Loophole in No Child Left Behind leaves some minorities behind

This an AP story and is appearring everywhere. Just a few variations are here, here, here, here and 574 related articles here.

This story is totally bogus!
...
The AP found that states are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting that requirement. And minorities _ who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing _ make up the vast majority of students whose scores are excluded.
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There's lots of negative talk and further down in the Washinton Post article they finally state:
...

Suppose, for example, that a school has 2,000 white students and nine Hispanics. In nearly every state, the Hispanic scores wouldn't be counted because there aren't enough to provide meaningful information and because officials want to protect students' privacy.

State educators decide when a group is too small to count. And they've been asking the government for exemptions to exclude larger numbers of students in racial categories. Nearly two dozen states have successfully petitioned the government for such changes in the past two years. As a result, schools can now ignore racial breakdowns even when they have 30, 40 or even 50 students of a given race in the testing population.

...

Which indeed could be seen as defect in the law, but what is statically significant? Doesn't that depend on the size of the school versus the size of the targeted population? And they are left out of what? The count toward the school failing to make AYP? So that the school can eventually be privatized? This is the kind of propaganda that we all need to be speaking out against! Please join me. Write leters to your paper. Denounce this nasty propaganda piece.
anti nclb

Examining Dibels: What It is and What It Does

From O'hanian and friends, a book you might want multiple copies of, to pass out and spread the word...
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The Vermont Society for the Study of Education, a group small in number but very large in spirit, has launched a full frontal assault on DIBELS, the first part of an offensive against Reading First and against NCLB.
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A slim 57 page book edited by Ken Goodman, this document challenges the federally-imposed regimen that demeans and diminishes teacher professionalism and harms children.

Examining Dibels: What It is and What It Does

Table of Contents:

Preface DIBELS: One Family's Journey, Lisa Laser

A Critical Review of DIBELS, Ken Goodman

Is DIBELS Leading Us Down the Wrong Path?, Robert J. Tierney and Elizabeth Thome

How DIBELS failed Alabama, A Research Report, Susan Seay

DIBELS: Not Justifiable, Maryann Manning, Constance Kamii, & Tsuguhiko Kato

Appendix: A brief summary of each Sub-Test in DIBELS


Companion to the book is the DIBELS Clearinghouse

In the spirit of grassroots activism and the regeneration of teacher professionalism (and with the generosity of Ken Goodman), The Vermont Society for the Study of Education (VSSE) is selling the book for the price of shipping and handling. Send $5.95 to

VSSE
P. O. Box 186
Brandon, VT 05733
...
anti nclb

Without extra funding, 122 schools may ‘fail’ under No Child Left Behind

From Fairfax Virginia comes a story that is happening all over the country right now including in my home town...
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GERRY CONNOLLY (D), chairman of the Board of Supervisors, was astonished that despite massive amounts of funding, 61 percent of the county's schools are in danger of "failing."
"To tell this board that with a $2.1 billion budget, 122 schools are still at risk? At least to this Supervisor, that is a somewhat startling message," Connolly said.
Connolly pointed out that the federal government has done a poor job of funding its sweeping education requirements, leaving local governments like Fairfax County to pick up the bill.
"We are in fact spending a lot on No Child Left Behind," he said. "And, if I recall correctly, the federal government has reimbursed us a total of $16 million."
...
WITHIN FOUR or five years, the vast majority of schools in Fairfax County and throughout Virginia will begin to "fail" under No Child Left Behind, no matter how much money is spent.
By 2010-2011, approximately 90 percent of all students will be required to pass the math and English exams. Fairfax County school officials said that simply is not possible.
"It's realistic that you get to 90 percent," said Patrick Murphy, the school system's assistant superintendent for accountability. "That stretches you, but it can be done. Statistically speaking, you can't go much further beyond that."
Under No Child Left Behind, 100 percent of all student groups must pass the math and reading exams by the 2013-2014 school year.
"I don't know anything in our society that can be 100 percent," Murphy said.
anti nclb

Leaving too many children behind

Even the college press folks get it. If only more in the mainstrem media would to the same...

TOO OFTEN good intentions go awry, leading to detrimental, ineffective action. The No Child Left Behind Act has been in effect for over four years and fits this criteria. No Child Left Behind has created a testing-obsessed atmosphere with a narrow curriculum that produces high school dropouts, not high achievement.

...

The plan is filled with more holes than a standardized test scantron sheet. The plan's foundation lies with the accuracy of standardized testing, but studies on standardized testing show bias against minority groups. One such study by Gary Natriello of Columbia University and Aaron Pallas of Michigan State University examined state testing programs in Michigan, New York and Minnesota. They concluded that minority students performed worse than their peers. One such example: between 1996 and 1998, almost twice as many black and Hispanic students had not completed the Texas state test for their high school diploma versus their white peers.

Standardized testing also does not correlate to future achievement. A study by the College Board showed that SAT scores correlated with freshman year grades by less than 0.50 and that high school GPA showed stronger correlation in general. Standardized tests simply show how well a student can take that particular test, rather than measuring intelligence or achievement.

The nature of standardized testing creates a narrow curriculum. Schools have focused on reading, math, and science. According to the Year 4 Report of No Child Left Behind, 44 states have aligned "curriculum and instruction with standards of assessment." Some schools have eliminated other subjects entirely. Students do not have the same opportunity to pursue subjects not tested. These subjects often ignite student's passions or open new waves of thought.

...

Failing to meet standards causes a backwards punishment for schools: decreased funding. When schools need to improve, more, not less, funding will be required. With less and less funding, schools will continue to fail state-defined proficiency levels. If these schools close, students will be pushed to the state-defined proficient schools. These schools will become overcrowded and quality will suffer.

No Child Left Behind does not adequately consider special education students. These students are prohibited from receiving help on standardized testing. Poor performance by a small number of special education students can largely distort the rating the entire school is given. Thus, a small number of students can cause an entire school to lose funding and resources.

The federal budget for 2006-07 seems to contradict the goals of No Child Left Behind. President Bush proposed the largest cuts in education in the 26-year history of the Department of Education. The funding for NCLBA increased slightly, but still remains $15.4 billion below the authorized levels. Overall, 42 Department of Education programs will be eliminated, while four others will experience significant cuts. Instead of putting nearly $4.3 billion into the youth of America, this money will go towards the funding of tanks and howitzers.

It seems as if the members of our federal government have forgotten the diversity of their schools. No Child Left Behind de-emphasizes everything that makes schools different, such as offerings of unique classes and after-school programs. Instead, a rigid program forces science and math down children's throats, threatening diminished resources if they won't swallow. In the end, the act is more aptly named the Every Child Left Behind Act.
anti nclb

Schools a weak link in poll for Gov. Bush

From the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. All politicians should take note. I believe this is the way the country feels.

Gov. Jeb Bush's sweeping overhaul of Florida schools is out of step with the views of most Floridians, according to a new St. Petersburg Times poll.

