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TechnoratiNo Child Left Behind Fails Us All
The last question in the final presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama had to do with what moderator Bob Schieffer suggested might be the most important issue of all: education. Both candidates expressed a deep need to reform education, and both conceded -- as did their vice presidential candidates in their own debate -- that the federally mandated program No Child Left Behind, embraced by many Democrats and Republicans, was underfunded. While this may be the consensus of legislators, I could not help but be left with feelings of distrust and discouragement.
Rather than approach the challenge and reward of education with the promise of cooperation, the presidential contenders offered a recipe calling for charter schools and school vouchers and an incentive for parents to move their students out of "failing schools," a decidedly competitive approach to education. This divisive strategy can only lead to a greater divide between the haves and the have-nots. This is not what Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall had in mind when he successfully argued in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case 54 years ago that "separate but equal" can never truly exist in education, or in society.
Amid perhaps the most important presidential election since 1932, the statements about education by our presidential and vice presidential candidates, even in the face of our current economic crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stuck with me more strongly than any other utterance in the debates. There is no secret why: I am a high school teacher. The night of the final debate, I was exhausted. My feet were aching -- a consequence of standing on the job for the better part of 10 hours every day as a teacher of United States history. I wanted to relax, but my mind was racing; there is a lot to think about these days.
We have seen a "bailout" of corporate and Wall Street swindlers, with the working class being forced to pick up the tab. The administration has continued to escalate defense spending while cutting taxes, never seeming to consider the dire social, international and economic consequences. With all the burdens being loaded upon Americans today, we deserve a break. Struggling homeowners deserve a break, not the devastation of foreclosure. Hardworking families deserve a break, not the shock of unemployment. And public educators deserve a break, not the damaging mandates of program improvement and the threats of state takeover that have fallen on my high school and countless others like it due to the draconian quotas of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Sadly, NCLB doesn't care about strong relationships in the classroom; NCLB cannot measure smiles, teamwork, camaraderie or the overcoming of adversity. It doesn't allow for creative and authentic assessments and engaging activities in the classroom. And, tragically, it has demanded that we educators check our hearts and souls at the classroom door.
I teach in Desert Hot Springs, a little-known California town of about 25,000 inhabitants. We are overshadowed by the neighboring desert community of Palm Springs, with its glamorous history, and the far wealthier towns to the southeast, Rancho Mirage and La Quinta, with their exclusive golf courses, country clubs and gated communities. Additionally, Desert Hot Springs High School is a Title I school, with approximately 84 percent of the student population using the program of free and reduced-cost lunches and an even higher percentage of students qualifying for the program.
Desert Hot Springs has the highest poverty rate, the highest dropout rate, the highest crime rate and the lowest per capita income of any city in the Coachella Valley and therefore the Palm Springs Unified School District. Moreover, the city and its high school are met with the challenges of increasing documented and undocumented immigrant populations, mostly from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, and transient populations, both struggling to assimilate into the community and the school system. I did not know any of this when I decided to become a teacher nine years ago and No Child Left Behind did not exist.
I was one of identical triplets born in August 1975 in Anchorage, Alaska; I later was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. I spent much of my youth unsure as to what career I might pursue. That is, until I walked into an educational foundations course at Northern Arizona University in the fall of 1999. I expected a mundane environment as I entered the auditorium filled with students, but then I heard Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" bellowing from the loudspeakers. I thought I had mistakenly entered a dance class as I glanced toward the auditorium's stage, where I saw a middle-aged woman dancing wildly to the music. Though she lacked rhythm she had me and nearly a hundred other students awestruck by her enthusiasm. Holding a mirror high and repeating the song's chorus of "Make that change!" her charisma lit up the room. Before I knew it, I and nearly all the other students were repeating, "Make that change!" The dancing woman's message was that, as future teachers, we would change ourselves, change the lives of our students and by doing so change the world. She was Dr. Rhonda Beaman. On that day, I was first inspired to change the world as a teacher. I have continued to strive to do that ever since.
My experience at Desert Hot Springs High School has been a series of ups and downs. I am fortunate to work among the most dedicated and collaborative professionals in the entire school district. I have always been treated fairly and with the utmost respect by everyone in the school and throughout the community. I have been honored as "Teacher of the Year" for the Palm Springs Unified School District (2006-07) and a Golden Apple Award recipient, and I have been listed in Who's Who Among America's Teachers several times. Most rewarding of all, I have had the opportunity to touch the lives of thousands of teenagers and their family members throughout the community in my eight years as a teacher, and they have touched mine.
