Yes, exactly! Well put. I may have to steal that. (Plagiarism isn’t covered on standardized tests, so they didn’t teach me about that…)
Really? You’ve never met any stupid carpenters or mechanics? I’ve met more than a few, just as I’ve met stupid lawyers, accountants, and businessmen. I don’t think anyone is suggesting a kid who is incapable of learning basic math should try to start his own plumbing business, just that it is a viable option for kids who don’t thrive in a traditional school setting.
The reasons why kids fail in school are varied. Many yearn for a career where they produce a tangible work product. Trades are often good for those types of students. But let’s get real here, the vast majority of trade jobs are less intellectual rigorous than a career in medicine, law, or engineering. It’s doesn’t mean plumbers or electricians are stupid, just that you don’t typically have to be a genius to do it.
The obligatory link to NCLB, football style:
http://karlfrankjr.wordpress.com/2007/11/11/no-child-left-behind-nclb-football-style/
Low performing schools need more support, not less. Withdrawing money penalizes the very students the policy is supposed to help. Sorry, kids! We don’t have money to upgrade the computer lab because ya’ll failed the test last year! And not only that, we’re going to demoralize you further by brandishing your school with a scarlet letter “F”, so that when all the area schools are ranked in the newspaper, everyone will know how stupid and worthless you are! Hahaha!
I’d love it if NCLB went like this: If a school fails to make the mark, control is temporally turned over to a federally-funded triage team. Professionals are deployed to the school and charged with drawing up a strategic plan. If the school leadership is too weak to implement the plan alone or the financial resources aren’t there, the feds are authorized to do whatever it takes to bring things to level. The school’s performance is then scrutinized for some reasonable time frame. If improvements aren’t made, then a more drastic overhaul is warranted, whether they be vouchers (which I’m against), bussing programs, or a call for proposals from privately-run charter schools.
I would also change how schools are evaluated. Currently, an inner-city school with 80% ESL student body is assessed in the same way as a suburban, upper-middle class school. Correction factors should be used to weight scores or schools should be evaluated on different scales (let’s say, based on different socioeconomic indices) that allow apple-to-apple comparisons. My father was a principal at a school with a big ESL population. His biggest beef with NCLB was that people looked at his test scores and thought “crappy school!” without understanding the context. It didn’t matter how hard his teachers worked or how smart and bright his students were, they were never going to get the same kind of scores as the rich yuppy kids on the other side of town. He also said that it was extremely difficult keeping teachers at his school because who the hell wants to work at a school that’s been labeled as “bad”? It didn’t matter that his school wasn’t bad, but appearances and perceptions matter.
The kids that aren’t cutting in under NCLB standards–the ones that people are saying ought not be held to those standards, but should be allowed to follow a vocational track–those aren’t your future doctors and lawyers and scientists. They are kids that have a lot of trouble mastering algebra, and can’t read for comprehension. In many cases, “let them go to trade school” doesn’t address the problem–it just puts them in a different place to fail, and it turns the trade schools into “where the stupid kids go”, which hampers there ability to actually attract and help train kids in trades. Sure, there are kids that can be successful in trade school that would never make it in a math and science magnet (and vice versa), but there exists a layer of kids for whom trade school is not a panacea.
beat me to it. I rebuilt a plane using a HS vocational aircraft mechanics school. The kids got hands on experience and I got a place to work on it and someone to sign off my work. When I decided to make a modification to the radio stack the instructor had me read a section on bending metal and then calculate the correct radius of the bend. Holy crap, it was an insignificant modification and I spent over an hour with the class work and brake setup.
There is no way an unmotivated or poorly educated kid was passing that class.
I assure you, there are different skill sets to being a programmer and being a mechanic. And neither has anything to do with being stupid. I’m a pretty good programmer, and pretty good at math, but you don’t want me anywhere near a car engine. My brother is smart also, but not as intellectually inclined as I am, but he is naturally a lot better at mechanical things than I am.
Our district has a very good trade program, with a shiny new building. I’m not sure I’d say it is any less rigorous than the academic programs, just different. Now, having the discipline to do well in high school, assuming you are in the right place for your talents, is a good predictor of success, I agree.
There are a bunch of issues with NCLB. While well intended, it’s so poorly written that it’s impossible to implement in a realistic manner.
-
first, it requires the schools meet standards, but it never defines what those standards are. Every state gets to set its own standards. So, guess what they do? Write the weakest-ass standards you have ever seen, and/or revise the standards lower every year, so their students can be said to progress.