Overall, most Floridians give the two-term Republican high marks for job performance. But on education issues, support for his policies wanes.

A majority of Floridians do not like private school vouchers, continue to support the multibillion-dollar class-size amendment and oppose use of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test to reward or penalize schools, the poll shows.

Meanwhile, parents say they like their public schools. A lot...
anti nclb

Katrina blows hole in No Child Left Behind

I'm back and hopefully posting a lot more often. Check out this commentary from the Seattle P.I. by Elaine Garan.

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No Child Left Behind provides for one-year waivers in the event of natural disasters. Section 1111(b)(3)(C)(vii) of the law states:

"The Secretary may provide the State 1 additional year if the State demonstrates that exceptional or uncontrollable circumstances, such as a natural disaster or a precipitous and unforeseen decline in the financial resources of the State, prevented full implementation of the academic assessments by that deadline and that the State will complete implementation within the additional 1-year period."

Despite this statute language, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings initially expressed unwillingness to grant waivers to schools affected by Katrina. For weeks, schools waited in limbo until she reluctantly agreed to allow automatic one-year waivers from accountability standards -- but only for those Gulf Coast schools that were destroyed or severely damaged. In effect, the secretary's compassionate flexibility amounted to this: Schools that no longer exist and have no students to teach, much less test, will not be punished failure to meet their "adequate yearly progress" targets.

In spite of the exemptions for some Gulf Coast schools, Spellings insists students who are victims of Katrina -- no matter where they are, no matter how disrupted their lives may be, and regardless of how they have suffered -- will still be forced to take standardized tests.

Moreover, those schools that have taken in student evacuees, thereby straining their fiscal resources and jeopardizing their adequate yearly progress ratings, will not receive automatic exemptions from federal punishment.

...

Consider that No Child Left Behind based on three central assumptions: Teachers and schools are responsible for 100 percent of student learning, regardless of individual differences in children's cognitive abilities or their emotional problems; the standardized tests that determine a school's passing or "needs improvement" status are 100 percent valid as indicators of student learning and of school and teacher performance; and punishing schools that underperform will close the achievement gap and improve public education.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina assails each assumption. Before Katrina, the law did not acknowledge, much less forgive, any extenuating, outside factors such as poverty, abuse, motivation, or even the ability to speak and read English -- all factors that could compromise student performance on standardized tests. Consequently, the Bush administration cannot afford to concede that personal trauma can confound the validity of test scores for Katrina's victims, because to do so is to concede that the same factors can affect any student in any school, albeit less visibly and with a less resounding outcry from the public than we've witnessed for the evacuees.

If the federal government agreed to exempt from testing those children who lost a family member as a result of Katrina, wouldn't it also be pressured to exempt children not affected by Katrina who have suffered a similar life-altering trauma, or others who have suffered from abuse or the challenges of a physical or mental disability?

And if the administration agreed that being ripped from a familiar setting and put into a strange school is an extenuating factor for the victims of Katrina, wouldn't it also be pressured to apply the same standard to the children of migrant workers, or children who have been moved from one foster home to another, or homeless children? By logical extension, wouldn't the federal government be forced to admit that schools with large numbers of transient and homeless students cannot be held to the same standards that more affluent suburban schools with relatively stable populations are?

Katrina has put federal policy squarely between a rock and a hard place. The government cannot appear to be compassionate and yet adhere to a rigid policy of standardizing education. Compassion is personal. Standardization is not.

...

The No Child Left Behind law was in trouble and facing rebellion from angry states and districts even before Katrina. What that massive natural disaster did was sharpen our focus. It has forced us to look at the inequities schools all over the country must deal with on a daily basis, with or without a hurricane. These are inequities that the law simply ignores. Katrina has reminded us that schools are made up of students who are unique and who have very human problems -- every last one of them.

The obvious inequities in the system and the unimaginable suffering of so many have converged into the perfect storm and may well deliver the deathblow to the critically wounded policy of No Child Left Behind...

Let us hope that she is correct.
anti nclb

20 Reasons to Eliminate NCLB

From Jim Horn over at Schools Matter:

20 Reasons to Eliminate NCLB

1. An education policy built on impossible performance demands that assure the failure of the majority of American public schools should be eliminated, not reformed.
2. An education policy that has the same impossible demands for most English-language learners and special education students should be eliminated, not reformed.
3. An education policy that traumatizes children, destroys the desire to learn, and corrupts the purposes for learning should be eliminated, not reformed.
4. An education policy that uses fear, intimidation, and retribution as motivation should be eliminated, not reformed.
5. An education policy that uses a single assessment once a year to make life-altering decisions should be eliminated, not reformed.
6. An education policy that ignores poverty as a chief determinant in academic performance should be eliminated, not reformed.
7. An education policy that creates two different school curriculums, one for the children of the poor and one for well-funded successes, should be eliminated, not reformed.
8. An education policy that uses skewed and manipulated research from the National Reading Panel to devise a national reading strategy should be eliminated, not reformed.
9. An education policy that uses the strain of test score competition to undercut public cohesion and civic commitment to democratic goals should be eliminated, not reformed.
10. An education policy that shrinks the American school curriculum to two or three subjects that are tested should be eliminated, not reformed.
11. An education policy that discourages diversity and encourages homogeneity in schools should be eliminated, not reformed.
12. An education policy that supports the use of tax dollars to fund private schools rather than public school improvement should be eliminated, not reformed.
13. An education policy that advocates the use of public money to pay private contractors to run public schools should be eliminated, not reformed.
14. An education policy that is built on unfunded and under-funded mandates should be eliminated, not reformed.
15. An education policy that reduces or eliminates local and state decision making by citizens should be eliminated, not reformed.
16. An education policy that mandates that military recruiters have access to student information should be eliminated, not reformed.
17. An education policy that inflames a teacher shortage in order to replace professional teachers with individuals who have passed a teaching test should be eliminated, not reformed.
18. An education policy that is used to reward tax dollars to insiders and cronies for their political support should be eliminated, not reformed.
19. An education policy that uses paid propaganda to advance its agenda should be eliminated, not reformed.
20. An education policy that puts test scores in the place of the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of America’s children should eliminated, not reformed.
    

10 Action Strategies for Eliminating NCLB

1. Hold a public forum in your community to explore and explain these points.
2. Organize community and neighborhood potluck dinners with teachers and parents to talk together about how NCLB is affecting children and school.
3. Persuade your organizations to pass resolutions calling for the repeal of NCLB based on these points.
4. Collect signatures on a Petition to Eliminate NCLB based on these 20 points. Publicize your results in the local media and send copies of resolutions and petitions to your local and federal elected officials.
5. Write letters-to-the-editor and op-ed pieces for your local and regional newspapers, making these points.
6. Get your local school board to pass a resolution or hold a community forum about eliminating NCLB.
7. Contact your U.S. senators and representatives about eliminating NCLB: Call them, write or email them (send these points and other information), and set up meetings with them in your district (bring a group of children).
8. Contact your state legislators to enlist them in the effort to eliminate NCLB; get state legislatures to pass resolutions.
9. Parents: Join the NCLB-mandated Parents Advisory Board at your child’s school. Bring the 20 Reasons to Eliminate NCLB to begin a dialogue.
10. Organize a public protest or march on test days or days given over to test preparation. (anti nclb)

Band-Aids or Bulldozers

This just out from Rethinking Public Schools. Read the whole thing. It is important. Some excerpts..
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We are now in year five of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Once hailed as a historic new federal commitment to leave no child behind, today NCLB inspires fear and loathing from coast to coast — and beyond. Puerto Rico and Hawaii hate it too.