Sadly, however, the goal of changing the world as an educator has become increasingly unattainable as the metal vise of the NCLB machine and its iron-fisted standardized testing approach has begun to squeeze the life out of educators and the students we teach. Though I still do my best to smile in the classroom and bring students out of their adolescent shells, public education is being cruelly poisoned by NCLB. The only thing that seems to matter, from the state superintendent down to the district office and the school administration, are California Standardized Testing and Reporting data.
As a result of the federal government's industrial approach to education, my school must improve test scores in every major core class -- math, history, science, English -- and at increasingly high rates. Additionally, every student subgroup -- including white, Hispanic/Latino, African-American, Asian, socially/economically disadvantaged, English language learners, special education students -- must meet these yearly growth targets regardless of the inherent obstacles. The tests must be taken by 95 percent or more of the students in each subgroup. If just one subgroup fails to meet the performance or test attendance standards of NCLB, the school is put into "program improvement." Moreover, these growth targets must be met or exceeded for two consecutive years. Though my school, amazingly, met its growth targets last year, we are in program improvement for the fourth year. In fact, the entire district is in program improvement.
NCLB is not only impacting certain minority populations; unattainable goals of NCLB are cutting across distinctions in class and race as more and more schools are being labeled as "failing schools." Finally, as many educators are aware, in just five years all students in all schools in every state in the nation must pass their standardized tests at a "proficient level." That's right; 100 percent of all students must be proficient by 2014. No Child Left Behind has not been adjusted in any way to fit the reality of education. I guess I should not only check my heart and soul at the classroom door but my sanity as well.
I am not suggesting we disregard the need for testing accountability, content standards and standards for the teaching profession. As in all professions and workplace environments, standards must be in place in the schools. I see nothing wrong with the California High School Exit Exam as a requirement for high school graduation. Students at the high school level (or perhaps even at the primary or middle school levels as well) should have to prove they are proficient in major subject areas to earn a diploma. However, expecting 100 percent of students to be "proficient" is much like setting a high-jump bar at four feet and mandating that every single student clear the bar. Not only would many students not clear the bar, they would not have been given coaches (teachers) who had the resources to adequately train them for the jump.
You can imagine how a disabled teacher like me sees the impossibility indicated by this high jump metaphor. Now imagine what the learning-disabled or English language learner faces when taking standardized tests. If we continue down this business-approach road, treating students as products and teachers as robots, we will see the tragic collapse of it all. Education will fall flat in humiliating defeat. It is my wish that our next president, be it Barack Obama or John McCain, as well as our federal legislators -- whether Republican or Democrat -- heed my call and that of many of my peers to end No Child Left Behind. For once, let us put partisanship aside so we can address an issue as important as our economy and our entanglements overseas: education.
At the local level, we can do something even more important. Educators, administrators and parents can breathe life back into education. We can -- and must -- re-emphasize the joy of learning, the rewards of teamwork, the unique qualities of performance, animation, humor, role-playing, individual and group-based projects, and the overall life skills, relationships and memories that students and teachers are exposed to every day in a truly high-quality classroom within a school that cares. After all, students are still kids. They must have fun and they must want to learn in order to compete, collaborate and achieve beyond secondary and post-secondary education.
In my years as a professional educator, I have never been inspired by the numbers of standardized tests or NCLB. And I have never met a fellow teacher or former student who truly has been either. Teachers are remembered by students because of how we make them feel. We educators must be the teachers we always wanted to have. We must not let the media's overemphasis on the "failure" of public education discourage us. I could not disagree with the media more. My school has not failed me. My community has not failed me. My students, most of all, have not failed me. Rather, No Child Left Behind has failed us all.
No matter, I still love teaching and I will never leave my inspiration behind. At the end of the day, students leave my class smiling because of a joke I have told. Or they are left sobered by the real-life experiences shared by other students in the classroom. Or they are changed by the indelible emotional experience of taking part in a three-day dramatic play on the Holocaust. This is proof to me that my students have been inspired and have grown stronger intellectually and emotionally because of that inspiration.
At year's end when students are promoted beyond my class and visit me with the sentiment, "I miss your class, Mr. Sinor," I realize that a relationship has been built that won't soon fade. Further, as those students graduate, go on to college, get married and share stories of classroom inspiration with their own children, I realize that my dream is no longer just that; it is real, a certainty that I have made a difference in students that will last a lifetime.
I never want this dream to end.