-
second, it allows schools to use norm-referenced tests to show their improvement. Norm-referenced tests in these circumstances are meaningless bullshit. First, all it does is give us a measure of how the students are doing in comparison to a “norm” group of kids who have no statistical relevance to the current batch of school kids. Second, states adopt tests for five-year or longer blocks of time, and as the kids get used to seeing the same type of test each year, they do better without necessarily learning any more. Third, norm-referenced tests means they only ever compare the kids to how they did last year or the year before last. Norm referenced tests tell you nothing about what the kids actually know.
-
third, it’s an unfunded mandate. I don’t think the Federal government should be able to require schools do something unless they provide the funds to do it. In fact, NCLB isn’t just unfunded, it’s punitive. Schools that don’t measure up have money taken away from them. The ones that suffer the most are the ones that need the most help.
I have real issues with a lot of the current educational philosophy. I don’t think school attendance should be required. I also think school districts should have a lot more freedom to expel disruptive students. I don’t think students with significant mental disabilities should be completely mainstreamed, and I don’t think they should be counted against the schools when they can’t measure up to the other kids. I also think the ability to determine which track a student attends should be up to the parents and the kid, not the schools.
But then, I have a lot of weird ideas about how schools should be run. That’s a post for another time.
This is the same kind of idiocy that the “education” industry is pushing in MA. Basically, this lobby equtes school spending with achievement-which is why the MCAS test scores continually decline, while school spending rises astronomically. Yes, there are lots of kids who don’t want to be in school. Vocational education is much better for them.
I’m so glad this stuff wasn’t around when I was in high school, because I would’ve gamed the system just because I could. So would most of my friends. There is no motive for screw-ups to do their best on the tests, and it hurts TPTB if you don’t pass, so why try? Save your energy for the NMSQT and the SAT. What do I care if my high school gets taken over? Serves the bastards right for taking hot dogs off the lunch menu.
Otherwise, what Manda JO said.
But that is not true. You’re making a pretty big assumption that the kids falling behind are stupid, and that people are suggesting the truly disabled or genuinely stupid should go to trade school. Often they are unmotivated, lack discipline, and don’t see the purpose of traditional schooling. The schools they are in test a completely different skill set. The point behind recommending they try trade school is so that they can try bettering themselves in a situation that will test other things; one where they might be sucessful. I don’t know what other choices we have. The truly stupid and lazy will fail at everything.
You keep presenting this as primarily a matter of intelligence when its not. Like people say, “you’re too stupid for real school, so just go to trade school”. As I said I know plenty of stupid lawyers, doctors, etc. What they all have in common is the ability, drive, and motivation to do well in school. Many people don’t have that. Doesn’t mean they aren’t smart, but it does mean they can’t be lawyers or doctors.
Of course it’s not a panacea, but it’s a viable option. Most white collar jobs in the US desire people who have demonstrated their ability to navigate their way through high school and college in a competent fashion. If a kid has gotten to high school, and has up until then failed to do so, that world will likely be closed to them barring some statistical anomaly. What other choice do you have but to recommend another avenue that may provide them with a respectable career?
I think we are visualizing very different sorts of kids. The kid you describe–has ability but doesn’t enjoy or try very hard to excel at high school–that kid likely makes C’s and a handful of F’s, and graduates high school. He can pass the high school graduation exam. As far as NCLB is concerned, the low C student who graduates is a success and nothing needs to be done. I agree with you that that kid is not being well served, and for some of those kids, trade school would be wonderful.
I am talking about kids that can’t read, that can’t do basic math. These are the kids that NCLB mandates that we slow everything else down for. NCLB mandates that getting those kids up to the low C/can pass the graduation exam point is the most important task of the school. So when the OP says "we need to send the kids that are “left behind” to trade school, I assume that’s the ones they are talking about. But trade school won’t work for those kids–we need to figure out why those kids can’t read and do basic math-- is it the kid, the teachers, the home, the school structure?–I really don’t know, but we need to fix that before we can talk about viable careers.
Understand, I am a huge fan of vocational education. But programs won’t be successful if they become the dumping ground of everyone who can’t read or add fractions. Vocational magnets can be amazing, but when a system is set up where “vocational” is euphismism for “remedial”, the program you get is often neither.
Another way that NCLB games the system is that every year the goal for a school goes up until it eventually reaches 100% of all students meeting state standards. Our school has seen test scores rise for 6 years in a row, but we are now much further from meeting the goals of NCLB than we were six years ago.
I had friends and family who didn’t do well with the methods of “college oriented academia” but did fine in trade school because of their hands-on approach to learning.
Read a fat hardcover book that’s 75% text, 25% pictures a bunch of times, write a three-page essay in one hour for your exam? Not good.