Every one of the 50 states has introduced legislation rejecting all or part of NCLB. Several have filed lawsuits against it. More than 10,000 schools have been put on NCLB's infamous list of "schools in need of improvement" and face an escalating series of sanctions that address neither their needs nor their challenges. Thousands more will be added to the list in the next few years as increasing numbers of schools are squeezed in the tightening vise of unreachable "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) test targets and inadequate resources. This year more than a quarter of all public schools (nearly 23,000) failed to reach AYP. Missing AYP two years in a row earns a spot on the list.

Today, NCLB is almost as unpopular as the administration and Congress that created it. With the law coming up for reauthorization in 2007, debate is heating up about whether we need Band-Aids to "fix" NLCB or a bulldozer to bury it.

...

Less well known, but soon to become much more familiar, are the law's more drastic measures for schools that miss AYP for four or five years. After four years, schools are required to choose one of the following:

• Replace school staff relevant to the failure.
• Put in place a new curriculum.
• Decrease management authority at the school.
• Appoint outside experts to advise the school.
• Extend the school year or the school day.
• Restructure the internal organization of the school.

After five years, the choices are:

• Reopen as a charter school.
• Replace all or most of the staff.
• Contract with an outside entity to operate the school.
• Institute other significant governance and staffing changes likely to improve the school.
• Turn over operation of the school to the state.

Since NCLB sanctions are cumulative, schools also must presumably continue to offer transfer and tutoring while instituting these measures.

...

But beneath the rhetoric, NCLB's policy framework is toxic, bad for the health of schools and children and driven by ideological political objectives that are arrogantly indifferent to the realities of school life. It makes no commitment to bridging the deep social inequalities reflected in academic achievement gaps, but demands that schools make them disappear (and it demands more of poorer, diverse schools than richer, homogeneous ones). When schools fall short of the impossible, they face punitive sanctions that weaken their ability to serve all students and ultimately increase educational inequality instead of reduce it.

Some advocates for children and schools, desperate for signs of hope amidst the wasteland of social and economic policies emanating from Washington, have struggled mightily to find positives in NCLB. They point to the pressure on schools to account for all students, the promise of better choices for parents in the poorest communities, the emphasis on improving teacher qualifications. But five years of inconsistent and underfinanced implementation has made good on none of these promises. Reasonable people may continue to differ on various aspects of NCLB, but the core of the law has been laid inescapably bare: tests, more tests, and punitive sanctions that create a systematic and misleading impression of failure and that hurt public education far more than they help those who have been poorly served by it.

...

The debate over reauthorizing NCLB is likely to show how much the bipartisan coalition that originally passed it has fragmented. Hopefully, it will also provide opportunities to limit the damage. But the Congressional debate, unfortunately, is much less likely to define lasting alternatives to the top-down, test-driven, underfunded policies that are crushing the life and the hope out of too many schools.

For that we'll need the voices of educators, students, and communities. One place those voices could make a difference will be the 2006 elections when the next Congress will be chosen. Many in the antiwar movement, frustrated by the failure of Congress to reflect the broad popular opposition to the war in Iraq, have pledged not to support any candidates who continue to support current U.S. policy. Similarly, opponents of NCLB might insist, at a minimum, on a pledge to end federally mandated testing, eliminate the direct ties between test scores and sanctions, and replace NCLB's privatization agenda with more funding and stronger support for improving the public system.

Sending people to Congress who are committed to ending both the war in Iraq and the war on our public schools would be a big step toward making good on the promises — empty so far — of No Child Left Behind.
anti nclb

U.S. education problems

This college sophomore has it. If only there was a way to reach Washington...
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A recent survey by the Center for Education Policy - a nonpartisan group - found that 71 percent of the nation's approximately 15,000 school districts had lessened the amount of class time given to subjects like history, music, art and others.
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A decent, well-rounded public education should be a right afforded to those who seek it, not simply a privilege obtained by those with the highest test scores. And school districts should not have to perform well in some dog-and-pony education show in order to avoid penalty.

The tests should be used to identify strengths and weaknesses so that district knows what it needs to improve upon, not to limit its funding or the types of classes students are allowed to take.

If we as a country truly value the education of our children, then we better begin rebuilding our public school system into something that doesn't resemble a broken down merry-go-round.
anti nclb

To hear why No Child fails, just listen to its supporters

By Diane Carman,Denver Post Staff Columnist

It wasn't meant to be this way. Lawrence Hernandez was supposed to be the counterpoint to Richard Rothstein, who calls No Child Left Behind and its philosophical underpinnings "fraudulent."

Instead, at a forum sponsored this week by the Bell Policy Center, Hernandez proved Rothstein's point again and again.

Rothstein insists that the data are in and the evidence is clear: Great schools alone cannot reduce the achievement gap. Expecting that is irresponsible.

...

Hernandez calls those "excuses."

The founder and principal of Cesar Chavez Academy charter school in Pueblo said he believes that schools can have a tremendous impact on a child's life. In fact, he said, "the public school system is the only system that can make a difference in a child's life."

...

While Hernandez attributes that success to high expectations, academic rigor, talented teachers and strong leadership, other factors also contributed to the students' exceptional performance.

"The parents have to buy into what we're doing," he said, and that starts when they demonstrate their commitment to education by enrolling their children in the charter school.

..

No student transportation is provided, so public and private money can be used to reduce class sizes, enhance teachers' salaries and provide tutors for children who fall behind. But inevitably, this creates a barrier for children whose parents are not willing or able to deliver them to school every day.

In other words, not just any kid can go to Cesar Chavez.

Rothstein said there are plenty of examples across the country where the children of disadvantaged-but-highly- motivated parents are concentrated in intense, rigorous schools and do better than the mountains of statistics predict.

"That doesn't mean the average is not meaningful," he said.

In Colorado, the averages show that since the state began mandatory testing to measure achievement, the gap between rich and poor students has widened. With rare exceptions, despite intense pressure and threats to dismantle low-performing schools, children from poor families still are not achieving proficiency at rates better than when the frenzy over educational accountability began.

This is the case across the country, Rothstein said. We're engaging in a "national orgy of hypocrisy."

"We say we want to close the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children, and we're simultaneously withdrawing support from the social and economic institutions that could enhance equality.

"Holding out the goal of closing the achievement gap through school reform alone is dangerous," Rothstein said. "Holding schools responsible for a goal they can't meet will doom public education."