33 Comments so far
Show AllSomehow and somewhat charter school policy can make difference in education system. But, the question is, will it give good benefit to our children? Education is truly an important aspect in the success of a nation. A new administration is about to take over, and education is a topic that’s hovering on the minds of many. What will president-elect Barack Obama do to improve the massive groups of students and teachers in America? In an article at The Apple, Obama’s first step into the development of education is focused on No Child Left Behind. He does not intend to scrap the program, but he does want to reform it, particularly when it comes to standardized testing. He is against preparing students all year to “fill out bubbles.” As long as the performance is up to standard, both Obama and Vice-President Elect Biden will support charter schools. Teachers at charter schools and beyond find Obama's incentives like Teacher Service Scholarships and various pay rewards hopeful. Moreover, a major part of the president-elect’s proposal is to enhance Early Head Start Programs and provide tax credits for college education. Restoring faith in the American educational system via these ideas and more will surely lead to the kind of credit repair the country needs – where the currency is a vibrant workforce that is equipped and ready to lead America into the future.Click to learn more about Credit Repair.
Amen, brother!!! I'm the parent of 3 children, 2 of whom are in schools classified as failing. The middle school is "failing" because the Special Ed kids didn't measure up and the attendance rate isn't up to par. Give me break! Especially about the attendance-how are schools supposed to do the job of parents. They are the ones who should make sure their kids get to school. Everything and everyone else are fine. And while the test scores at the high school aren't up to snuff across most groups and attendance and graduation rates are too low, my daughter has a 3.7 GPA, takes AP classes and Theatre, loves her school and is thriving. I wish the new administration would give the NCLB act a quick death and let schools get back to teaching kids instead of doing test prep.
Schools should be under local control. Get the federal gov't out of education. They came in to make things better after Sputnik made people think there was a science and math gap. I'd say "mission failed". Why don't we ask local colleges and universities with Education Departments to each take over a school. If they can't fix it in 5 years, they lose accreditation.
Many critics of No Child Left Behind imply that things were great before the onslaught of standardized testing. This is not true.
Throughout its history, public education in this country has been dragged to the table, kicking and screaming, to answer charges of racism and segregation, sexism, unequal funding for poor schools, elimination of academic opportunity through tracking, religious persecution, homophobia, denial of education to the disabled, and more. This battle has been fought in school board elections, in the courts, through legislation, and in the streets, by parents, students, and community and civil rights activists. Even white, middle-class parents have had to fight against proven ineffective teaching methods that, while fashionable in education circles, fail students in the areas of reading and math. Generations of people of color and parents of learning disabled students have had to endure the patronizing and subjective assurances that “everything is fine” and “your student is making progress” knowing well that the curriculum or the teaching (or both) were less than adequate and that their children were being robbed, coming out of schools illiterate, with no math skills, ineligible for college or good-paying jobs. Some individual teachers and administrators have waged heroic battles against local inertia, cynicism, and mediocrity, but the institution as a whole has been intractable.
Prior to the passage of NCLB, schools were required to use standardized testing and report the results to the feds. The big difference with NCLB is that it requires that the testing be disaggregated by ethnic group and disability groups, that the scores be MADE PUBLIC, and that schools be required to improve. Schools were never required to improve before, and are demonstrating themselves to be, on the whole, not good at it. Districts that always assured the community and parents how great they were now have to report publicly that there are gross inequities and achievement gaps in their schools. Lackluster achievement was not caused by NCLB; the disaggregated, public scores mandated by NCLB only serve to let us see it. Progressives need this data in order to demonstrate the need for concrete improvements.
Although many decry the push towards proficiency, progressives should not join in on the sneering. “Can we get a show of hands of parents who do not want their children to be taught to be proficient?” Proficient means competent and capable. When we say that a good public education is a cornerstone of democracy, it’s because we assume that a good public education would be turning out competent and capable citizens.
NCLB mandates accountability, which is extremely important. Why should schools be able to say, with no evidence, that they are doing a great job? This is especially critical given evidence that they are not -- the high drop-out rates and complaints from both post-secondary institutions and employers that high school graduates are illiterate and innumerate.
It’s not very reasonable to blame NCLB for all of the ills of the public education system. Anyone with a child in school knows that some teachers are excellent, have high standards, inspire a joy of learning, and really get results with their students. And then, there are many teachers who are very so-so, or worse. There are also principals who organize excellent schools, provide inspiring and supportive leadership, and are able to identify, hire, develop, and retain excellent teachers. And then, there are principals who are so-so, or worse. Many schools attended by poor children and children of color have lots of the so-so variety. Funding, hiring, compensation, and seniority rules tend to enforce this.
The individual state departments of education are also culpable. Funding is convoluted and unfair. Teachers colleges don’t teach effective methodologies for teaching reading or math. Some teacher’s union contract provisions work against student interests. Sound bite solutions and simplistic solutions appealing to someone’s pet peeve and political expediency have also played a role in churning the waters, but not making consistent improvement (and improvement would have to be measurable.)
It’s a mess, and blame cannot fairly (or productively) be laid solely at the feet of the NCLB, no matter how much one hates Bush (or liberals or conservatives.)
