NCLB isn't "going to improve public education" -Diane Ravitch, former supporter (GRE, college)

[DiogenesofJackson]

Originally Posted by elamigo

Well, I will play the Devil's Advocte on this one.

NCLB does have its flaws. However, why was implelented? Was it because our educational system was so successful that the people across the nation did not want any changes? Definitely not in my book. If you read back part of the problem was that people demanded changes. President Bush took action because the people wanted action. Sure, he may have provided some flawed system but he did something. I have read some accounts of some principles that actually felt their districts needed the force of the government to get things done and produced some results.
Also, many teachers ARE marginal achievers and were shortchanging the students thus this program forced them to do something.
Also, it is better than nothing to test students to see what is level of education they achieved. Testing is a method to gauge people in any area whether at school or work.

So it is better than nothing that we had before. If initiative and enovation was there before NCLB then people would not be complaining about the education system before NCLB.

You have a great day.
El Amigo

Just to add some more input on this topic, for one who studies Educational History, I've discovered that in our national history, the public has routinely tended to "distrust" teachers. There have been continual movements to "reform" public ed in this country and most reform efforts focus on curtailing the power of teachers over their classes. In the 1920s to the 1960s, most public initiatives to "reform" education focused on which teachers promoted communism or socialism (this coincided with the rise in social science disciplines at higher learning institutions). Really the public could give two turds about "reform" and instead focused on blackballing teachers, who they really feared.

I've also discovered that the public, historically speaking, resents taxation to support public schools, even the poor parents and especially senior or other adults who have no children in the school system. This combined with distrust for teachers leads to these so-called "reform" initiatives. These efforts are entirely misguided. Reform must be conducted at the top: how schools are funded and the curriculum standards teachers are held to and taught at their respective schools of education. Further, the aforementioned cartel explained earlier on this thread needs to be busted up.

I noticed that you give a lot of credit to the Bush administration for the Every Child Left Behind Act, yet this was a democratic-inspired initiative in the state of texas. Taking a page from his predecessor, the Bush team co-opted this plan, added funding penalties to it, as well as anti-teacher prerogatives (student testing reflects on teachers, not the students), and then championed it as their own. This is ironic because traditionally the GOP position is states rights and local control of edu, not to mention personal responsibility. Nowadays, after too many years of ECLB, commentators view the Bush role as one of curtailing the efficacy of public education because his kids will not suffer from it. His constituency's kids, for the most part, won't suffer from it because they're in fancy pants private or magnet schools. A dumbed-down public school system only benefits the wealthy who can afford myriad choices in regard to educating their kids.

Among my grad student colleagues here, some of whom defected from secondary education, most claim they did so because of their disagreements with ECLB. One former Tennessee teacher claimed that after ECLB became law, he was not at liberty to teach his 9th and 11th grade history classes effective writing strategies through the use of historical examples. Instead he was told to put students in groups nearly every day of the week, give them a simple question to work on for an hour, and then present their answers to the class. He said one kid in each group came up with the answer while the others watched the clock or gossipped. A former middle school teacher from Louisiana said after ECLB, her school district changed curricula drastically, cutting out what the politicians considered "extraneous" teaching techniques such as diagramming sentences (often considered standard for 5th graders).

We see the effects of ECLB on college campuses. Roughly only 10% of incoming freshmen are prepared for college work, in our collective estimation. I've noticed that students who have been exposed to ECLB for longer periods of time are worse than those who finished high school when the law was new.

As a group of grad students, we oftentimes commisserate with each other on what our lives will be like when these kids, who have been corrupted by ECLB, are running the country, big corporations, or the assisted living facilities that we'll soon be living in. The United States' roles as a superpower is nearly over. No wonder why corporations want to export jobs overseas (although I realize this isn't a new phenomenon, but nothing happening in edu today will encourage them to invest in this nation or its people. Indians are just smarter, better employees while Americans gripe about how Suzy or Tom is paid more than they are).

[DiogenesofJackson]

Originally Posted by Minethatbird

I can't say I see how a program telling schools to test their students once a year to see if students are learning is going to worsen an already bad situation.

Because teachers are preparing students just for this test, which is rather watered down academically speaking. The tests are just strings of facts and don't test for reasoning abilities. Why do teachers teach just for the test? Well because their jobs depend on it. It constricts the teacher's ability to instruct students.

[TelecasterBlues]

Originally Posted by Charles Wallace

It's not surprising to me. Not any of it.

Frankly, the University of Chicago was on the right track when it essentially eliminated its own college of education as a major because it was academically worthless.

