I am a parent of three children who have or do go to public schools in the county in which we live. I homeschooled all of them for several years, also, each for a differing amount of time. And I am now a substitute teacher and have taught at all three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. My children are currently labeled as gifted, but it is not only their welfare that concerns me. It is my belief that the No Child Left Behind rules are causing more suffering than help.
In class the other day, I was talking with a collaborative special education teacher of 25 years, who was telling me her experience firsthand at how the system is underserving children at all levels. Under the "old" system, children with special needs on the lower end were grouped into their own classes, which allowed for teachers to get to know the students on a more personal basis and thus cater more effectively to their needs. Usually, classes were smaller, which is a huge factor in a teacher's ability to communicate more to each student.
Now, with children of all levels lumped together, the teachers must go more slowly and work harder to accomodate the learning of the slower children, while also maintianing a challenging pace to accomodate smarter students. For all of its theoretical goodness, this approach usually does not work, and in my mind is not effective for either slower or faster students. It causes the smarter kids to get bored at the pace, and does not give them enough challenge to accomodate their higher abilities to process information. It quells their curiosity and causes behavior problems. At the same time, the slower kids are struggling to keep up at the "moderate pace" and are being lost in the process. Even collaborative teaching doesn't help. It is inefficient.
What the slower kids need is a teacher who knows them and has the time to spend individually to help them work up to a higher potential, instead of just squeaking by. The smarter kids need not to be hampered by slow, thin, repetitive lessons that leave them just as behind for their ability levles as the slower kids are for theirs. Regular classroom teachers need not to be dealing with a classroom of mixed abilities: gifted, slow, behavior disorder, etc. But instead, teachers need to specialize in these skills and build their classes around their teaching strengths. Students of like abilities will learn better in a classroom organized around their levels, drawing from the natural support and competition of others like them.
It is my belief that NCLB is actually doing the opposite of what was intended, and that it is imperative that we quickly assess and re-organize our current methods, or all our children will suffer. In fact, they already are.
April Keating
115 Shawnee Dr.
Buckhannon, WV 26201
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Fourteen years ago “It’s the economy, stupid!” reverberated in the consciousness and pocketbooks of millions of Americans as they went to the polls. In these few days before this historic election, I believe all of the rhetoric, lies and half-lies can be clarified through the lens of a slight variation of that slogan: This time around, “It’s for the CHILDREN, Stupid,” We hear so often that “children are our future.” For many, this is a mere platitude, but to me and millions of parents, teachers, school counselors and others whose lives revolve around children, we DO think of the future in terms of how well-prepared all of them must be to continue the dream and promise of America. And so to anyone still not sure whether to vote for Senator Obama, we would say: Please review the news of the past few weeks and months, or just open a comprehensive national newspaper today, and ask yourself: Does this describe the country you want for your children, or must we vote for change? Don’t automatically take my words for truth or lies--cross-check my statements against unbiased sources.
In today’s America:·
1. We spend Billions of dollars every month in the Iraq War Senator McCain supports, while our schools, bridges and highways here are crumbling. Working people put off important medical procedures because they have no insurance or can’t afford the co-pays. ·
2. When the Republican Majority and then Bush took office, the cost of a gallon of gas was $1.40. Major businesses in our towns are now closing. Retirement funds have dwindled because of unregulated risky stock market transactions and unethical, immoral mortgage practices targeting primarily middle and lower-income people. We who are “working class” know too many people who have lost their homes, been evicted, and are searching for help with food, car, medical payments and other basic needs. As a school counselor, I see this every day among our school population—including students, school staff and administrators. ·
3. Because of President Bush’s NCLB “reforms”, our students spend at least 7 weeks of every school year in preparation for and taking standardized tests. Right-wingers constantly insult us teachers and Teacher Union Members, but we are fighting to bring back our children’s freedom to learn.·
4. Senator McCain voted with President Bush to provide tax incentives to multi-billion dollar companies who move their operations OUT OF THE U.S., thus taking away the jobs of our middle-class. Why did even V.P. Cheney’s company, Halliburton move their headquarters to Dubai?