It's tempting to say that "sister h" writes like a well-trained bureaucrat now residing in the upper bureraucracy: maybe an area superintendant in a big district or a professor of education or even a deputy assistant secretary somewhere in the US Department of Education.
But of course this tempting categorization vastly over-estimates the writing style of the clowns who actually occupy those positions. Where's the jargon? Where's the jungle of statistics carefully adjusted to be consistent with everything except what it claims to measure?
"32% of Hispanic elementary students in District X are now reading with moderate proficiency..." meaning three grade-levels behind the grade in which they are actually enrolled, and nobody except the negotiators for five or six competing interest groups has the least idea how "grade-level" was defined and redefined and redefined again or even approximately what these children are supposed to be reading at their conceptually nebulous but now precisely defined-by-standardized-test level of "proficiency."
Could one in a hundred of these "moderately proficient" students make sense of the previous sentence?
Why would they want to?
"Sister h" wraps up her essay with a conclusion that nobody can reasonably dispute: You can't blame NCLB for everything that's wrong with schools. But a little refinement can turn the convenient straw-man she knocks down into something that isn't quite so convenient for NCLB's apologists.
On a given day in the run-up to one of the NCLB tests, there's virtually nothing happening in thousands of classrooms except drilling for the test, with a little noise from unruly recidivists left over.
It isn't exactly like prison...
Not until you get all the way down to Guantanamo on the spectrum of prisons! Because even in Folsom, nobody tries to control the attention of the prisoners, and sensory deprivation doesn't extend to blinkered concentration on one square foot of reality. You may be in total lock-down, but nobody tells you exactly what to look at!
On those days, NCLB really is responsible for everything that's wrong with schools, and the fantastic regimentation of non-stop drilling is a form of torture only a few "grade-levels" removed from Guantanamo Bay.
Jacob Freeze
It sounds like you don't like the points that I made, and therefore speculate that I may be a bureaucrat or some other enemy.
Sister h (me) is a mother of two children in a large, very diverse, urban public school district in California. I'm a person of color and a community and civil rights activist. My youngest child has a couple of learning disabilities, and my husband and I have been trying to get him what he needs in school, which is why I'm conversant in issues like proficiency and testing. We've run into many brick walls in the school district that seem to have been deliberately placed there to keep parents out, ignorant, and powerless. We've also noticed that until NCLB, which mandates that each child deserves a highly qualified teacher, our child had teachers that knew nothing about how to effectively remediate his learning disability, and our requests that the teachers be trained fell on deaf ears. (Unfortunately, he now has teachers who meet California's definition of "highly qualified" but still don't know how to teach learning disabled kids. NCLB could be improved by setting a standard here that states can't wiggle out of.) This is why I'm interested in accountability.
In California, we have high academic grade-level standards, which is good, and the state tests are aligned with these standards. We've found that our two children's performance on these tests jive with their performance in class (assuming a reasonably good teacher) and with our assessment of them. In some states, they deal with lackluster performance by lowering the standards or lowering the bar for proficiency. This is really corruption on the state level, but it could be argued that NCLB could improve this situation by mandating national standards and possible national tests.
I’m not sure how your response refutes my assertion that NCLB is not solely to blame for the shortcomings of public schools. Are you comparing NCLB with torture in Guantanamo? You're kidding, right?
Yes, as a veteran teacher I can assure you it is a ruse meant to destroy public education as we know it. This stems from the 1975 neocon handbook: The Crisis of Democracy and could easily be a chapter in Naomi Kliein's "crisis capitalism" or The Shock Doctrine.
President Reagan appointed a Mormon, a Mr. Bell, to destroy the Dept of Education in Washington DC in 1980 and the first thing the "secretary of Education" did was write up a deplorable report about how our public schools were failing our children: A NATION AT RISK.
Ever since the attack-dogs (Rush BImbos) have been on the prowl blaming liberals in our schools and universities. Parents are constantly questioning teachers and our students have picked up on the blame game bigtime! If Americans thought kids were rebellious about "Why do I have to learn algebra?" back in the day, imagine how nasty kids can get today with an anti-teacher culture always blaming teachers in the media! Sometimes it really sucks to be a teacher. Kids don't take responsibility for their failing because they can blame the "horrible teachers" and get backed up by mommy and daddy. Fortunately I don't take it personally.
My take on this is a neocon way to kick the inner city folks further down in the hole. If 50% of black inner city folks do not have a driver's license to begin with, how in the heck are the parents of these "failing inner city schools" supposed to DRIVE their kids to a neighboring "successful" suburban school every morning?