I truly believe that colleges of education do absolutely nothing of value. Should a teacher wish to teach s/he should major in a core discipline (history, English, math, or science) and attend apprenticeships with a trained and seasoned teacher in a variety of settings (inner-city, suburban country-club). Specific workshops on composing lesson plans and classroom management could be added.

I have to agree with this...I've always said that my "education" classes were total BS and didn't teach a single thing that could be used in the real world. You can't "teach" somebody how to teach...it comes from first hand experience and improvisation. Everybody is going to be different in terms of what works for them and how they're able to adapt.

Most of the professors running my university's education department were 60 or so years old and hadn't taught in a district since the 70s when they burned out and saught higher employment...so how exactly are they supposed to instruct students on how to teach in modern classroom environments? Then there were the countless portfolios and examples of documentation that I had to do during "check points" just so that I could stay within the education department or reach student teaching...basically hours upon hours of meaningless work and ridiculous tasks just so that some idiot can spend 5 minutes scanning through it all in the end while not really caring. It was a slap to the face if anything considering the amount of time and effort that was spent on these mandatory tasks.

Seriously...I learned everything that I know about teaching from my family, which consists of teachers and teachers turned administrators, and my own experiences with teaching. Not a single drop of help, insight, or ANYTHING of use came from my college courses. Just a bunch of backbreaking work and formalities that turned out to be useless in the real world of education.

[TelecasterBlues]

Originally Posted by DiogenesofJackson

Because teachers are preparing students just for this test, which is rather watered down academically speaking. The tests are just strings of facts and don't test for reasoning abilities. Why do teachers teach just for the test? Well because their jobs depend on it. It constricts the teacher's ability to instruct students.

Basically....these tests are so simple, so USELESS, and so WATERED DOWN that it's actually possible for intelligent students to fail them. That's my problem with these tests, the intellectual content is pathetic yet the format and design are such a way that kids can fail the damned thing even though they're far beyond the intelligence level of the test itself. It's more or less spending the whole year teaching kids how to take and pass a test format as opposed to spending a whole year teaching kids life lessons and how to grow intellectually. NCLB and standardized testing contradict the value and purpose of education itself...I'm just waiting to see a resume out there with "My school met AYP" listed under personal qualities.

It's all such a joke, with the worst part being that the few parents out there who DO support NCLB(every single one that I know of do NOT like NCLB at all) are more or less being victimized by the government and taken advantage of over an issue that they aren't even properly informed about or could possibly even understand. There are so many individual variables from state to state, from community to community, from district to district, from building to building, from classroom to classroom, from teacher to teacher, from demographic to demographic, from student to student, that something as cut and dry as NCLB couldn't possibly work ANYWHERE to achieve what it supposedly does.

[StarlaJane]

Originally Posted by DiogenesofJackson

Because teachers are preparing students just for this test, which is rather watered down academically speaking. The tests are just strings of facts and don't test for reasoning abilities. Why do teachers teach just for the test? Well because their jobs depend on it. It constricts the teacher's ability to instruct students.

They also don't test on the ability of a student to apply what he or she has learned in any way that might be useful to them in a career or life skill b/c the tests (and a lot of high school curriculum) do not have students learn in context. I mean, what's the point of learning math if you don't also learn how to apply it to create something?!

[Minethatbird]

Originally Posted by DiogenesofJackson

Because teachers are preparing students just for this test, which is rather watered down academically speaking. The tests are just strings of facts and don't test for reasoning abilities. Why do teachers teach just for the test? Well because their jobs depend on it. It constricts the teacher's ability to instruct students.

Well my DD's private school tests their students once a year using the Iowa tests. They've been doing this for years, long before anyone even thought of NCLB. I have yet to hear a teacher complain about how having this one test is the source of so much consternation.

[Eresh]

Originally Posted by Minethatbird

Well my DD's private school tests their students once a year using the Iowa tests. They've been doing this for years, long before anyone even thought of NCLB. I have yet to hear a teacher complain about how having this one test is the source of so much consternation.

Is the amount of funding received by the school based on students' performance on that test?

[StarlaJane]

Originally Posted by Minethatbird

I can't say I see how a program telling schools to test their students once a year to see if students are learning is going to worsen an already bad situation. I must disagree with your assessment of most people being aware of poor public school performance; in my experience many people are of the belief that yes the public school system is horrid, but my kid's school is great. If it is failing NCLB standards there is always some rationalization for why it is failing.