5. Most support jobs in our Military are managed by private companies. The shameful conditions for our wounded troops at Walter Reed were due to little or no oversight of private companies hired with our tax dollars to supposedly take care of them, and Blackwater and others in Iraq have created many of the controversial situations our Military personnel have had to deal with and for which they’ve had to pay a steep price.·
6. Do you remember the devastation of New Orleans because of the ineptness of what SHOULD have been massive, immediate Federal intervention before and after Hurricane Katrina? Do you remember the PDB memo read to President Bush on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the United States” and reports as far back as 1998 and ’99 about the possibility of using airplanes as weapons? Compare these glaring, tragic INACTIONS to the MASSIVE Republican Congressional and Presidential efforts to force continued care of the brain-dead Terri Schiavo. ·
7. Even though he has been in Congress for the 7 years since 9-11, 5 of which were completely under Republican control--Senator McCain did not sponsor nor pass any bills to make sure our docks, trains, and cargo are checked to avoid attack. Non-partisan safety experts have sounded the warning that it is largely due to good luck that we have not had further domestic terrorist attacks, but Bush and McCain, although they’ve had total Legislative control, have made no efforts to change this.·
8. Many religious Americans have sifted down all of Christ’s teachings to two areas: being anti-abortion and anti-gay rights. They believe that these are the only two issues that should determine who is a good Christian and for whom they should vote. I won’t press the usual arguments we’ve heard thousands of times that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is NOT an easy choice, and that being gay is NOT a choice at all. I’ll just ask that you realize this: NEVER in his 26-year career did Senator McCain nor any other Republican for that matter, despite, again remember, having complete Legislative control, NEVER DID ANYONE pass federal anti-abortion and anti-gay laws. President Bush NEVER presented such legislation; his party NEVER presented it. Why didn’t they, when they had every opportunity to do so?? I believe they would rather have this as an issue to DIVIDE US than to actually pass these laws. Isn’t it time that we look back to the real intent of our Gods as to what is important about our religions? ·
9. There are hundreds of other dire issues I could raise, time and space allowing, but the final point I will make has to do with the mind- and heart-numbing topic that for some reason we’ve heard very little of for several months: More than 4,000 of our children, parents, sisters and brothers have been killed in a war that has accomplished…WHAT? Really, WHAT? An estimated 100,000 have returned to Walter Reed, Bethesda, and other military hospitals, therapy centers and nursing homes—broken, battered, brain injured, and suffering from intense PTSD from the hell they lived. For WHAT?
I know many right-wing newscasters and talk show hosts regularly berate those of us who consider these statistics tragic. They call us unpatriotic; they call us un-American. But they did not hold my daughter as she wept at her husband’s bedside at Walter Reed for 4 months. They did not accompany us as we visited these broken men and women in the other intensive care units and V.A. nursing homes for 2 years. They did not help us wipe the saliva that dripped from their frozen faces; did not suction their breathing tubes as they choked; did not massage and move their paralyzed limbs. My children’s and thousands of others’ lives are forever damaged. The pain caused directly and indirectly by Bush’s and McCain’s policies is overwhelming; it is one of the biggest reasons why I could never vote for McCain-Palin: under them, the Bush preemptive-war philosophy would not only be continued, but would increase. I cannot bear the thought of my beautiful students, nephews or niece having to participate in future illegal, unnecessary wars.
Is this the world we want for our children?
Senator McCain would have us believe that HE and his perplexing VP choice are the change agents we need. He--the Republican Senator of 26 years, who by his own admission has “voted with President Bush at least 90% of the time” has tried to co-opt the message of the real, obvious symbol of United States’ Political Change—Barack Obama. To believe that McCain would suddenly do all the things he could have easily done in the last 26 years is to not be grounded in reality. McCain as Change-Agent is Delusion.
Barack Obama in every aspect of his personality, experience, and being is the personification of change. The Hope he offers is real. The good judgment and intelligence surrounding every move of his long campaign and career foreshadow the care and prudence that will be invaluable in the process of trying to reclaim the greatness of America that our children have the right to experience. Please vote for Obama-Biden. It’s for the children, stupid! --Bernice García Baca is with the Santa Fe Public Schools and has been a Teacher, Counselor and Child Advocate for 32-years.
Here's a link to a bog on Education Week that is edited by David Hoff, who is an associate editor at Education Week.
It is titled: NCLB: Act II
The current topic is: The latest news on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.
After looking over the new draft rules in the Federal Register, I commented on that story. You can read my comment here:
BobBl - October 28, 2008 2:47 PM
Here's what I said there:
Isn't there some way to stop Spellings and the Department of Education from going any further with these rule changes? Most of this will be unacceptable under the subsequent administration's agenda for education.When there's a "regime change," the classified civil service USDOE employees (the dedicated few who haven't been driven off) will stop doing anything substantial (besides administering entitlement programs) until there's a new Secretary appointed and new political appointees put into the leadership positions in all the program offices.This is an obvious continuation of the same old "top down" essentialist education agenda that the Bush administration has pushed over almost eight years.Going any further with these "rule changes," which are nothing more than an "interpretation" of what this Secretary and her politically appointed staff interpret the legislation to mean, is a waste of time and $$ that the education community in this country can't afford.
Isn't there some way to stop Spellings and the Department of Education from going any further with these rule changes?
Most of this will be unacceptable under the subsequent administration's agenda for education.
When there's a "regime change," the classified civil service USDOE employees (the dedicated few who haven't been driven off) will stop doing anything substantial (besides administering entitlement programs) until there's a new Secretary appointed and new political appointees put into the leadership positions in all the program offices.
This is an obvious continuation of the same old "top down" essentialist education agenda that the Bush administration has pushed over almost eight years.
Going any further with these "rule changes," which are nothing more than an "interpretation" of what this Secretary and her politically appointed staff interpret the legislation to mean, is a waste of time and $$ that the education community in this country can't afford.