In other words, NCLB will create a crisis in 2014 when 50% of America's poorest kids will suddenly be in the market for an online computer-based charter school in an abandoned inner city building, right? Put one on every street corner so the blacks stay out of sight and out of mind. That could be a cash cow worth billions for a company that could buy off the state boards of education; Neil Bush's company is ready to leave millions of colored kids behind for cold hard cash.
But the best thing about this picture is that rebel-minded black people can be "educated" by the computer-based curriculum instead of some liberal teacher who encourages black students to think and question America's motives. Computers can brainwash poor black people so that they become calm little hamburger flippers and Walmart workers. Isn't that wonderful news?
No Child Left Behind was intended to destroy public education.
Remember where it came from! George Bush and his neo-con buddies hate every aspect of government that actually benefits anyone except billionaires and the rest of the Republicans' corporate clientele.
No Child Left Behind was intended to destroy public education.
There are thousands of articles all over the internet and print media discussing the destructive impact of No Child Left Behind, and somehow the main fact about it is almost never mentioned.
No Child Left Behind was intended to destroy public education.
George W. Bush and his father and grandfather and all their friends and the friends of their friends attended private boarding schools like Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and their paradigm for the future is a return to the Nineteenth Century, where only a tiny fraction of the population attended school beyond the eighth grade, and college and even high school were reserved for the moneyed class, for the elite.
No Child Left Behind was intended to destroy public education.
We don't really need another "shocking" revelation about the destructive impact of No Child Left Behind on public education. It's time to stop standing on Square One and whining about this brutal and ineffective ultra-regimentation inflicted on all children except the sons and daughters of the elite at their private schools. After eight years of whining, what next?
Isn't it time to accept the screamingly obvious intention of No Child Left Behind as a given, and discuss how to destroy the party that has constantly tried to destroy public education ever since Reagan?
No Child Left Behind was intended to destroy public education.
And no, Buckwheat, just electing the go-along-to-get-along corporatist Barack Obama won't be enough.
It's time to destroy the party that has constantly tried to destroy public education for the last 25 years.
Jacob Freeze
It's also worth remembering that the elite private schools George Bush and his father and grandfather and his children attended are wasted on those over-privileged clowns.
The hedge-fund manager whom Chris Hedges quotes in his article The Idiots who Rule America, currently posted on Common Dreams, gets it about right:
"The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he said of our oligarchic class. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades."
So the real intention of No Child Left Behind and the rest of Bush's plan for American education is...
Destroy the public schools and reserve the best education money can buy for his own stupid children, just like his father and grandfather did everything they could to destroy the public schools and reserve a few elite private schools for their own stupid descendants like George W. Bush.
Jacob Freeze
onelove
I was a teacher for 22 years in Texas. As Governor, George W. Bush began taking the steps in our state which eventually led to NCLB at the national level. One major goal was to set up schools for "failure" so that public schools would become privatized. Think "vouchers" and "charter schools". In Texas, many charter schools were freed from regulation, and ended up performimg poorly.
I taught English as a Second Language and had students who were recent immigrants, many of whom needed time to not only learn the English language, but were expected to learn academic content without the support needed in the mainstream classroom. Their progress in learning English was not taken into account, and they were required to take the state tests after two years in U.S. schools. Many failed the tests, and the school and district ratings were affected. It didn't matter that most eventually passed those tests after several tries over several years and graduated.
Most special education students are now required to take these tests, and many fail. They will continue to fail. They might never be able to read and write at grade level; that is why they are in special education!
As for funding, it is often said that, "Throwing money at the problem isn't the answer." Well, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Things cost money. Hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes costs money. Providing quality materials costs money. Buildings cost money. Utilities and transportation cost money. It is amazing that there are unfunded mandates and local taxpayers are expected to foot the bill when resources are limited. The federal government on average provides about 8% of education funding, yet they want to call the shots. Put your money where your mouth is, or shut up and let me teach!
The emphasis on standardized testing as a panacea has taken the joy out of teaching for me. I now work from home online in an education related field. I do not make as much money as I did teaching, but I do not have to put up with the headaches and frustration I faced over two decades with administrators and politicians who engage in education bashing and doublespeak.
I do miss the students and some of my colleagues. Perhaps one day I will return to the classroom where I know I made a difference in countless students' lives. But for now, I am sitting out, contemplating the future of education in our country.
Thank you for an excellent and informed posting. You are exactly right about our idiot Gov. Bush. We are still trying to recover from his resistence to English immersion so these immigrant kids can be successful and the unfunded mandates are killing us.
I hope you go back to teaching.