For those who reject the Jeffersonian ideal of free public education for all, the destruction of the public school system is something to celebrate cynically along with the growing achievement gap.

For everybody else, Rothstein's work offers an ominous warning: If the orgy of hypocrisy continues, the global economy will leave us behind - all of us.

Diane Carman's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com

anti nclb

The WASL Dilemma

The WASL is Washington State's version of the high stakes tests that are required but NCLB.

by Donald C. Orlich

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) is causing deleterious effects on poor, disabled and minority children by creating a permanent "underclass" with just a hint of covert institutional racism.

The WASL purports to (1) measure student achievement, (2) determine school district accountability, (3) evaluate teacher competence, (4) guide school improvement and (5) determine who graduates from high school. Any single test used to address five mutually exclusive goals is unreliable and invalid.

However, my purpose here is to focus on the unintended consequences of the WASL. Discussions about high-stakes tests (WASL, ACT, SAT) must address the issue of student poverty. It behooves all policy makers who have legalized high-stakes testing to at least ask, "What is the impact of student poverty and ethnicity on test scores as a mechanism for sorting and classifying children?"

Studies in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Washington, Denver and Boston — along with others in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales — all show that poverty is a primary determinant of student achievement. High-stakes test scores are very highly correlated with family income. A major study of mathematics tests scores from academic high schools in the metropolitan Boston area led to the conclusion that income is strongly correlated with test scores and accounts for more than 80 percent of the variance in average scores.

School leaders and politicians in Washington state are touting WASL scores as if they were precise educational measures of student learning and overall achievement: The scores are not. Further, the WASL offers virtually no useable feedback to enhance student academic gains.

Examine the WASL 10th-grade first-time pass rates. White and Asian students have significantly higher scores than black, Hispanic, Native American, English language-learners, free/reduced lunch students and students with disabilities. The ranges for mathematics are 52 percent passing to 6 percent passing; and for reading and language arts, 71 percent to 15 percent.

Long-term test data from the WASL, ACT and SAT suggest an ethnic variable related to achievement on high-stakes tests. These data tend to indicate that poverty and ethnicity appear to be inextricably related.

One example tells it all. The WASL test score pass rates of one of Washington state's highest-family-income school districts, Mercer Island, were compared with all children from low-income homes in the state. Extraordinary achievement differences of 40 percent to 60 percent favored Mercer Island children at every grade level and for every subject tested.

On March 1, 2005, the United Nations released Child Poverty in Rich Countries: 2005. Scandinavian countries had the lowest levels of child poverty among the "developed" countries of the world, primarily due to very highly subsidized social benefits paid directly to families. The United States and Mexico had the world's worst child poverty rates. For Mexico, the percentage was 27.7; for the United States, it was 21.9.

The report writers stated that such disparity of wealth leaves many children, through no fault of their own, at a social disadvantage. The report also noted that there is a close correlation between poverty and educational underachievement.

...

Poverty is a powerful force in creating educational deficits. But you will not find advocates of the WASL discussing that social issue, including the Partnership for Learning, the Business Roundtable, the Superintendent of Public Instruction or our the state legislators. One simply has to ask, "Why the silence?" The social consequence of labeling a generation of adolescents as being flat-out failures from one questionable test needs serious psychological, psychiatric and legal evaluation.

Donald Orlich, professor emeritus at WSU, is author of the upcoming School Reform and the Great American Brain Robbery. Write dorlich@wsu.edu or call (509) 335-4844.

Publication Date: 3/15/06
anti nclb

'Teach to the Test'? What Test?

By Colman McCarthy from the Washington Post, Saturday, March 18, 2006

The whole opinion piece is worth the read. Some excerpts..

From the academic sidelines, where calls to Leave No Child Untested are routinely sounded by quick-fix school reformers, Jay Mathews joins in with his Feb. 20 op-ed column, "Let's Teach to the Test." In well-crafted prose, he reports that "in 23 years of visiting classrooms I have yet to see any teacher preparing kids for exams in ways that were not careful, sensible and likely to produce more learning."

On Mathews's visit to my classroom four years ago -- at School Without Walls, where I have been volunteering since 1982 -- he must not have noticed that not only was I not preparing my 28 students for tests but that I regard tests as educational insults...
...

Tests represent fear-based learning, the opposite of learning based on desire. Frightened and fretting with pre-test jitters, students stuff their minds with information they disgorge on exam sheets and sweat out the results. I know of no meaningful evidence that acing tests has anything to do with students' character development or whether their natural instincts for idealism or altruism are nurtured.

I have large amounts of evidence that tests promote the opposite: character defects. After having two of my high school classes read Mathews's column, I asked the students: If during a test the opportunity came to cheat, with no fear of being caught, would you? A majority of hands went up. A few students dismissed the question as naive. Not cheat if you could get away with it? Get real.
...
Desire-based learning happens when teachers deal in combustibles, when fires are lit and students burn to explore ideas that have nothing to do with what testocrats require. Quality teachers who are fire-lighters often find themselves trapped in schools that have been seduced by the Advanced Placement fad. Teachers whose students can't hack the AP final are regarded as failures.
...

For 25 years of testing the waters by not testing, I've been telling my students not to worry about answering questions. Be braver and bolder: Question the answers. Which answers? To start, the ones from anyone who champions classroom get-aheadism based on test scores. Throw off your chains, students. You have nothing to lose but your backpacks.

The writer, a former Post columnist, directs the Center for Teaching Peace and teaches nonviolence at three high schools and four universities.
anti nclb

'No Child' law is flunking the test

This commentary is from Cindy Richards of the Chicago Sun-Times.

There was a time when those of us who still believe in the potential of public education worried that the greatest evil spawned by our national love affair with standardized testing was that it encouraged schools to "teach to the test."

Who knew "teaching to the test" would become the good ol' days in education?

But it's happening. As the national No Child Left Behind Act has raised the stakes of test results, schools are doing something much worse than altering their curriculum to fit the subjects being tested: They're teaching about the test.

The tests have been in the news as state administrators wring their hands over the inadequate performance of Harcourt Assessment, the private company that got $45 million of our money to produce the tests Illinois third- through eighth-graders are taking this week and next.

But we ought to be wringing our hands over something much more critical to the future of our children: the question of whether this testing is harming these students.

They are losing a week of instruction to testing, which is bad enough. But the test week comes on top of two or more weeks spent teaching kids how to take the test effectively -- those now critical education skills such as how to parcel out your time and how to fill in those blasted little circles with a No. 2 pencil.

Test prep efforts have intensified this year because schools are running scared. Last year, one-third of the state's 879 districts failed to make "adequate yearly progress." And the bar continues to rise, so more schools are likely to fail this year, no matter how many practice tests the kids took.

Meanwhile, President Bush has been touring the country talking about his plan to bolster math and science education -- while my sixth-grade son was spending his math class taking practice tests, not learning new math skills.

