Glick is a 30-year-old teacher at a Chatham County Public School in Savannah, Georgia. Glick teaches grades 1st through 5th and is a certified EBD (Emotionally and Behaviorally Disturbed) teacher. She works from 7 a.m. until a little after 4 p.m. every day Monday through Friday.

Glick knows her students are a handful, but she is able to control them and loves her job. What worries her is how other teachers will deal with her students during the next school year.

Why does she worry? President Bush has implemented the No Child Left Behind Act to be put into effect in Chatham County Public Schools by June of 2006. When it comes to Glick’s students, this Act could be disastrous.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is meant to improve students’ scores on standardized tests. Every student is expected to pass the standardized test for his or her grade level by the year 2012. Schools will be graded by on their progress labeled, Adequate Yearly Progress.

The Government is striving to, “raise the achievement levels of subgroups of students such as African Americans, Latinos, low-income students, and special education students to a state-determined level of proficiency,” according to the Wikipedia web site. What this boils down to is special education students and EBD students, like Glick’s, will be expected to pass the same standardized tests that other 1st through 5th graders must pass.

“If you have a 5th grade girl with the IQ of 60 that has to pass the regular 5th grade test, it’s not going to happen,” says Glick.

Glick is not the only teacher who is getting stressed out thinking about what this new Act will entail. The president of the Teachers Association, Alfredia Goldwire says, "They have something called star testing, they just completed the ITBS test, they have the CRCT tests, they have an EIP test, there are so many of them.” Goldwire also says that she has noticed a large number of teachers who are stressed out because of these tests.

The other main issue with the new Act that has Glick so concerned is the new policy of inclusion. All students in the same grade will be placed in the same class room, regardless of their disability.

Mentally challenged children and EBD children will be in the same class as other children in their grade that have no behavior or mental problems.

Glick says, “regular kids can’t concentrate with special education kids in the class,” she also makes a good point in saying, “ An EBD kid is not just like that (acting up) for an hour, you can’t schedule that drama.”

Glick has taught an inclusion class when she lived in Virginia. She has said she’ll, “never do that again because inclusion with EBD kids is awful!”

Mentally challenged children and EBD children will be in the same class as other children in their grade that have no behavior or mental problems.

Glick says, “regular kids can’t concentrate with special education kids in the class,” she also makes a good point in saying, “ An EBD kid is not just like that (acting up) for an hour, you can’t schedule that drama.”

Glick has taught an inclusion class when she lived in Virginia. She has said she’ll, “never do that again because inclusion with EBD kids is awful!”

These inclusion classes will have special education teachers in the class with the regular teacher. Glick reported that in Virginia, the special education teacher usually ended up being nothing more than the regular teacher’s assistant rather than a co-teacher.

Also, children’s behavior cannot be addressed in inclusion classes. “If you can’t address their (EBD) behaviors, they get more aggressive and act out more,” according to Glick. In her previous inclusion class, Glick had a rough time when the standardized tests were administered.

“I’ve had children who are so angry, they are punching holes in the test, children who are coloring in all of the bubbles on the test, and children who actually eat the test,” Glick admits. This is the reason why Glick firmly believes that, “Many special education and regular teachers will leave (their profession).”

As if this wouldn’t be stressful enough on teachers, the No Child Left Behind Act is being very strict on the teachers. Teachers will now be required to be ‘highly qualified’ to teach. The Wikipedia web site states that this means a teacher must have a bachelor’s degree and pass state mandated tests.

The main problem is that if teachers, like Glick, have already taken the state tests, they must retake them. Since the tests were not mandatory before, it is just as if the teachers never took them. “The money for the tests will have to come out of the teacher’s pocket. That’s like $150,” Glick said.

Wikipedia states that, “These requirements have caused some controversy and difficulty in implementation especially for special education teachers and teachers in small rural schools where they are often called upon to teach multiple grades and subjects.” This describes Glick since she teaches multiple grades with behaviorally challenged students.

Glick really cares about her students and is very upset about all of these changes that are about to be implemented at her school. She has actually been thinking of starting her own school for EBD students with a few other teachers. Maybe this No Child Left Behind Act will be the thing that makes Glick finally move to open the school of her dreams.