I left the teaching profession three years into NCLB. When I started teaching science in the mid-1980's schools were still communities. If a student earned a D or F on a test, they knew they'd be spending their after-school time with me until they passed the test. Anyone caught cheating knew they would receive an "F" on that particular test, that their parents would be called and that they'd be given some detention time. I finally threw in the towel when I was spending more hours everyday documenting student acheivement and behavior than I was on subject matter preparation, when students could no longer stay after school because they had rides to catch, music lessons, sports or just took off to skateboard, when student cheating became a "my word against theirs" situation - even if I possessed the "cheat sheet" or other tangible evidence - and the student no longer suffered any consequences for his actions, when 25% of my parents requested that their kids not participate during our Evolution Unit and when parents sent me notes with every imaginable excuse asking me to give their child extra time to do his homework.
Add to this California's revising the curriculum in all subject areas. I began my career teaching biology to high school sophomores and ended it teaching the same biology curriculum (including the abstract concepts of Cell Science) to seventh graders. I taught in a good, well-funded district but there was never sufficient monies to outfit our science labs. I spent $5,000 a year to provide consumables (and some hardware) for my own classroom. In 1985 my high school students averaged 4 hours of homework a night. In 2004, my seventh graders were expected to do 5 hours a night.
Then we began the mandatory testing. Because there was so much overlap in the student subgroup populations, it was almost impossible to show improvement from year to year. I taught 2 classes of Sheltered Science 1 ELL and had to watch my hard working students who had recently arrived in the U.S. struggle to find words they understood in their test booklets.
Then the State of California implimented the High School Exit Exam and I knew that a good number of my included special ed kids and those ELL students unlucky enough to be of high school age when they entered the country, that even if they show up and on time every day, do their best and give 110% in the classroom, that they would never pass the Exit Exams. I couldn't understand why the state chose a "One Size Fits All" diploma when it would have been more realistic to grant a range of diplomas based on a student's achievement. When the diploma changed from a statement of overall student learning and accomplishment to a statement of what the State Department of Education demands of students only in terms of subject matter, I resigned. It was the saddest day of my life.
Busque la verdad!
I think we need to emphasize learning over achievement. School shouldn't be a sport.
Also, if we gave the people universal single-payer education, living wages, more vacation/personal time, and forgave debt, kids would likely have more stable homes, more available parents, and thusly would be more open to learning.
We could also give reparations and end the drug war so that kids in the inner cities could go to and from school without worrying about getting hit by stray bullets.
And teach the truth when it comes to American history.
"And sometimes I wonder if the problems with education are not on purpose, because we are certainly succeeding in dumbing down our population. We are raising good consumers and good followers, not good thinkers."
Sure it's intentional. The elites don't want the next American president to come from a housing project or a trailer park. That's why rich kids are put in advanced placement classes and "gifted" programs.
On the inner city issue... you are right, they need living wage jobs. The columbian drug lords (our own CIA) are the only employeers offering a living wage. Let's see, work at McDonalds, or Taco Bell, or for that matter my job at a public school for $7 or deal cocain for the chance at $1000s. Ummm, tough choice. I guess there is always welfare. Which is where the single mothers end up because all of the men are either dead or in prison from working for the drug lords, the only shot they really have at a living wage. I know, let us try welfare to work. No more welfare, you have to have a job. Yeah, pay rent, food, and DAY CARE when you are bringing home $800/month. Take the mothers out of the home, that will really help education. Mom has to work two jobs trying to make ends meet and then has to serve on the PTA, and make cakes for the bake sale so the kids have playground equipment.
I have so been on both sides of this issue. I worked at school and brought my kids home to educate. No matter how bad I did it would have to be better than public school. Then I got my kids grounded and HAD to go back to work. I love teaching and went to our local school. No I am not a teacher. I have a college degree in accounting and graduated cum laude, but the best wage I was ever able to earn was $8/hour because I refused to move from the farm. Sorry, starting to rant.
The parents blame the school and the school blames the parents. The donkeys blame the elephants. Vote NO this election. Fire all of them! Incumbents out, republicans out, democrats out. It is time to clean house and take back our government of the people, by the people and for the people.
debi
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars
School shouldn't be a sport.
Ahh, you have hit on a key point here. When science, and music, and art, are as important and well funded as football, learning and thinking might actually take place in our schools.
debi
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars
ln New Jersey the problem is where the money goes; we actually have administrators making over one hundred thousand dollars a year to administrate schools without having the schools.
After 7 years of homeschooling my own dear children, I have taken a job at a small, poor public school. I enjoy my job and hope to make a difference in the lives of all the children I work with. The teachers and staff I work with are dedicated professionals.
One of the biggest problems with public education is that congress passes laws requiring schools to implement certain programs, and then fails to fund these programs.
