If anyone wanted to know how the NCLB was working in
Texas, before Bush was appointed President, all they
had to do (Ted Kennedy included) was look where Texas
ranked in education.

As for the teacher in Minnesota making $60,000, you
could be in Texas making $35,000, maybe $40,000.

I have a daughter who taught for several years, and
after hearing her accounts of teaching, I promise
you that I wouldn't do the job for $150,000 per year.
(And believe me I made less)

dcbeltway, remember the history you were taught was
written by the winners. The fact that it might not
be the whole truth doesn't matter. In my 49 years of
life since I graduated HS, I've found that lots of
that textbook history was pure BS.

"Cheap shots are for cowards."

"Like all American institutions, they are run by bureaucrats, mostly Republican."

My point exactly: that teachers, despite their education, unions, and social status, are passively ruled by bureaucrats. Why when I say it I am a so-called progressive coward but not you?

As a teacher who has brought up this point with other teachers, I concur with Morrigan's assessment. I too have heard those mousy responses.

I graduated high school in 1976. I watched as Reagan came along and took what was working and started the slide to mediocrity, and was disgusted. Education went from being a well rounded form that offered literature, art and music as well as math reading and science, to not including anything that didn't aim you at making money, and nothing else. As a result, we have turned into a country that knows the monetary value of everything, but the intrinsic worth of nothing.

And so you can tell fairly easily when you have a good rightie child on the website, telling you how things are, because not only is the spelling atrocious, but they don't know the first thing about grammar or content. I've seen things on Raw Story that would just astonish you. Completely incomprehensible. And very sad.

The Reagan era was where this all started, and those of us who saw it happening were called all sorts of unflattering names, threatened, and put down for being smarter than those in charge of the country. But that didn't make us wrong.

Textbooks are also awful. I remember studying Vietnam in my high school textbook and the following month I went to Vietnam for myself to do some volunteer work. My textbook only taught about the 58,000 American deaths and not about the 3+ million Vietnamese and the Laotain and Cambodian deaths. Textbooks are little more than propoganda. The one good thing about that whole experience for me was to never take anything at face-value to look at all sides of an issue and to question what official leaders tell you and not to trust authority. A very good life lesson at 17. One that needs to be taught to all American teenagers.

A response to the question about teachers not speaking up against NCLB.

The following observations come from my personal experience over 35 years in what used to be an excellent district where those five tenets of good education were the basis of our work with kids.

Teaching well has become more and more difficult as we work around the obstacles that are thrown at us. We just adapt as best we can and move on.

When I rant and rave about the changes that have occurred as a result of NCLB, administrators and colleagues generally agree -- but shrug and say "It's not going to change" or "That's the way it is now."

Why that kind of resignation?

I'm not sure what it's like in other fields -- but when I went to college the great majority of education majors were "good girls." They went for the grades; they pleased the professors; when told to jump they did not question why, but asked "How high?"

From what I see, that hasn't changed a whole lot. My younger colleagues are eager to please. There's at least one really good reason for that -- they will not hold on to their jobs if they make waves. They are smart. Many of them are as frustrated by the demands that have trickled down from NCLB as I am. But they want to keep their jobs.

If this holds true for the rest of the country, teachers make up a vast untapped resource for change. Like the Great Silent Majority of the Nixon era, it won't be easy to get us to speak up with one voice.

That's partly because we don't have one voice on most issues. Some of us are die-hard Bush supporters. One explained, "We're a military family. Of course we support the President." Others of us are political progressives. We joke about working in the "left wing" of the school. And most of us are kept so busy just keeping up with ever-increasing demands that we don't seem to have the time to look at the bigger picture.

But, child of the Sixties that I am, I believe that we can effect some change. Our collaboration with the system is doing an extraordinary disservice to a whole generation of kids.

Perhaps we need to get our professional associations to take a firm and high-profile stance against NCLB -- precisely because we don't want to leave any children behind, and the law is forcing us to leave all of them behind.

NCLB had two simple objectives: 1)Punish the public schools and demonize them in order to further the privatization and voucher movement. 2) Punish and demonize public school teachers for having the temerity to vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

It is to Ted Kennedy's everlasting discredit that he participated in this fraud.

skeezyks
If your countrymen have been lied to about the educational standards of the usa, and your students are indeed able to keep up with the rest of the world. Then why on earth do so many of your countrymen seem to be unable to find their own country on an unmarked map of the world? How is it that born-again demagogues like O'Reily and Limpbutt are so popular if you have been teaching your children well over your career in education?

I think No Child Left Behind has been going on for a long time.

I am a product of public schools too. I can remember my teachers using flash cards also. They never told you WHY 2+2=4, you just had to know that it did.

"First, education should adopt a holistic view of the child, fostering cognitive, socio-emotional and physical development and recognizing that children have feelings, beliefs and social skills that affect their learning."

Why was I scared to death of my first grade teacher then?

"Second, education must be responsive to differences in learning style and capacity."

Where I went to school, you had to be able to "keep up" with the rest of the class. It was a game. Teacher wasn't stoppin' for anyone.

"Third, education should promote a mastery of content that children can use in new contexts or in discovering new knowledge with their peers.

Rote memorization does not facilitate application to new situations."

We were just taught for whatever test we had to take. Again, a game. Beat that test. Score HIGH!

"Fourth, children learn best in a nurturing environment where they feel accepted, open to new experiences without fear of negative consequences, and admired for their talent, success, and perseverance. While adults may be able to function in situations where they are not comfortable, children shut down in such environments."

During my early school years, I mostly remember my teachers yelling and screaming at kids. Teachers were supposed to be like drill sargeants. FEAR. Not all my teachers were like that, and we did have some unruly kids, but still.