Going any further with these new rules would be a horrible, costly mistake. Everyone who cares about the future of America's public educational system should write to their Representatives and call for them to do everything in their power to block the implementation of these new rules.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 34 CFR Part 200 Docket ID ED-2008-OESE-0003 Title I--Improving The Academic Achievement Of The Disadvantaged
This quote from the introductory section perfectly summarizes why I believe so very strongly that these rules must be stopped immediately:
"In the absence of reauthorization, we believe these final regulations are necessary to further the interests of parents and children and to improve the implementation of NCLB in order to continue progress toward the goal of 100 percent student proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014." (New Rules, pgs. 5-6)
For the same reasons that the Congress tabled the reauthorization of NCLB, these rule changes nust be stopped too.
These new rule's would be a terribly expensive mis-step backwards that our schools just can't afford.
BobBl
I'm sick and tired of hearing those not in education argue over education. They all say pay good teachers more and kick out the bad ones. Problem is, how the hell do you measure that? Test scores. Please. Do you want to see how fast all qualified teachers run from the inner cities to the suburbs in hopes to find higher test scores. Truth is, if you want higher test scores, that's all you have to do. The more wealthy and well-educated the parents of the kids are, the higher the test scores.
Studies show that the best indicator of how a student will read in 11th grade is how he or she read in 3rd grade. Not much changes. If we haven't instilled the love of books, the culture of school, and the vocabulary necessary to be competitive by the time these kids get to school, they won't catch up. The problem begins in the home. Those who have failed in school, and for whom school has a negative connotation, are those who will have trouble producing successful students. The best students and readers come from families who have read to their kids since birth, who read for fun themselves, and who do no accept failure from their children when they go to school. Show me a kid who is punished for a C+, and I'll show you a student who does well in school (disabilities aside).
Now, it's easy to say that, as an educator, I do not want to shoulder the blame, so I blame the parents. In fact, I am the exception to the rule I just put forth. My parents did poorly in school; in fact, my mother was a high school dropout. My father got by enough to graduate. So, how did I get where I am -- a self-proclaimed intellectual teaching high level philosophy to 11th graders in an American Literature course who got a perfect score on his PRAXIS and graduated from college Summa Cum Laude?
Well, in high school I wasn't such a hot shot. I had a C average or so and couldn't understand why I would try any harder than I had to. My parents couldn't afford college and nobody seemed to have any clue what I had to do to get in, so forget it -- too much trouble. I didn't go back to school until 10 years after I graduated. When I did, I excelled. Why? Acedemics at home had failed me, and I failed because of it. See, I was right afterall.
What changed in college. Three things: my natural curiosity took over, my natural competitive drive took over, as a new father and provider for my family education had a whole new meaning, and I happen to have a genious IQ that I finally put to use. So, how do we take the natural curiosity and competitive drive of students and combine it with a knowledge that what they do in school can improve their whole life. Damned if I know -- yet.
I do know what DOESN'T do that. School choice. The Republicans, namely John McCain, seem to think the way to make a student read better is to send them to a private school. This is racist, segregational, code for take the poor white kid away from all the ni****s in the ghetto school he's going to and he'll do better. THEY are rubbing off on OUR nice white boys. So, we leave all the unfortunate students who are cursed by families who do not value education enough to seak out a voucher to rott together as if it were they're fault. In fact, it may not be their family's fault. They may have been "left behind" as well. So, no child left behind other than those that "darken" our private schools.
Taking funding from "failing" schools (most in the inner cities -- big shock) is not the answer. This is also segregation and racism. So, the kids are failing the tests. Take all the kids from the highest scoring school in your state and swap them with all the kids from the lowest scoring school in your state and see what happens. Do you think the teachers at the failing school are so bad that all of a sudden these wealthy, white students with well-educated parents are going to start failing. No way. And do you think these inner city or rual students who have done poorly on tests are magically going to succeed after being touched by these Super Teachers. Not a chance. The only reason the failing school is failing is because it is filled with failing students segregated by income. Now I'm not even talking about race, although minorities are much more victimized by this trend, but economics. If you live in the poor neighborhood, the perception is that you are cursed and you fail.
How do we fix that? Revenue sharing between districts? Tax payers in one town would freak over their money going to a poor town. They'd cry Communism. Maybe corperate sponsors for schools that can't afford themselves. I'm not so sure. Is this really a funding issue? I think as long as I have a board and something to write on it with and some books I can teach. All the technology in the world won't change the basic facts and skills we are trying to teach. It's the culture that's the problem. A "learning is lame and we're never getting out of here anyway idea." If you want to fix the culture, then fix it. How, you ask?
People are planning to vote McCain over Obama because Obama is too intellectual, nerdy, professorial -- "not like me." We don't value intelligence. We don't want to pay for it. We don't want to sacrifice for it. We say we want better education, but we really do not care. Books are for dorks; real people watch tv and drink a beer and pay 9 bucks for it at the billion dollar stadium while their kid goes to a school in crowded classrooms that are falling apart. Some message we are sending to students. And we wonder why they fail!