In a meeting with newspaper editors last week, Bush said he takes umbrage at suggestions his cornerstone education reform law puts too much emphasis on testing. "My answer to those concerns is that, how do you know if you don't test?" he said.

My answer to him is: Ask the teacher. It doesn't take a standardized test for any teacher worth her paycheck to know, exactly, which of her students is making the grade. And if we want to know how the school is doing overall, then analyze the report cards the kids bring home every few months.

Stan Karp, a New Jersey high school teacher and critic of No Child Left Behind, has written extensively about the law for Rethinking Schools, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit that publishes a journal about school reform.

"This is school reform on the cheap," Karp said. It costs schools about $20 a kid to develop a test, he said, "a lot less than it costs to have everybody pass them."

Schools, in their fervor to hurdle the ever-increasing performance bar, are doing everything they can to help kids test well -- weeks of test drills, free breakfast on test days, a reorganized curriculum and lower state benchmarks that allow more kids to pass.

No Child Left Behind is up for reauthorization in 2007, which makes the November midterm election an especially critical one for public education. This law, which passed Congress with bipartisan support, needs some serious retooling.

Its goal may have been to ensure no child was left behind, but its reality is that no child is left untested while doing little to raise the level of performance of public schools.
anti nclb

No Child Left Behind has failed

Conferences are over and I can think again! I'm back. Read this opinion piece from the Minnesota Daily. Mr. Peter Henry makes a great case for the repeal of NCLB, and I, of course, could not agree more.
anti nclb

Graduates Versus Oligarchs

From Paul Krugman and the Times by way of O'hanian.

Is it myth that a college education will make you well off?
...
I think of... the 80-20 fallacy. It's the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group — that the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization are pulling away from the 80 percent who don't have these skills.

The truth is quite different. Highly educated workers have done better than those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. Over the longer stretch from 1975 to 2004 the average earnings of college graduates rose, but by less than 1 percent per year.

So who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.

A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, "Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?," gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.

But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint.

Just to give you a sense of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year the 99th percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of $1,672,726. The center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well over $6 million a year.
...
The notion that it's all about returns to education suggests that nobody is to blame for rising inequality, that it's just a case of supply and demand at work. And it also suggests that the way to mitigate inequality is to improve our educational system — and better education is a value to which just about every politician in America pays at least lip service.

The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story.

Should we be worried about the increasingly oligarchic nature of American society? Yes, and not just because a rising economic tide has failed to lift most boats. Both history and modern experience tell us that highly unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt. There's an arrow of causation that runs from diverging income trends to Jack Abramoff and the K Street project.

And I'm with Alan Greenspan, who — surprisingly, given his libertarian roots — has repeatedly warned that growing inequality poses a threat to "democratic society."

It may take some time before we muster the political will to counter that threat. But the first step toward doing something about inequality is to abandon the 80-20 fallacy. It's time to face up to the fact that rising inequality is driven by the giant income gains of a tiny elite, not the modest gains of college graduates.
— Paul Krugman
New York Times
2006-02-27

Is this really dangerous? Let's make the tax cut permanent and keep voting for the same old same old and find out. Or not.
anti nclb

Something Loose in the Brain

Conferences are coming and I can almost guarantee that I will not be posting as often. So, with that in mind I refer you to this great recent post against NCLB by Jim Horn over at Schools matter. The bullets at the end are worth quoting:

• If one has to choose, which seems to be the case with the all-or-nothing national testing policy that is intended to leave us with nothing in terms of public education as we know it, would you continue to choose the same scheme with the impossible expectations that will guarantee the failure of tens of millions of children over the next 8 years, largely represented by the handicapped, brown, and poor?
• Do you really believe that the only alternative to the bigotry of low expectations is the racism of impossible demands?
• Do you really believe the Big Lie that the intent here is to leave no child behind, rather than to introduce a repressive chain gang model for schools in urban America?
• Will you not see the increasing number of planned failures that heedlessly and arrogantly sacrifice children on the ideological altar of school privatization?
• Can we see allow ourselves to see the shame and the crime in the violence that we are perpetrating against our children, our schools, against the future of the Republic?
• Can we?
• Will we?
• When?

anti nclb

Privatization or social control?

By Dave Stratman fom New Democracy world via Susan O'hanians' website.

Mr. Stratman has a take on this whole Business Roundtable push against public education that, I believe, bares listening to:
...
In my view NCLB and various state-based reforms represent a systematic intensification of the problematic nature of the public education system itself. The public education system is designed to legitimize and reinforce the inequalities of capitalist society. NCLB and the host of corporate-led ed reform plans of the past 20 years or so are intended to intensify the stratification and competition which are at the heart of the public school system and are essential to the mission envisioned for it by policymakers.

Why intensify these already-existing traits of the system? There are three principal reasons:

1) as US society becomes more dramatically unequal and less democratic, the education system must be reshaped to sharpen its powers of social control;
2) as the economy is reshaped by automation and outsourcing to yield fewer and fewer jobs that require skilled workers, the self-confidence and potential of countless students must be crushed so that they will accept their place in society;
3) the active resistance--which takes multitudinous forms--of teachers, parents, and students to schooling as social control must be beaten back and undermined.

The question of whether there is money to be made in education reform seems to me beside the point. There may or there may not be. But entrepreneuers like Chris Whittle or corporations like Harcourt Brace would never be able to effect such a massive development in US domestic policy as NCLB represents. These are bit players compared with the Business Roundtable and the other major forces behind these developments--such as the Republican and Democratic Parties.
...
The effects of the public schools on our children and grandchildren is decidedly mixed. The mix of effects come about because of the conflict over goals at its heart. On the one side are the structures of official school policy and practices, designed to sort students out and reinforce the inequality of American society. On the other side are students, parents, and teachers, who want to see students educated to the fullest of their abilities and who work in the ways they can to succeed in this goal.

To be effective champions of public education, we cannot simply defend the schools against false or misleading information, low funding, and carping politicians. The people who are in the public schools often have very real and reasonable complaints against them. We need to be the most reliable allies of these people. As defenders of the schools, we have also to be their severest and most insightful critics.

To do this we must differentiate between the system and the people in it. The problem is not demoralized teachers or lazy students or indifferent parents. The problem is a system that is designed to undermine the hopes and self-confidence and critical thinking and abilities of the people involved in it.

This is why any serious movement for school change must be a revolutionary movement. Public schools do much that is good and irreplaceable. The damage which they do they do as instruments of social control wielded by the rulers of our society to reinforce their rule. It is that rule--which would be mortally threatened by our young people achieving their full potential--which is the source of the problem.