"Fifth, an education system should groom a love of learning and create life-long learners."

LOL. Again, not that I didn't have some good teachers, but most of the ones I had seem to just be putting their time in. Learning? Ha! It was all about grades and stress. Gotta perform, achieve!!!!

School is made out to be some sort of competition, a sport if you will. Grades are like "points", and those grades become the end game. Kids aren't groomed to learn s much as they are to "score". And we wonder why so many kids dislike school.

And after high school, the ones that actually graduate are expected to go to college, regardless of whether or not they can afford it. Can't be a FAILURE now. And then if they make it through, they'll be in debt up to their necks and the field they went into will be outsourced.

And of course our youth could afford to be more disciplined. I mean they are distracted. But how do you expect a kid to learn reading comprehension when he's scoring high on Halo? It's something he's good at.

I also think that we need more teachers that reflect their student body.

I went to urban schools from k-12, and for some odd reason, I don't remember most of my teachers hailing from the city. Most of them were suburbanites. What does it tell you when the teachers won't live in the city, and therefore send their kids to the same schools that you go to?

When I see ignorance passed off as wisdom here as on other sites, it makes me wonder if anyone in America WANTS to know the truth!

lupita: I have been actice for years in trying to do the right thing, as have others in my school and in my district. The payback is this: we get the toughest of the tough kids. We accept this and we handle it. "Paybacks are a bitch."

Where are you and all the other so-called progressives? Putting down the schools gets you and the kids nowhere. Like all American institutions, they are run by bureaucrats, mostly Republican.

Put your money and your efforts where your mouth is. Cheap shots are for cowards.

I have a friend who has an asthmatic child. He had pneumonia when the testing was going on, and they actually called to ask if he could come in and test! I swear to God.

Homeschooling looks better all the time.

"If Congress would do"

"Congress needs to understand"

Teachers, despite being millions, mostly unionized, and members of the professional class, are portrayed as meek followers of Congress. If so many are opposed to the current system, where is their voice?

As ZeroPointField points out, there is more to this: a cultural ethos which includes teachers who, despite their opposition, organization, and social status, remain silent.

I am an Elementary School Teacher. Next week I will begin my 35th year with the same district in rural Minnesota. I'm not bragging, just presenting my credentials so you won't think my message is fraught with emotional baggage.

You have been LIED to about "Education" in America for decades, at least since "A Nation At Risk" published in 1981, I believe. Our nation's schools are not failing, they are doing very well with what they have. Google NAEP for more.

We are keeping up with the rest of the world, even though they dedicate more hours per day and more days per year to education. The time spent in class is not a choice of teachers who just want " three months off in the summer." It is the choice of school boards across this land. We are paid by the day as contract labor. In my state, Minnesota, that's about 182 days per year. We are banned by law from collecting unemployment. Who else is during a layoff?

We work in rooms that average 650 square feet, with 28 children, no air conditioning, a yearly budget of $50 to $100 for classroom supplies, perhaps one out-dated computer, and usually no phone. We have no bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, and a half hour lunch hour. We are expected to do all our own discipline, even with students carrying lots of baggage from their homelives. For this we are well paid. After 34 years and a Masters Degree plus 18 credits, I may break the $60,000 mark this year.

No Child Left Behind, as I have said before on this site, mandates a role for the teacher...children's success, but NO responsibility for either the student or their family. Even if we do achieve AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) for all students and sub-groups including Special Ed. students and non-English speakers, who are expected to perform as well as natives, what then? The bar goes up the next year and we have to perform at a higher level just to maintain. Keep in mind that the high stakes tests upon which this is all based measure this year's 5th graders against next year's 5th graders... an apples to oranges system.

Finally, remember that this is George W. Bush's system, but Ted Kennedy and other Dems are hearty supporters. I've written to Ol' Teddy, as well as my own Senators and Congressmen, but no response. Go figure.

There is another problem that has nothing to do with NCLB.
That is the american cultural ethos that we float in.

A simple question- where are the parents?

Not too long ago there was an atricle in Time Magazine about homework.
78 minutes was considered too much.

Please look at France, Germany, Singapore, China, India- and how much homework their kids do.

In some cases, the parents there are working themselves to death in their jobs too.

This tendency to legislate and law-dictate everything to dust is an american tendency.
Are we concnerned about the unemployment rate? Not every kid is going to be Einstein.

A hint: Even the young adults in the afore mentioned countries who are not gainfully employed have intelligence and survival skills better than the president of this one.

No offense

Hamburger College will be the Alma Mater for most of these kids

Education is dangerous to the powers that be. Remember that it used to be illegal for slaves to learn to read.

I bet a lot of corporations would love to go back to that model for their McPloyees

Yeah, it teach's kids to follow orders blindly, to make the past (HIstory Class) Seem like Glory, so when the present (Future History Class). Will make sense.

Look at all those 17 year olds that couldn't wait to join the Core and kill the invaders after 9/11.

They want to through God in the mix in schools so kids have fear. Got to have that fear so people can be controlled.

NCLB is a joke. IF we didn't spend Trillions on Defense we would have plenty for our kids, our health care, our elderly, our Vets, our bridges, our roads, our mortgages, our gas, our economy, our jobs, our (Healthy Food), our trash, our enviornment, our PLANET!!!

~Future~

wait a minute, professors! learning occurs best in a nurturing environment? not for learning that you are a sinner! not for learning how not to have higher expectations than working at mickey d's or trudging thru the streets of fallujah. not for for learning that you obey or go to jail.

i think for some people (not the students, not most of the teachers) NCLB is working perfectly.