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Joel Spring, professor at Queens College presented "Globalization, Multiculturalism and Education" Wednesday night in the University Union. Spring spoke about the effect of the No Child Left Behind Act on education.

Lecture covers global issues

By: Courtney Jayne

Posted: 3/25/05

A crowd of nearly 200 people showed up Monday night in the Western Illinois University Union Heritage Room to listen to a speech about the No Child Left Behind Act and Global Trends.

Professor Joel Spring of Queens College spoke at the event, which was called "Globalization, Multiculturalism and Education." Spring has a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin and currently teaches elementary and early childhood education at Queens. One of his traits is the desire to affect change in people's society.

"Society improves through economic growth," Spring said.

He added economic growth comes from a good workforce, and a good workforce comes from well-educated people.

"The primary goal of American education is to prepare students for the workforce," Spring said.

NCLB is based on all students in the nation working at the same time through their education on all the same subjects.

NCLB was signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush.

"Edward Kennedy stood right next to (him) when he signed (it)," Spring added.

Bush promised the act would take America's education on a new path of reform and results.

Spring said another fact about NCLB is many of the subjects, such as art, music and theatre would not be as important, and many schools would probably not even have them. Bilingual education also would be eliminated.

"I'm closed to it," said Alyssa Thompson, freshman bilingual education major, "(By enforcing it) we don't work with the pace of the students."

"They're going to get more math, and they're going to get more science," Spring said.

He added this is what the government thinks students need to be successful.

With NCLB being big on learning at the same pace, students may feel some negative effects.

"If you do poorly on a test, you will be branded for the rest of your life," Spring said.

NCLB affects many people, including military personnel.

"One very important thing about (NCLB) is the right of military to have access to high school records," Spring added.

The World Bank is part of a new trend of globalization.

"It goes into developing countries and gives loans for the economy and education," Spring said.

One part of Global Trends many students know about is standardized testing, such as the ACT or SAT. Thompson said her mom is a teacher and hates giving those out.

"It puts a lot of pressure on teachers," Thompson added.

Spring said there are some things he would like to see being learned here, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"European school students (know a lot about it)," Spring added.

Spring, however, is not happy with No Child Left Behind.

"There is no intellectual freedom anymore in American schools," he said, "It's becoming more and more competitive."