I don't want people to read this without understanding my persepctive. I am not a die-hard liberal - I have leaned conservative, especially on national security, most of my life. At the same time, I have a son with autism. That is a reality I have talked about before in this space and have lived with for more than eight years. He's 11, was diagnosed at 2 and a half, and utterly changed my family's world. I also have a wonderfully typical daughter, aged 3, in case anyone cares. In any event, I'm not a one issue voter - it just happens that I have a vested interest in the developmentally disabled population.
In any event, my son's diagnosis and my own struggle should make me a pushover for Sarah Palin. After all, she's proudly gave birth to Trig Paxson Palin, a baby with Down Syndrome (the national association likes Down, not Down's, for reasons of advocacy I'd rather not get into) and told me point blank tonight she'd be an advocate for parents of special needs children. But it is that very act that disgusts me more than anything else I have heard about the woman.
I know first hand the pain of realizing that your child is different. I am faced with it every day. I didn't talk about it openly for years after my son's diagnosis. Not because I was embarrassed by it, or loved him less, but because I just couldn't stand the pity I received any time my son's condition came up among family or friends. I wanted my colleagues, especially, to respect me, not take pity on me. I could easily have used my son's condition to make my life easier, taking off from work or rejecting responsibility on the grounds that I had to spend time with my son. I chose not to do that, to rather take the time necessary without explanation, for fear that others would resent the privilege I was granted. After all, I wasn't disabled, my son was. Although as it would later prove out I was actually on the Autism Spectrum, too (I just didn't know it growing up) I clung to the idea - a very Republican concept of self reliance, to be sure - that I couldn't use my son as an excuse, a crutch, a basis for scoring easy points. That would have been beneath contempt - to use the plight of the less fortunate as an excuse for my own deviation from expectations.
Sarah Palin is taking just the opposite track. First, the right seeks to heap praise on her for "choosing" to give birth to a child with Down Syndrome. Of course, the irony of a pro-life person talking about the bravery of such a choice is never mentioned. If all children are the blessings the right asserts, and choice is irrelevant to the greater duty of birthing life, then she deserves exactly no credit for birthing Trig Palin. If anything, she gets a demerit in the book of righteous behavior for even having prenatal testing about his condition, seeing as how amniocentisis(sp?) is known to increase the risk of birth defects. I love my son, would never have thought of aborting him even if I had known the challenges my wife and I would face, but I know our choice to care for him is not brave. It's basic human instinct. My wife's choice, to make the care of the developmentally disabled her life's work after first giving up her dream job for my son - that's brave. Sarah Palin, though, not only wants credit for birthing Trig, she wants credit for ignoring him. She wants everyone to be proud of how she plowed right on through to working as governor of Alaska. Sorry, no one gave me extra credit at my firm for fathering a special needs child, and I refuse to give it to you - especially as you haven't even entered the really hard stages of parenting such a child.
Claiming the mere fact you have a kid with DS makes you an advocate for special needs, as Gov. Palin said tonight on behalf of poor, oblivious Trig Palin, is also specious, especially as John McCain's proposed VP. John McCain opposes requiring states to transition people with developmental disabilities from state institutions (basically prisons without barbed wire) to community settings. He opposes making the ADA more than an unfunded federal mandate. He refuses to acknowledge that No Child Left Behind, as enacted, encourages schools to isolate and ignore children with special needs. Case in point - my son has been "encouraged" to sit out NCLB testing twice (even though he met or exceeded state and federal standards), and minorities, kids with special needs or a combination of the two seem to get blamed every time a school falls below Federal guidelines. McCain's pro-voucher stance doesn't do anything to address the abilty of private schools to discriminate against kids with developmental disabilities. Currently, they are allowed to exclude anyone, and will exclude anyone with behavioral difficulties even if the child is academically proficient (been there, done that). Vouchers, if adopted widely, would also cripple the ability of public schools to provide critical assistance to children who can access the curriculum but need help in the form of instructional aides. So, Sarah would have to fight John to the death (or at least get a public reversal of numerous policy positions) to convince me she really meant anything she said about parents of special needs kids tonight.
I try hard never to call my son "special" or "special needs" unless I'm fighting for his rights with school admin types. I want him to have a full life, including higher education, and maybe even marry and have kids some day, and I am dead set against limiting that for him in advance by imposing labels on his potential. As a result, he is beautifully, blissfully unaware of any distinction between himself and his peers. I actually tried to have a "you have autism" speech with him recently, after he blissfully gave away over $100 worth of Yu-Gi-Oh cards to "be nice" to a casual acquiantance. I asked if he knew what made him "different." He said, God bless him, that it was his love of magic and Yu-Gi-Oh that set him apart - not the stemming, the squealing, the inability to understand cause and effect, the lack of communication or anything else. I was at once humbled, terrified and oh so proud of my boy at that moment. I long for a world that won't cripple or kill his generous spirit without thinking, but I fear for his future in the world as it is.