Dave Stratman
anti nclb

Under No Child Left Behind, States Submit Growth Model Proposals, Outside Peer Reviewers Selected

Ms. Spellings is at it again. It seems that my fair state A;aska is one of the states, us being a good conservative Republican state, being considered for the "growth model." This is supposed to be a big consession but read further:

Growth models...must be based on the following seven principles of No Child Left Behind:

• Ensure that all students are proficient by 2014 and set annual state goals to ensure that the achievement gap is closing for all groups of students;
• Set expectations for annual achievement based upon meeting grade-level proficiency and not upon student background or school characteristics;
• Hold schools accountable for student achievement in reading/language arts and mathematics;
• Ensure that all students in tested grades are included in the assessment and accountability system, hold schools and districts accountable for the performance of each student subgroup, and include all schools and districts;
• Include assessments, in each of grades 3 through 8 and high school, in both reading/language arts and mathematics that have been operational for more than one year and have received approval through the NCLB standards and assessment review process for the 2005-06 school year. The assessment system must also produce comparable results from grade to grade and year to year;
• Track student progress as part of the state data system; and
• Include student participation rates and student achievement as separate academic indicators in the state accountability system.

Nothing has changed. The system is still set up for failure. The aim is still privatization. It is beyond time for everyone to stand up to this attack on our public school system.
anti nclb

Watchdog of Test Industry Faces Economic Extinction

This bad news is from Micahel Winerip of the NY Times. Please get out your charge card and help keep this important group going. We need them now more than ever.
anti nclb

Behind the White House's Billion-Dollar Propaganda Push

They cut, cut, cut funding for social programs, including education and NCLB but, according to a new GAO audit, they can still find $1.4 BILLION for propaganda, no I mean public relations for their pet programs. Does this outrage anyone else?
anti nclb

Report: Charters create school segregation

Another report, this one from Michigan, that shows what anyone who is paying attention already knows:

LANSING -- The number of schools in Michigan listed as "segregated" has jumped dramatically over the past decade, driven by the charter school movement.

A Michigan State University report found that Michigan had 294 schools that were composed of at least 80 percent African-American students in 1992-93, and that number had increased to 431 by last year. The MSU Education Policy Center uses the 80 percent figure as the benchmark for being considered "segregated."

Of the 137-school increase, 87 were charter schools
...

African-American students make up 55 percent of the charter school population, compared to 19 percent statewide, according to the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, which represents charters.

"It's not to blame it on charter schools but to say, if anything, charter schools are exacerbating the problem," said David Plank, co-director of the policy center. "What we're doing is providing African-American parents whose children are in racially isolated schools the choice of attending other racially isolated schools."

...

And on a completly different subject, check out this statement from Russ Feingold about the Patriot Act on Salon.com. This is important and chances are you will not read it in most papers.
anti nclb

President’s Budget Would Cut Education Spending

This from EdWeek from today is a fairly detailed account of the presidents proposed budget for education. My personal favorite blurb from the article:

...said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the ranking minority member on the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

"You're cutting education for disabled students, cutting funding to the most economically disadvantaged students, and at the same time you're going to take $100 million and give it to private schools?" Mr. Miller said in an interview. "It shows such disregard for the public school system."

Exactly, and then there is this about a so-called "bi-partisan" committee to lead a public discourse on NCLB made headed by two of vouchers leading proponents. Lately I am beginning to read more on the blogs that more people are waking up to discover that free public education is being hijacked in this country by the privatization bunch. We need even more voices and we need to get louder.
anti nclb

AFT NCLB Let's Get It Right

Yes, it's another blog ,but this one is all about NCLB and it is run by the American Federation of Teachers. I have had my differences with them in the past but this looks to be worth the read. Check it out!
anti nclb

The New Advocate is Out --

Check it out! Great reading, as always. Sorry that I have not been blogging. I picked up some awful bug and just have not been able to think about this stuff. I am currently feeling better but I have all that I can do just with work and family stuff. I promise I will get back to this as soon as I feel better. Meanwhile do what I do, check Schools Matter religiously.

The Trouble With Boys --

This article from the January 30, Newsweek is a well written and fairly balanced article on an important subject, and is well worth the read. The authors' make some points that suit my purposes here:

...
What's wrong with Danny? By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent.
...
Boys have always been boys, but the expectations for how they're supposed to act and learn in school have changed. In the last 10 years, thanks in part to activist parents concerned about their children's success, school performance has been measured in two simple ways: how many students are enrolled in accelerated courses and whether test scores stay high. Standardized assessments have become commonplace for kids as young as 6. Curricula have become more rigid. Instead of allowing teachers to instruct kids in the manner and pace that suit each class, some states now tell teachers what, when and how to teach. At the same time, student-teacher ratios have risen, physical education and sports programs have been cut and recess is a distant memory. These new pressures are undermining the strengths and underscoring the limitations of what psychologists call the "boy brain"—the kinetic, disorganized, maddening and sometimes brilliant behaviors that scientists now believe are not learned but hard-wired.
...
The problem won't be solved overnight. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, these experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. Boys are biologically, developmentally and psychologically different from girls—and teachers need to learn how to bring out the best in every one. "Very well-meaning people," says Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston neurologist who advocates for troubled kids, "have created a biologically disrespectful model of education."
...
In elementary-school classrooms—where teachers increasingly put an emphasis on language and a premium on sitting quietly and speaking in turn—the mismatch between boys and school can become painfully obvious. "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard," says "Raising Cain" coauthor Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls."
...
One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to? Too often, the answer is no. High rates of divorce and single motherhood have created a generation of fatherless boys. In every kind of neighborhood, rich or poor, an increasing number of boys—now a startling 40 percent—are being raised without their biological dads.
...
In neighborhoods where fathers are most scarce, the high-school dropout rates are shocking: more than half of African-American boys who start high school don't finish. David Banks, principal of the Eagle Academy for Young Men, one of four all-boy public high schools in the New York City system, wants each of his 180 students not only to graduate from high school but to enroll in college. And he's leaving nothing to chance. Almost every Eagle Academy boy has a male mentor—a lawyer, a police officer or an entrepreneur from the school's South Bronx neighborhood. The impact of the mentoring program, says Banks, has been "beyond profound."
...

There is lots more, but as you can see the factors stated here are a direct result of the test, test, test, mind set offered by NCLB. The curriculum is narrowed, seat work becomes more common, and mind numbing cookie cutter lessons become the norm. At the same time, social solutions, like this last one, recieve little notice, and the funding for projects like this becomes less and less available.
anti nclb

Testing industry overwhelmed under NCLB

This news article from USA Today is one from a few days ago that I'm just now getting to. According to a new study the tests that are required by NCLB are in trouble. (Download study here)
...

The standardized testing industry is "buckling under the weight" of President Bush's education reform plan, with the law's rapidly expanding testing mandates threatening to undermine its high ideals, says a new report out Tuesday from Education Sector, an independent Washington think tank.

Only about $20 of the average $8,000-per-pupil spent on education nationally goes to develop tests under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the report finds. That's a small proportion, given the tests' importance, says Thomas Toch, the report's author.
...
But the modest spending on testing could pull the rug out, with many states now forced to buy or create hastily developed, low-quality tests that measure only rudimentary skills, Toch says. Such tests make it impossible for high-performing students' scores to rise above a certain level, despite learning more. So low performers' rising scores make it appear as if the nation's "achievement gap" is closing.

