn't have lasted a semester as an ed major, I'd have stopped showing up for class. No amount of pay would do that.
Now, merit pay for teachers - rewarding them for actual performance, that might help. I'd support that. What I'd really like to see though is tax credits and more competition. Break the government monopoly!