Palin, on the other hand, seems quite comfortable with sacrificing Trig on the altar of ambition before he ever has a chance to realize his own potential. That she couples it to false encouragement and faint praise for parents like me only deepens my resentment and my resolve to see a new day in America. One where we acknowledge not just the raw glory of life but its diversity. One where we truly embrace the Golden Rule and love our neighbors as ourselves. One where my son, though incapable of being "normal" is nonetheless accepted and allowed to be the majestic person that he has the capacity to be. An America that will not tolerate abuse of the least deserving of such treatment. Sadly, an America the Republican Party has no interest in creating. Tha's why, unlike Governor Palin, I really mean it when I say "Thanks but no thanks" to her offer to be my advocate in Washington.
Who doesn't want a school system in which no child is ever left behind? However, NCLB is not the answer. Just because schools look successful on paper, doesn't mean real education is occuring...quite the opposite may be true. Teachers in the "core subject" are hounded unmercifully about test scores. In fact it is all they teach. So many brilliant, creative teachers are leaving the field because being a test factory is not why they got in to the field.
Like many federal mandates, NCLB sounds like a great idea but is really a disaster. And, like many federal mandates, this one is largely unfunded. So school districts are between a rock and a hard place...we must performon those tests but we are not given to resources needed to perform well. Schools are tested and punished but nothing is done to improve the schools that have low scores.
It can be very frustrating to those of us who love teaching. I have been a teacher for over 20 years...I have never wanted to do anything else, but recently I have beeen looking at the "Help Wanted" section...
I live in California and work around the country. I am appalled about the state of education and how we are leaving more children behind then we ever have before. The focus of "No Child Left Behind" was framed so people thought that we were going to fight for all children. Actually, what has happened is that "Every poor, disadvantaged, learning disabled, at-risk, and minority child is left behind." What kind of country is this that we do this to our future. In today's SF Chronicle, the headline is 24% of high school students will dropout.
Where are they? What are these dropouts doing now? How will they survive?
I noticed this starting to happen several years ago as a consultant working with several high schools in the SF bay area. When I pointed out that the data is alarming (i.e. at one urban school there were 800 freshmen and only 160 seniors), the school told me not to talk about it. I informed them that this is a big problem they need to address. So now the state superintendent is talking about it (5 years later).
We cannot throw away one child!
Since I work in other states, I have become aware that funding levels do impact class size, teacher quality, etc. California is now 49th in funding per pupil. Class size averages over 30 where in Texas the average is 22. How can you be effective with that many children in your class? In other countries, teachers are valued, honored. We blame teachers for problems that are out of their control. In Japan, there is time for professional learning and teachers to share teaching practice almost daily. We expect teachers to do the impossible and learn on the job without much support and resources. No other job does this.
To create the 21st century citizens we want our children to become, our teachers need an environment that allows them to take risks where innovation and creativity is encouraged.
With so much focus on tests and accountability, innovation, problem-solving, critical-thinking, and creativity is not only discouraged but not allowed. We have to change this - NOW! Our children need to learn how to think, not what to think.
Since I work in other states, I have become aware that funding levels do impact class size, teacher quality, etc. California is now 49th in funding per pupil. Class size averages over 30 where in Texas the average is 22. How can you be effective with that many children in your class? In other countries, teachers are valued, honored. We blame teachers for problems that are out of their control. In Japan, there is time for professional learning and teachers to share teaching practice almost daily. We expect teachers to do the impossible and learn on the job without much time, training, support and resources. No other job does this.
To: The Honorable Barack H. Obama John C. Kluczynski Federal Office Building 230 South Dearborn St. Suite 3900 (39th floor) Chicago, Illinois 60604
From: The Undersigned
Of all human drives, the need to satisfy curiosity, to learn, to understand, to make sense of experience, appears earliest in life and is more powerful than any other. That the current thrust of public education reform has not moved us significantly closer to meeting that deep human need is now apparent.
Consider: Standards have been imposed. Art, music, recess, history, civics, geography, and other "frills" have been eliminated. Students and teachers have been shamed, intimidated, pushed out, fired. Vast amounts of money and instructional time have been spent on corporately produced tests and test prep materials. "Bars" have been raised. Students have been sorted, labeled, and retained indefinitely in grade. Distrust of educators has been publicly demonstrated as politicians, business leaders, and other non-educators have replaced professional educators in positions of authority.
And what is there to show for this radical, punitive reform strategy, a strategy now known to have been designed to undermine confidence in public schooling and pave the way for alternatives? Look past the ideology-driven, cherry-picked and manipulated data and it is clear that systemic problems not only persist but have intensified. The achievement gap has not closed. New teachers quit at an alarming rate. Homeschoolers continue to abandon the system. Conscience-stricken educators risk job loss to protest policies that are at odds with research and common sense. Experienced teachers resign or seek early retirement. Preoccupation with test scores brings educational innovation to a standstill. The worst and best students are neglected as resources are concentrated on those whose scores might be raised enough to save a school from reorganization or closure.