"You're giving a skewed sense of student achievement," Toch says.

What's worse, he says, such tests "are encouraging teachers to make the same low-level skills the priorities of their classrooms." Rather than being a solution, he says, such testing is "fast becoming part of the problem in public education."
...

Toch recommends that the federal government more than double its funding, from $406 million to $860, to help states develop high-quality tests.

For decades, testing companies have sold carefully developed standardized tests to school districts. NCLB's mandates — that virtually every child in grades three through eight in every public school take annual math and reading tests tied to state standards — have forced testing companies to generate "vastly larger pools of credible test questions" on shorter timelines, the report says. Competitive pressures, high turnover and mistakes by testmakers all take their toll, with more requirements on the way.

The study estimates that public schools, which now give about 33.6 million tests under NCLB, must add another 11.4 million by the end of the current school year, straining testmakers.
...

I ask you, wouldn't this money be better spent on the kids? And things could get worse, according to Jim Horn over at Schools Matter, (look here for more) Tom Delay's replacement, is the one responsible for making the requirements for NCLB so high that virtually all schools will fail by 2014.
anti nclb

Going beyond No Child Left Behind --

This from the San Diego Union Tribune, an opinion piece by Richard Louv. He has quite a bit to say but this is what struck me:
...
The brewing rebellion is particularly intense in Utah and Connecticut, states that are political polar opposites. In Connecticut, more than two-thirds of cities and towns have thrown their support in support of a lawsuit against the No Child Left Behind act. Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal will argue the case today in U.S. district court, in New Haven.

Like many rebellions, this one has yet to offer much of an alternative for education reform, other than support for local control. If an overemphasis on standardized testing was failing to significantly increase literacy, what approach – or approaches – would work?

The debate about testing should not prevent a closer look at the forgotten environment in and around the school itself. Long before No Child Left Behind, school districts began to isolate students from the surrounding neighborhoods, from nature, from the non-cyber world.

Indeed, during the 1970s, many districts, including San Diego Unified, began to construct new schools with no windows. Educators argued that windows prevented students from concentrating; architects of these schools created “vision strips,” as they called them, thin slots at the tops of the walls that allowed some light to come into the room, but nothing else. Some vision.

Today, school districts are cutting recess and building schools with no playgrounds, even as Johnnie and Jeannie spend more of their time bent over a test or a video game. Meanwhile, a growing body of scientific knowledge points to immersion in the world, especially in nature, as one of the most effective ways – perhaps the most effective way – to help children learn. Standardized test scores might even improve, if no child were left inside.

Why would anyone think a quality environment for learning would be one with "vision strips?" We treat out pets better than this. The man has a point about getting kids outside more, don't you think?
anti nclb

State needs a rainy day account, not a tier to nowhere

Last spring I reported on the state legislatures' ill-thought reduction of retirement benefits for state workers, including teachers. There were lots of questions at the time about the so called trouble that current retirement funds were/are in. It seemed no one had a good answer. The most that I saw that came from the opposition was that the funds had been under funded over the years by state legislators. Here, in this opinion piece from todays Juneau Empire finally we have some anwers from someone who should know:

Dave Stout has been a retirement counselor for the Division of Retirement and Benefits for much of his 27-year state career.

I have followed with both interest and concern the numerous articles and letters regarding the financial woes of Alaska Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) and the Alaska Teachers' Retirement System (TRS). I have worked for the Division of Retirement and Benefits since 1980, both as a retirement counselor and as one of the managers. The division administers both programs. Over the years I have developed a good understanding of both retirement plans, and through my job have observed how the plans have been managed.

As with so many things we are told today, we're given only part of the story - usually the part that supports the storyteller's position. For instance, we have been told that the retirement plans are in financial trouble because our retirees live too long, that the cost of health care is draining the system, and because of the downturn in the economy. I'm sure that all of these have some truth, but only to a point. There are other contributing factors that have not been as well-publicized - political pressure and short-sightedness of many public officials.

Benefits paid by both plans are funded by employee contributions, employer-matching contributions, and from the earnings off of the investments. The percentage that each individual pays into the plan is set by statute. However, employer-matching contribution rates vary from year to year. So by statute, the amounts that cities, boroughs, the state, and the school districts contribute into the plan are expected to fluctuate from one year to the next. Nothing new, it has been that way since statehood.

Some 20 years ago several things started to happen. First, the amount that public employees contributed into the retirement plan was increased from 4.25 percent of gross earnings to 6.75 percent, plus medical benefits provided after retirement were reduced for newer members. Teachers soon followed in 1990 with individual rates going from 7 percent to 8.65 percent with similar reductions in health-care benefits. Second, at about the same time, pressure was being put on the plan administrator to reduce the amount collected from the participating employers. To be fair, at the time it appeared that there was a growing surplus of funds, at least on paper. Consequently, employer contribution rates were steadily reduced for the next 15 years, eating away at any possibility to hedge against an economic decline. By the time the "retirement crisis" was finally recognized a couple of years ago, some participating PERS employers were paying no matching contributions - none! Others were paying a small percentage of what was charged in the 1980s. Employees were paying more, while their employers were paying less and less.

Establishing a new retirement system (or tier as we like to call it) that offers fewer benefits to teachers and public employees, especially one that isn't any cheaper than the old one, does nothing to "fix" what we already have. Our public officials (appointed and elected) should have used prudence and foresight by anticipating our investments by their very nature would have periods of decline. Instead of chopping the amount of matching money, the more conservative, fair and balanced approach would have been for modest employer cuts while at the same time keeping some of the surplus to guard against the day that the investments lost value.

It's not too late. The U.S. economy seems to be rebounding and in the next few years the retirement funds will likely be adequately funded. Just watch. When the funds again become healthy, the same politicos will once more clamor for rate cuts. Both the employees and employers should make reasonable contributions into the plan, but both the TRS and the PERS need to be better protected. Each should be allowed to accumulate the capital reserves needed to hedge against the day that history repeats itself. A "rainy day" account is nothing new to the state and one is needed here - we need a reserve account, not a new retirement tier to nowhere.

As I have said before, we are a state that imports at least 25% of it's teachers. To attract high quality teachers we need to be, at least, be competitive. We used to have the highest wages and some of the best benefits. We no longer rate anywhere near the top. Why would anyone come to our notoriously terrible climate and isolation, and stay when they could do better anywhere else? This is still a big topic here because last year they passed only a short term fix. Stay tuned here for more on this important matter.
anti nclb

What else can we do beside NCLB ?

Here is one idea that I posted a year ago. Recently I have read others' ideas that have led me to the formation of my ideas as they stand today. Unfortunately it takes money. Many are talking these days about universal pre-school. I take this to mean mandatory preschool. What I would like to see is pre-school made available for all that wish it. This should be free or at the very least at a sliding scale. Head start as originally conceived is what everyone needs. That is, not only high quality education for young children, but education for the parents as well. Education in how to create a home environment that will help to insure success in school. Money will be needed to set up these programs, for teacher training and buildings and supplies. Likewise money will be needed to train teachers in underfunded impoverished schools, especially in the inner cities. Money will be needed to create buildings that are safe, sound learning environments. Money will be needed for books and supplies in these same schools.