Something I find extremely frustrating is grade level. I have third graders that read on a 5th or 6th grade level, but are struggling with math. Or vice versa, they can do 5th or 6th grade math, but can barely read. Yet these kids are all considered 3rd graders because of age and placed in the same room with one teacher. Some will not pass 3rd grade because they will not be able to pass the state reading or math tests. How does this help them? We have kids that are two grades behind their same age peers and are finally just placed in the next grade whether they know the material or not. I am not even going to start on the quality of our extremely expensive text books.
Like so many other problems and challenges this country faces its leaders are totally out of touch with what is going on. You can not just mandate from capital hill that no child will be left behind and keep him in 3rd grade until he passes the reading, writing, or math test. You are punishing him and not recognizing his giftedness in another area. And almost all of these kids are gifted in some area, yet struggling in another.
John Gatto has written some excellent books on this subject. And sometimes I wonder if the problems with education are not on purpose, because we are certainly succeeding in dumbing down our population. We are raising good consumers and good followers, not good thinkers.
Vouchers and charter schools and transfers will only segregate the schools further.
This is another reason why this election I intend to vote NO! Everyone currently in office is FIRED! No democrat or republican will get my vote because they are two heads representing the same 1% of this country, the corporation and the rich.
debi
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars
There is a ton of research out there on a myriad of successful educational strategies which can be tried and fit together into effective wholes. with better funding, and fewer young people going to War rather than training as teachers, these could be given room to grow America's society for the future.
If we actually gave the money to the schools instead of spending it on making, distributing, and analyzing standardized tests, students would already be doing better. It isn't the teachers nor the curriculum in most of these schools. In fact, its bc they don't have the funding they cant offer a variety of classes. If you read, "the shame of the nation" you will understand this in greater detail. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to "fix" the problem with education. MORE MONEY. The more money you give a school, the better the building can be kept up. The smaller class sizes will be bc you can have more teachers. The more classes you can offer such as AP or honors classes. Field trips, speakers, athletics, music, art, other extra-curriculars. The MORE money you have, the more programs you can have, the higher student motivation will be, the higher the grades and acheivement will be. Oh yea, we also have to remember that there are an increasing number of non-enlish speakers in this country. We can't expect them to have high scores when they barely understand the language. If you don't know the language, its harder to know the content.
Like i said, its not rocket science.
If we'd fund education, not teaching to a test, we might have better results. If we'd focus priorities on early childhood education and address issues of poverty that undercut the sense of priority that education should have within a family's value system, we might get a more supportive social context in which the education can take root. If GWB is the epitome of the program (NCLB), then I think we can safely say NCLB a crock and is as discredited as an educational strategy as that moron GWB is as a president.
I'm all for co-operative life-long learning that seems to be very rare. The teacher being just a facilitator. The groups decides democratically how to proceed. For young and old. Dare I mention the word empowerment?
Dubya's education program failed because it stressed testing over mastery of the subject matter. Most private and religiously based schools do not take all of these competency testa as a criteria for graduation or promotion to the next grade level. The students are expected to learn the subject matter, pass all of the quizes and major exams and satisfactorily complete all of the project work that is required. No pass the course, no pass the class, hence, no graduation or promotion to the next grade level. Until we start actually requiring students to know something about the subjects they are "studying" in school, then we will continue to have a bunch of illiterate citizens. Standardized test needed for college enterance is another phoney hurdle to admission; it measures how well you take test, not what you really know or have learned. Those should be gone also.
DeColores,
Rockerbabe1
Both candidates are fully entitled to their idea that charter schools are a "proven" solution to the problems of public education, but it's simply not true. Sometimes charter schools are successful, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they are limited by the concrete details of the lives of the students they serve. To argue, as some do here, that a standardized test is "biased" against charter schools is to have the question completely backwards. Standardized tests are biased against ALL students, because they are more often than not a highly centralized tool for assessment that are often times graded by disinterested warehouse "tutors" who may be looking at dozens in a sitting. Only nly the educators who have established a working relationship with each student they encounter can accurately analyze the data acquired by a standardized test, only those educators are likely to have a relatively accurate take on the actual cognitive development of the individual student in question.
Given this reality, most charter schools actually have a leg up in a standardized test situation, as most charter schools are allowed to cap the amount of students teachers are dealing with in the course of a teaching day, which is a privilege most comprehensive education programs in the public schools are not allowed. The other problem is that standardized tests, like any other test, can only indicate how a student tests. They do not provide as accurate a profile of student learning as say, portfolio assessment can provide.
Anyway, there are more reasons as to why the education platform of both parties are idiotic then can be recounted in this space, given that the candidates of both parties insist that charter schools are a "proven" solution to the public school crisis. That's horse shit. Sometimes charter schools work, sometimes they don't. As much as both candidates blast William Ayers, they could both learn a lot from him as to what actually constitutes the conditions for academic success in the urban working class kid of color. The quality of their responses to the education question was, as Mr. Sinor says, pretty disappointing.