It is accepted that economies are too complex to be centrally designed and controlled, and that America’s long dominance of the world’s economy is due in large part to the imagination, flexibility, creativity, and initiative of individuals. What must also be accepted is that educating--discerning and altering the images of reality in others’ minds--is more complicated and challenging than maintaining an economy, and therefore even more dependent upon those personal qualities.
Continuing on our present educational course, propelled by the simplistic notion that educating is a mere matter of setting standards, covering the material, and then testing, is a recipe for institutional and societal disaster. Standards? Of course! But standards tied not to a random handful of disconnected school subjects but to the personal qualities essential to individual and societal well-being. Tests? Of course! But tests not of what can be remembered of something read or heard in class and stored in short-term memory, but tests of the ability to make more sense of the present moment, of the trends of the era, of life.
These kinds of standards and measures of accountability cannot be mandated by centralized political authority or acquired by the letting of contracts to corporations. They are products of a constantly bargained agreement between individual learners and their teachers or mentors, based on mutual trust and respect.
We urge you to appreciate the dangers of standardizing education, of focusing narrowly on achieving minimum standards, of locking static subject-matter standards in place in an era of accelerating change, of seeing the young as mere cogs in the wheels of commerce, of assuming that doing more diligently what we have been doing since the 19th Century will see us safely through to the 22nd. We urge you, in short, to reject the superficial "standards and accountability" approach to education reform and the reactionary policies to which it has led.
There are, of course, constructive roles the federal government can play. Welcome, for example, would be actions encouraging broad dialog to clarify the institution’s overarching aim, policies promoting more equitable and stable funding, measures increasing support for research and innovation, and, of course, comprehensive programs addressing poverty, cultural deprivation, environmental degradation, and other problems directly affecting student performance.
But attempts to manipulate what teachers and students actually do must be entirely abandoned. The inherent complexity of the task, its dynamic, constantly changing nature, the importance to its success of imagination, flexibility and creativity, and the gross inadequacy of presently available standardized measures of performance, make centralized control of the classroom dangerously counterproductive.
Let us help you build a system of education we can believe in.
Cc: Linda Darling-Hammond Stanford University School of Education 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-3096
Media
In my classroom last year there was a 9 year old boy we will call "Z". Z was a very quiet child who listened attentively, worked diligently, rarely spoke unless called on to answer, and answered in monosyllables when I tried to draw him out time and again.
One day during a reading lesson we came across the word "logo", and I began to use visualization of common logos to explain it. Beginning with one everyone knew - McDonald's - I was pleased to see everyone visualizing, then answering, so I went on. When I mentioned the Phoenix Suns, everyone was searching their memories to visualize and describe the logo...except Z. Suddenly, Z blurted out, "Steve Nash is my favorite player!" My first response was a smile in is direction, then a quick look around to see what the other children were doing. Of course, they were watching and giggling quietly. When I looked back at Z, he had a big smile on his face. I thanked him for sharing, and told him that I, too, liked Steve Nash and we could talk about it another time.
This is one of the many anecdotes of this nature from my classroom. While simple in it's anecdotal form, the cognitive and emotional impacts of this BLURT were tremendous. It was a breakthrough. Z wanted to share something, and while I realized he needed to do it in his time, and when he felt comfortable, I had just found out when that time was. When was he comfortable? When everyone was quiet, as he always was. When, in the quiet, a response was forthcoming. When he felt he HAD TO share and could not hold it in one more second because his interest was so strong. Z continued to grow and open up further after that day. He became more involved in group and partner work, he raised his hand more often, and now, most importantly, now, when I carried on a conversation with him, he answered in complete sentences, and asked questions of his own.
This is what education is about. These are the moments lost in many classrooms due to the hurried pace and rushed curriculum set upon us by NCLB, and states in whirlwinds as they continually make futile changes trying to meet federal statistical requirements. When NCLB looks for blame as many schools continue to fail, they need to look to, and most importantly, see the CHILDREN and what they need to thrive, then turn and look at itself. Feeling safe and valued is first on children's mind. Time to think, time to find their center, and teachers that are not sooooooo pushed that they don't have time for those moments that can define a child's future are critical. Moments that allow children to find the trust in their teacher and classmates that permits them to become a part of the group and grow, grow, grow, rather than recede into the background, wither and fail, only to set them up with continued expectation of a future of failures.
People ask me why my students thrive and succeed, passing their standardized tests above the expected percentages, while we're clearly enjoying ourselves as we learn. I always respond that it is the the respectful relationship a teacher forms with a child that gives that child permission to learn. Kids need to know they are safe. Safe from disrespect thrust upon children by adults who know no better. Safe at school if no where else. Loved and respected and trusted to do the right thing. Once this barrier is broken, children will begin to trust, but the most important thing to remember is that every child must have their special moments. This trust cannot ride on the backs of one or two well intentioned acts. It must touch each and every child every day in some small way, and at least once in a measureable act of undersanding or fulfilling a need.