Get a handbook that’s 75% pictures, 10% text, 15% your own notes, build a chess set for your exam? Ayup.
There were brighter and less so, but none of them had any interest in college, very few would read for enjoyment, most had families that didn’t value college educations. And I was very happy to have them around in the factory! The Maintenance Department needs you! 
Will a retarded kid be able to do well as a plumber with his own team of plumbers? No. Can he be a bricklayer with appropiate supervision? Yes. So why are we trying to get them to be engineers instead? :smack:
No child should be left behind due to institutional laziness. But we all accept that I, at 5’4" and female, will never make it into the NBA - why do we refuse to accept that there’s people who are mentally short?
I’m an engineer. My exposure to NCLB is through a teacher friend (whose middle school I volunteer at through an outreach program at my company) and my mathematics professor brother, who deals with the output of NCLB.
IMO: we need to re-think the concept of having pretty much everyone go to college.
A big part of this would be to remove the stigma many people have for their children going into blue-collar work. If I had children, I would rather they found work they enjoyed and could pay the bills with than squeak though a worthless degree just so I could say, 'My kid’s a college grad!" But Americans are so damn status-conscious though that I don’t see this happening any time soon.
My brother laments that half of his students are never going to actually grasp or use the subjects he’s supposed to teach them. They spend four years worth of tuition for a degree that may get them an extra dollar an hour at that Wal-Mart job they could have taken right after high school. My brother is adamantly critical of the ‘education industry’ that is happy to take their tuition money, and the resultant lowering of the quality of education for the kids who actually belong in college. My brother teaches at a large state university that, while it has some very good, demanding academic programs, will pretty much admit anyone with a pulse, a HS diploma and a checkbook (or a loan).
My middle school teacher friend started as a special ed teacher, so her students are generally the lower quarter on the bell curve. She has to teach set theory and algebra to fourteen year-olds who (seriously) couldn’t tell you what seven times three equals, and wishes to God she could spend that time showing them how to compute sales tax and balance a checkbook.
I missunderstood the parameters of the argument. NCLB as a concept is iffy. NCLB as a program has been a bureaucratic nightmare.
It takes control away from teachers, schools, parents and communities and gives it to a vast federal bureaucracy. It takes resources away from the schools that need them most and rewards the schools that are already the best off. It encourages the best teachers to stay out of poor neighborhoods.
And this is before we get into more philosophical arguments about teaching to the test, critical thinking skills, narrow subject ranges and the lack of support for gifted and talented education.
The sad part about this program is that, as conceived by a bi-partisan effort by Ted Kennedy and others, it may have worked. The administration made sure it doesn’t by not funding it, and by changing some key parameters.
Not really. Each state has its own test and administers its own program. Besides, if you want federal money, it always (and ought to) come with federal strings.
An interesting point. Ought we to send resources to bad schools to improve them or practice some sort of triage? Is it morally right to let bad schools die from lack of resources and reward the best? Excellent questions with no obvious answers.
If NCLB continues after this election I can’t wait to see what happens when schools max out on their Adequate Yearly Progress.
Let’s say that the schools have been following the program, teaching the tests, cutting the corners, all the things that you know they’ve been doing (through no fault of their own, in most cases), and they’ve been achieving AYP. Well, what happens when they can’t get any better on paper? Is the government going to take money away from them because 5% of the school-age children refuse to show up?
That’s the real flaw. Sooner or later everybody loses, it’s only a question of when, and in the meantime it encourages grade inflation and outright fraud. But hey, it’s for the children, so let’s do things that we would consider unthinkable in any other context, and while we’re at it let’s make sure the kids see us doing it so that they learn that it’s OK to cheat.
Fatally flawed? Without a doubt.
My kids go to a failing school. The problem I have with NCLB is that the school is failing because a subset of the kids are failing - and as much money as they dump into those kids, they can’t get the test scores of those kids up. The school’s median test score is above the state average. If you are a middle class kid, you are likely doing very well against state and national standards. Particularly if you are a white middle class kid. The four Native American kids in the school (and the sample size is something like four or seven kids) have lousy scores and have had lousy scores for the five years we’ve had our kids in that school. The free lunch kids have slightly below the margin and not improving median scores.
So they are going to fire all the staff year after next, penalizing the 80%+ of kids who are doing fine according to standards.
In the meantime, being a failing school has caused incredible amounts of churn in the staff. Teachers leave mid year. They quit four days before school starts when they get a better offer. And who can blame them? But that isn’t exactly a HELPFUL situation for improving the school.