(Bolded) That really made me laugh, and I can't say that I disagree with you--parents are always promoting their children and, thus, the schools that their children are attending, especially if their kids don't have another option, as a means of self-preservation (i.e. what college in their right mind is going to accept a student--even an A-student--from a school that has a poor reputation). You make a very good point about adults (parents, educators, administrators) being in denial about their schools; much as I am aware that public schools in this country need improvement, many adults resist such improvement b/c they're afraid that, if they admit that their schools need improvement, that this will reflect negatively on them somehow. That said, the cases of schools that I have seen in denial were schools where students tested very highly but could not apply that info in any meaningful way; those are the schools that end up benefiting from ECLB via funding, which makes me wonder what exactly the legislation means to reward

I will also re-assert that ECLB did nothing to enlighten anyone about poor performance in public schools; it merely re-stated that poor performance meant low test scores and sought to ensure that schools with low test scores raise their test scores. However, high test scores are not a valid assessment of a school's performance as they do not account for tangible skills or progress. Furthermore, testing is usually where the struggling schools are struggling to begin with. That's sort of like testing someone on their known weakness rather than on their possible strengths (or not even taking those strengths into account b/c you don't consider their strengths a strength). And then there is the cultural bias of standardized tests...

Were it merely enforcing testing once a year, then it probably would not be as harmful. But it is the "accountabilty" clause and the subsequent funding denial that has made the situation worse, as most schools that are underprivileged cannot meet the benchmarks and are the very schools that need more funding but are provided with less.

Moreover, it is the teachers and adminstrators at those schools who are being held responsible for students that are so underprivileged that they might never be able to perform well, even with the best and most dedicated teachers and administrators. To punish the adminstrators, teachers, students and the school as a whole is completely unfair and counter-productive. To deny education to those that are already struggling b/c they aren't able to perform well no matter how hard they try is like taking away a life preserver from someone who is drowning b/c they can't swim.

When I'm feeling really cynical, I think that ECLB is just an excuse to deny funding to people that you don't want to succeed by applying standards to them that you know they can't possibly meet. The underlying or implied message of such legislation is total and utter conformity (or else).

[Minethatbird]

Originally Posted by Eresh

Is the amount of funding received by the school based on students' performance on that test?

Possibly .... why would I fork over $5000 plus per year for DD to attend a school with bad test results when I can get the same thing for free with my local middle school that's been failing NCLB tests on a consistent basis for years?

Why would anyone else?

[lhpartridge]

Originally Posted by Minethatbird

I can't say I see how a program telling schools to test their students once a year to see if students are learning is going to worsen an already bad situation. I must disagree with your assessment of most people being aware of poor public school performance; in my experience many people are of the belief that yes the public school system is horrid, but my kid's school is great. If it is failing NCLB standards there is always some rationalization for why it is failing.

It's the law of unintended consequences.

In our district, the big test that counts for NCLB is only the ultimate of a series of tests. Our teachers have now been issued pacing guides that they use with state test-prep materials. I don't even know if they still use textbooks or not. Every term there is a district-prepared midterm and end-of-term exam, so that by the time the "real" test comes around in late April, the students have actually been tested no less than SEVEN times.

At this point in the school year, my elective classes are reduced by up to half, sometimes more, as students are pulled to attend remediation sessions and tutorials, even if they are expected to pass the test. Because the school is rated on the average scores, as well as the percent who are proficient and advanced, the administration needs every student to score as high as possible to offset the scores of the students who are likely to fail.

Additionally, every course which is tested is paired with a class that is designed to "double-dose" students by having them attend twice in an A/B block. As a result, students are accumulating credits in classes which do not help them gain admission to university. I've had top students removed from my high-level elective classes to enroll in these double-dose classes, NOT because they were likely to fail, but just to help them score as high as possible on the state tests. This hurts them when they try to apply to top colleges.

What's worse, the district actually begins the test-prep process THE YEAR BEFORE, in the prerequisite courses. I could not believe it when it first came to pass, but we quit teaching the content of one history course in order to begin teaching the content that is on the state exam in the following year's subject.

The most egregious practice is unfortunately also common: The teachers are explicitly instructed to focus the majority of their efforts on the "cusp" students--those who with a little nudge will move from Minimal to Basic, from Basic to Proficient, and from Proficient to Advanced. I was outraged when it was flatly made clear that the unintended consequence of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND was to unapologetically LET THE DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST!

(Please forgive me raising my voice. This gets me EXTREMELY worked up.)

I fear that if the pendulum doesn't shift back soon, our culture and our country may be irreparably damaged. Of course, the powerbrokers' children are safely ensconced in their high-level public schools which never had to make adjustments to meet AYP or else in their private schools where the issue does not exist.

It's only our poor kids, like the ones I teach, who are busy spending hours focusing on finding the answers to these tiny questions rather than discovering this incredible planet on which they live.