How can we do that in this educational climate you ask? Our President, Barack Obama, must take a real hard look at NCLB, and decide if the future of these children matters more than the numbers on a piece of paper. When the message of "Children First" is valued by our President and local governments, and is sincerely conveyed to teachers and administrators, we will again have a nation of healthy children who will see education as enjoyable and necessary for personal growth. In today's society, it can no longer be one special teacher in a child's life that makes a difference. It must be all teachers, all the time.
Supporting Barack Obama is the natural choice when this thought process is adopted. Senator Obama KNOWS people. He has that rare gift earned through adversity and change. I believe Senator Obama WILL be the president that finds the delicate balance between success in education and providing children their vital basic needs of acceptance and individuality. I believe he will see that without the latter, sweeping successful educational outcomes cannot become reality.
For me, "Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." Gail Godwin
It is the theater that provides a solid foundation for swift, comprehensive preparation. Without engaged students, we are merely following procedures when we plan for teaching. Children know what they need. All we need to do is listen.
New York Times Story
This posting is about an application of educational technology to improving the teaching of Civics and American Government in America's high schools.
When I read it this morning in the N.Y Times, I could barely belive my eyes! You should all consider reading it too:
In it, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner has this to say about NCLB:
“One unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is intended to help fund teaching of science and math to young people, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics education because there is no testing for that anymore and no funding for that,” she said. “And at least half of the states no longer make the teaching of civics and government a requirement for high school graduation. This leaves a huge gap, and we can’t forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America has always been to help produce citizens who have the knowledge and the skills and the values to sustain our republic as a nation, our democratic form of government.”
I won’t comment here on her inference that the described effect was “unintentional.” It’s enough that she said what she did. Intent is irrelevant. It’s happened.
Colleagues:
I've railed in this and other forums about how NCLB sells out the American public educational system to "vested" buisness interests and corporations, that are determined to channel Federal funding for Education into the pocket-books of investors and corporate stakeholders. (I.e. their well paid CEO's)
I just ran accross another story in eSchool News that illustrates my point. It's ironic because in my last posting I accused eSchool news of "spinning" the views of the presidential candidates, to the benefit of the Technology Companies.
There's no contradiction here. The product in quesiton is "Reading First" and it's owned by Brooks Publishing,which is traditionally an "Early Childhood" publishing house. There's no hardware or software involved; only "peopleware." So since hardware & software vendors aren't involved, eSchool news probably feels free to take their best shot.
Here's the citation to the story online:
Thu, May 29, 2008 Study: Reading First program hasn't helped comprehension From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
Here's the good part... classical Rus Whitehurst doublespeak:-----------------------------------------------
This isn't the first time supporters of the program have been dealt bad news.
Congressional investigators and ED Inspector General John Higgins previously found that federal officials and contractors didn't adequately address potential conflicts of interest. For example, federal contractors that gave states advice on which teaching materials to buy had financial ties to publishers of Reading First materials, according to the investigations.
Higgins also testified to Congress that the department didn't comply with the law when setting up panels that would review grant applications and in establishing criteria for what teaching materials could be used.
Miller said those problems could be behind the findings of the latest ED report.
"Because of the corruption in the Reading First program, districts and schools were steered toward certain reading programs and products that may not have provided the most effective instruction for students," he said.
The new study examining Reading First's impact has itself been the subject of conflict-of-interest questions, because a contractor that worked on it also was among those that helped implement the Reading First program.
RMC Research Corp. was the contractor hired by the federal government to help with Reading First at the outset of the program under three contracts worth about $40 million. The contractor was subsequently criticized in an inspector general's report for failing to adequately address conflict-of-interest issues. For example, it did not sufficiently screen subcontractors for relationships with publishers of reading programs, the report said.
RMC also was involved in the study released May 1, developing ways of measuring what was taught in classrooms and training classroom observers. Critics have said the company was, in effect, involved in judging its own work.
Whitehurst said he didn't think the contractor's involvement in the study resulted in an actual conflict of interest but perhaps created the appearance of one.
"If we had to do it all over again," he said, "we would have avoided the appearance issue."
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I sincerely hope you all find that as amusing as I do.
To: Barack Obama
RE: Education Insight
Recently, I had a conversation with an anonymous teacher in an anonymous school in an anonymous city in New England. Worried she might be reprimanded, or worse, she whispered to me from behind her desk, “Remember, this is just between us—we never had this conversation.”
What had this veteran teacher done? Looked at pornography on the internet? Made a racial, ethnic, religious, or socio-economic discrimination against a student? Possibly even had an affair with a student?
No—the harbored concerns about her position were nothing more than a defensive when she discussed with me, at length, the American education system, its evils, injustices, and—yes, I don’t need to worry about repercussions and I won’t lose my job over this one—constitutional violations.