Many people have mentioned the need for adequate affordable healthcare and a living wage for all. I do not have the answer here but, how can a sick, hungry child be expected to learn? And I believe that "healthcare" means emotional care as well. We need to offer all sorts of help to get and keep families out of crisis. Children in crisis can not learn.

What we do not need is more blame on teachers and students. We do not need more tests. We do not need more punishment. I believe that conservatives will heartily disagree with what I say here. They might say, "No, I do not pay taxes to help people who won't help themselves. " Just like they are currently saying, "I do not want to pay taxes to put other peoples children through school." Is this the kind of society that we really want? I do not think so. Tests and punishment will not make our schools better, but a hand up offered to those that want and need it just might.
anti nclb

Bush, Alaska, and NCLB: The Week Ahead --

The "Bush" in the title refers to not to the current president but to rural Alaska. This is from a blog of a high school teacher in his fifth year of teaching in an isolated village accessible only by boat, plane or snow machine. Background, and necessary reading is found here in a eye opening article written by this same teacher in the Anchorage Daily News.

Normally, people refer to where I live as bush Alaska. It is remote; there isn't a road in or out. It is isolated; the flights to Anchorage cost nearly $500, and have to go through Bethel. And there are bushes. Well, at least here that's all there is. You have to go nearly 30 miles inland to find trees and those are spindly willows that only grow along the riverbanks.

..
This week will see a visit from officials at both state and district level. You see, we are a level 4 school. Basically, we are failing. Our kids are failing their standardized tests and they are failing to graduate. Essentially, each year you school fails to meet the requirements (which also change every year, though the basic politico-speak is "proficiency in reading , writing, and math") you move further up the NORAD inspired defcon system of levels. Level 5 is the worst and I'm afraid the visit will only confirm we are heading that way despite my best efforts.
...

Read the Daily News article and you will discover that these kids have problems you, or the writers of NCLB, never even thought of. The state of Alaska allows communities to declare themselves wet - sale and use of alcohol is permitted, damp - sale is prohibited but use and importation is allowed, or dry - neither sale or importation is allowed. When the article mentions "bootlegging" they are not necessarily talking about a complicated distillation process. It could mean the fermentation and sale of anything alcoholic, such as fermented sugar and water. The author doesn't talk about it but gasoline "huffing'' is also a big problem in bush Alaska.

One thing the author also does not talk about is there are no educational options for these kids. There are no schools to transfer to. There are no private tutors. NCLB was geared to inner city schools but has been forced on everyone from the Alaskan village to the Indian reservation, to isolated farming and ranching communities to small towns, from mixed suburbs to gated communities, it is all applied the same.

In Alaska these kids really need help. They need someone to show them a future, and right now that future looks like more of the same, teachers that come and go and students that are tested and tested and still fail, as well as a curriculum that is not relevant to their day to day existence. The agenda being pushed by the NCLB crowd is not what they or any of us need. What they do need is another post.

Let's truly have no child left behind --

This opinion piece from Milwaukee offers a refreshing change of mind set from all of the "Test and Privatize" items appearing lately such as here, and here, and here. At least this piece has the right idea, but this piece has the right attitude:

...
A correlation has been found between a student's financial status and his or her performance on the ACT or SAT. The wealthier the student, the higher the score most likely will be. In MPS (Milwaukee), many high schools do not offer ACT/SAT prep courses. If they are offered, many families cannot afford them.

Low-income families also cannot afford specialized tutoring services that can help their child. The poor child who wants to go to college has to be extraordinarily motivated and seek out the help needed. Many affluent children find it in their college-educated family or on their own computer.

Personally, I find a standardized test score a poor marker for future success. A true picture only emerges from application essays, transcripts and recommendations from people who know the young person. Motivation and drive are not covered on a test.

...
Many prestigious colleges no longer ask if a child will request financial aid on applications. They want the best and most unique, regardless of finances. This message must get out to all students.

If our poorest and most disadvantaged are given proper guidance, more would achieve success in college. Those in the community who believe in equal access for all students can share their expertise. Offer to visit a high school to talk up your alma mater. Mentoring programs exist all over Milwaukee, and they need volunteers and financial support.

Professionals can also offer visits to low-income students interested in their career field. Chue (the author's adopted son) became even more excited about studying medicine after visiting doctors at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital.

We can support scholarship and student loan programs that help the disadvantaged. Poor students are in all communities, but the hardest affected are in rural and urban areas.

So far, Chue has been pleased with acceptance to Purdue and Valparaiso. He's still waiting to hear from the others before making a final decision. He knows he will be attending a top school this fall.

Every qualified young person should be so lucky.

Or at least given a chance.
anti nclb

To Raise NAEP Scores, Improve Access to Books --

Agghh! I spent quite a while this morning assembling a piece on the movement to link federal college grants and loans to test scores and to the "grade" of the high school the student came from. Then my browser froze at the very end and, well you know. Any of you who are teachers and have a family know how precious time can be, so reassembling that article will have to wait. For now I offer this letter from Steven Krashen to Ed Week. Although I believe that his argument is a little simplistic he makes some good points.

To the Editor:

You report that comparing 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress scores from 11 cities is not beneficial in determining the effectiveness of reading approaches("NAEP Results Offer Scant Insight Into Best Reading Strategies," Jan. 11, 2006.) . But NAEP has taught us a great deal: NAEP results consistently confirm that children with more access to reading material read better, and that children who read more likewise read better.

NAEP itself has reported a positive relationship between the amount of reading children do and how well they perform on its reading test. Also, NAEP analyses have shown that scores are higher when teachers give students more time to read books of their own choosing.

In an analysis of NAEP scores in 41 states, Jeff McQuillan, in his book The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions, reported a strong relationship between performance on the NAEP test and the quality of children’s overall print environment (books available at home, school libraries, and public libraries). This relationship remained when the effect of poverty was controlled.

We should also consider the interesting case of California. That state’s extremely low score on NAEP in 1992 was blamed on whole-language reading instruction. Yet, despite the purge of whole language from California schools and the introduction of intensive, systematic phonics, there has been no significant improvement in California’s NAEP scores: The state still ranks near the bottom among states that took the national assessment, tied for next to last in 2005. California has the worst school libraries in the nation and among the worst public libraries. This was true in 1992 and remains so today.

These results suggest that the way to get higher NAEP scores is to improve children’s access to books, and the most obvious way for schools to do this is to improve their libraries. Studies show that when interesting and comprehensible reading materials are available, children do in fact read. Perhaps NAEP scores have “stagnated” because we have not considered this easily discerned way of improving reading.

Stephen Krashen

Professor Emeritus

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, Calif.

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