I have an idea: Reform education by making schools optional. That would do far more to enhance learning than exit exams, SATs, tests and mandatory attendance.
School =/= Education.
If Mr. Sinor had been listening to Mr. Obama and Mr. McCane carefully, he would realize how mistaken it is to conclude,
"Rather than approach the challenge and reward of education with the promise of cooperation, the presidential contenders offered a recipe calling for charter schools and school vouchers and an incentive for parents to move their students out of 'failing schools,' a decidedly competitive approach to education. This divisive strategy can only lead to a greater divide between the haves and the have-nots."
On the logic of both gentlemen--they being demonstrably logical--ALL schools will become charter schools, thus eliminating need for school vouchers. Thus a successful public "charter schools" system will wholly replace a failed public school system.
Now it may be true studies show charter school students are no more successful than public school students in standardized NCLB test performance, as Mr. Obama mentioned in passing, but this is because the tests are biased against charter schools. This bias is obvious since both gentlemen pointed out how much superior charter schools are in educating students. When you test superior students on inferior tests, what else can you expect? Implementing a public charter school system, finally we will become a nation where, in the words of Garrison Keillor, "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children [and their schools] are above average."
The problem is that its been demonstrated that you cannot clone or duplicate sucessful charter schools.
Siouxrose
Doggoneit Siouxrose. Didn't you see that I agreed that NCLB and testing was a waste of time? Besides which I believe I indicated it wasn't even producing results. As a matter of fact, the kids can't stretch their minds because they can't read or write that well and haven't been taught how to think.
GWnorth got all over me the other day for calling McCain a hero, which I have never done at any time and twice said in my opinion he was not.
You guys are either not looking at what I am saying or I'm not saying it right.
Sioux Rose
THOMAS MORE: How is it possible that you fail to connect the dots? I left conventional education but some of my friends remained in "the field." The stories they tell about all the time wasted on preparing students to take tests, time that should have been spent arousing a LOVE of LEARNING... it's deadly. I remember statistics used to try to show that this type of strict test-based education was producing results. Problem is, the only criteria is a monkey like response to the "official" test "answers." Critical thinking or the capacity to stretch the mind is NOT part of the program
BLIGH: Did it ever occur to you that LOTS of people are working 2 or more jobs these days? It amazes me when people project their own reality onto others and presume others should act as they do. How about a little compassion for parents struggling? These parents are often victims of the economic system we so often talk about and indeed expose in this forum. Their children suffer because the parents cannot be home and still put a roof over their heads, food on the table, etc. So many of the channels of satisfying social life have been dried up like a desert by the same forces that are working to turn our society into a renewed feudal system. Stop blaming those caught in this obscene nexus!
Mr. SINO: If you do check into this forum, I would personally like to applaud your efforts and sustained enthusiasm. I am sure you are the type of teacher I would have remembered. Luckily, I, too have had a few of them!
bligh4
Souixrose, I would agree with you except for two things"
1. I work 2 jobs, as does my wife, and we still make it a priority when it comes to our kids school functions.
2. If parents cannot be held partially responsible- then who can? Are we really expected to believe that a teacher, with our kid maybe 5 hours a week for one year, can have a bigger impact than ourselves?
I'm not projecting anything, but if parents would turn off the tube and help their children study the children for be better for it.
The core purpose of NCLB is to set the bar so high that most public schools fail and are ultimately shut down due to no funding from the government. This is why we have George Bush's NCLB policy: eradicate public education. One of the main requirements of NCLB is to allow full and unfettered access to all public schools by the military for recruiting purposes. The neocons need bodies to hurl at their wars and conflicts around the globe. They don't have any need for the average kid to be eductated. They fear an educated society. The population needs to be dumbed down and listen only to Fox News. Once you understand the goal of the neocons' big picture, you realize that public education is doomed to fail. That's their goal. When you hear Obama talking about charter schools and school vouchers, it's proof that he too is drinking the neocon KoolAid. Wake up folks, there's a much bigger picture looming over the horizon.
bligh4
One problem I have seen has to do with the parents. They are the ones that need to be primarily responsible for their childrens' education.
I have gone to many educational functions for my kids schools and consistently see the same 5% of the parents there. The others apparently have something better to do.
Excellent point!
I certainly agree with his opinion of NCLB and all the testing.
I cannot agree with his acessment of education. Any "factory" and its "workers" is judged by its product and their product is failing badly.
Why? I sure don't know for sure. I think teachers are just as dedicated, maybe its the enviornment, maybe the new methods or content? We need to find out for sure.