Her first story was of another teacher in the same school system, widely regarded as one of the best English teachers in the city, who had the good/bad luck to teach The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at the same time the novel raised a dispute in a nearby town. After his class finished the novel, he had them read articles about the dispute, where a citizen argued that the book was inappropriate to teach and should be removed from the curriculum. Then, the students wrote responses, discussing whether the book should be banned or not. Writing his own response and quoting the best of the student responses, the teacher wrote an op-ed in the local paper arguing against the banning of the book.
Very soon afterward, he was summoned in front of the school administration, who told him that his view was not that of the school board, and that he should not have submitted the piece as a teacher. He was also told that he should not have included the students’ work (which he had first obtained permission to use) as it could lead to a lawsuit. Furthermore, the administration added, he should not have had the students write the responses in the first place. They were not part of the class curriculum. Did the students give him permission, the administration asked, to waste their time? And what about the parents, the taxpayers who pay your salary?
Like a story teller weaving her tale, the first teacher told me of how education was being mechanized, how experimentation and exploration were no longer allowed, how curriculum was spelled out to the day. Every algebra student learns the quadratic formula on the same day. The Tet Offensive will be covered March 31 in all history classes. “They would make us all keep the same schedule in English classes,” she said, “But there aren’t enough books to go around.”
It wasn’t so long ago that I attended this same school, not so long ago that I explored the writing process by viewing a Jill Krementz exhibit, that I studied art by writing a comparison between the work of Allen Ginsberg and Salvador Dali. And wasn’t it at that same school that I was introduced to poetry by reading “Howl” and “The Green Automobile” and writing my own versions of them? Didn’t I read Twelve there? In AP English, didn’t I read a graphic novel about an Iranian girl? How had so much changed in two years? Maybe it was the new principal, but I think he was just a catalyst. Because slowly, through my nostalgia, the Power Standards and CAPT testing comes into view, and lo, there it is! No Child Left Behind.
But that’s just between you and me, Senator Obama.
It all seemed quite innocent at first, but that’s how everything begins, right? It seems like “not that big a deal” and we carry on without worrying. However, before long, the innocent changes morph into a dystopia that sound like they might have been pulled out of Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451.
Just got back from DC where I participated in a policy forum put together by an education industry group. One presenter was from the Education Industry Association, which represents for profit education providers, including many of the “supplemental service providers” (SES). He had one slide comparing the three candidates’ views on NCLB. Here’s how he sees it:
Senator Clinton—more influenced by AFT/NEA
Senator Obama
He also had bullets for Senator McCain but I think there’s an interesting contrast here as perceived by somebody in the industry. Clinton is seen as more influenced by the teachers unions, and perhaps with greater support there and in clear opposition to industry. Senator Obama is seen as less opposed to the free market concepts like vouchers (although I think his comments on being willing to look at the evidence say more about his openness to reality than about his position on vouchers, which he has consistently opposed).
I think the biggest contrast here and the thing that really sets our guy apart is his interest in assessing higher order skills like problem solving, inquiry, big picture thinking. For example, one of the executives at the forum from a company that supplies a very interesting program for helping teachers teach Algebra, gave the following example of a test item that kids in other countries did well on but that kids from the US failed miserably on: the item showed a map of Antarctica with a distance scale and asked the student to estimate its area. Requires thinking beyond just memorizing the formula for area. This is a very important idea. If the tests actually call for learning that challenging, there’s no problem with “teaching to the test”. It is a test worth teach to. I also picked up a copy of eSchool News, a newspaper with “technology news for today’s k-20 educator”. The March issue has an article by Meris Stansbury on the positions of each of the three candidates. (http://www.eschoolnews.com/media/eschoolnews/esnmar08final.pdf) She points out that “Obama would use federal resources to help states write new assessments that accurately measure students’ knowledge including 21st-centry skills such as critical thinking”. He appears to be the only candidate proposing this idea. It’s a transformational idea. It will cost money because such tests are harder to develop than the current crop of bubble tests. But it would go along way to change the perverse incentives to drill for the test.
Hello everybody, I set up this K-12 Policy group and blog because there are a lot of important policy issues that will have to be addressed soon after the Obama administration comes into office. I’ve made this a moderated blog because open blogs get a lot of cross postings that are not relevant to the particular topic. I’m not going to censor opinions and, of course, cross postings are welcome as long as they are in productive ways about K-12 policies.
What are the big policy issues?
* reauthorization of NCLB (maybe even giving it a new name!)
* vouchers (Obama says he is open to evidence that they work)
* who controls teacher certification
* national standards (should there be a national test like NAEP?)
* merit pay
* the impact of growth models (tracking student growth over time)
* can we afford to get rid of bubble tests?
* what is the role of scientific evidence?
Where does the Obama platform stand on these issues now? Are there details that need to be elaborated for the policies to be successful? Are they the right policies? This blog is now open for business!
