No Child Left Behind: Convince me that it's a good thing

Great Debates
21

One of the problems is how it straightjackets teachers. I’ve heard some horror stories of teachers being forced to do things like four hours of mandatory spelling instruction. This leaves them no room to respond to the needs of individuals, the classroom or to make use of their own specific talents.

Teachers are professionals. I want a lawyer that knows more than a few memorized law books. I want a doctor who can do more than just look stuff up on WebMD. I want a teacher who can do more than hand out dittos and march through a centralized plan. I want my teachers to be more like college teachers (who are often excellent and largely at least reasonably good) than breathing test giving devices.

Teachers have talents and skills and gifts to share with their students. Teachers can inspire, direct, and spark something special in their students. But they can’t do that when their every last second is scheduled by politicians who have never set foot in a classroom. Say what you want about an education degree, it teaches you a bit about teaching than a political science degree.

And no, I just don’t believe that we are about to be surpassed by (Japan, China, Europe, take your pick) because of their more regimented schools. First off, they often aren’t as good as they think. Ask anyone who has ever taught English in Japan about how they teach- let’s just say it’s hard to learn a language from repetition and tests and many students come out of years of instruction with no ability to hold a conversation. Also, frankly math and science aren’t what makes America great. America is great because when we need scientists, we are smart enough to outsource them from Asia where we can pay them one tenth of the rates we’d pay them here. It’s America’s creativity and flexibility that keeps our GDP high, not raw brain power.

Another problem with NCLB is that it gives good teachers and incentive to get the hell out of struggling districts- when we all know that school performance is most strongly related to economic and home life conditions. The rich kids get the good teachers (who like everyone want to avoid the bureaucratic nightmare being labeled as a “failing school” brings on) and the poor schools get left with the dregs that none of the good schools will hire.

22

Certainly there is more to a good education than correct spelling* and knowing the nines table, but can you honestly say a person is ‘educated’ if he cannot spell or do simple math in his head? A line needs to be drawn some darn place.

*By the way, have you noticed how some technology requires good spelling? Spool Chockers only go so far.

23

Given that school taxes in my area have gone up anywhere from 100 to 200 percent in the last 10 years that small contribution is welcome indeed.

24

You’re lucky…mine quadrupled in just one year but this was due to a reassessment of the property which suffered from a gentrifying neighborhood and the property bubble. It was not due to taxes being raised to pay for schools (although since schools in Illinois are funded via property tax presumably they should see some benefit).

25

I agree 100%, but more and more I wonder if we actually do all know this. So much of the burden on NCLB is left on the shoulders of classroom teachers without regard to all of the external factors that even the best teachers have trouble overcoming. But, once again, no one will support legislation that basically tells people they are bad parents. One of our society’s fundamentals is that parents know what’s best for their kids- even when this has little bearing in practice.

-stonebow, husband of a very frustrated classroom teacher in an ‘economically depressed’ district

26

I worked in the standardized testing biz for a while, and the gripe the ex-teachers I worked with had (and I agree with) is that it revolves around teaching kids to test rather than teaching them to learn. They spend inordinate amounts of time preparing the kids to pass the test, and much less time teaching them the stuff they need to know. I’m against it.

27

Thanks for clearing that up.

28

Indeed. Apparently, **dale **knows whereof he speaks.

In other words - dale, what the frell are you talking about? Are you trying to tell me that over 90% of special ed students at every schiool in America (students who, in my mother’s class, include three students with cerebral palsy, one of whom can’t speak at all, and two minimally comunicative autistic kids - in a mainstream class) are placed in special ed erroneously?

Cite?

29

That’s not what he’s saying at all. What he’s saying is that some schools have taken to putting some students that cannot pass the test into special education tracks so they don’t drag down the average. Illiteracy, for example, is not a reason to put someone into special education unless it is the result of some learning disability. He is contending that in some cases students with no such disability, simply a lack of education, are hidden in special ed so the schools will “pass” and they can’t kill the average.

While I’m skeptical of the idea that this happens a lot, I have no problem accepting that it does happen.

30

No, you’re misunderstanding the way NCLB works, then.

Any subset of students - ESL, Special Ed, Behavorial Disability, etc. must have over 90% of its members pass the test, as well as the student body as a whole. That’s exactly the problem. You can’t hide anything by putting low testers into Special Ed.

I suppose if you wanted to put on the tinfoil hat, you could wonder if the school sneaks high testers into special ed to bring the average up, but given the large sums of money spent on special ed students, it would seem pointless. You’d need to sneak a whole lot of your excellent students into the “Special Ed” subgroup to make it work. I’d need a whole 'nother cite if dale’s claiming that type of fraud.

31

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Any subset of students - ESL, Special Ed, Behavorial Disability, etc. must have over 90% of its members pass the test, as well as the student body as a whole. That’s exactly the problem. You can’t hide anything by putting low testers into Special Ed. /QUOTE]

You can’t? If the requirements for special education students are lower you have lowered the bar for successful test scores and therefore given them a chance to pass a test where before they had no chance whatsoever.

32

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]

I think the problem is, there is no taking into account of special ed-apparently, they give them the same test as the rest of the school.

33

There is no special Special Ed test.

34

Let me clarify my earlier post. In the past, schools would try to dance around academic requirements for certain students, mainly athletes. I’m sure this is no shock to anyone. One way they used to do it was to classify them as “special ed” and thus exempt from pre-NCLB standards.

35

Well then. :slight_smile:

36

Whenever I hear…“Teaching them how to learn…,” I get a bit nervous. This sounds like the type of education which stresses “Math Appreciation” rather than actual problem solving.

37

More like teaching critical thinking skills, how to take proper notes, good study habits.

Teachers can only do so much-the students have to work with the teachers as well.

38

All of my responses in this thread should be read with this in mind: thanks to NCLB, I have a new car, a shorter workday, and an appreciation of the amount of paperwork classroom teachers have to file. As for my students, I’m pleased to note that all of them have been making significant progress towards testing at their grade level.

My unscientific sample size: 6 students.

Demographics: All of them are African-American, 4 of them live in low-income or subsidized housing. This is not unusual as our district is approximately 70% African-American. I would describe these children on a general level as troubled; all of them have seen the inside of the local Youth Dentention Center. They are all children of divorced parents, though most of them have multiple adults in the household.

Report: All 6 of my students are making significant progress in not only the mathematical knowledge required to pass standardized tests, but also in the area of general mathematical competence and speed. I focus a large amount of effort on general problem-solving techniques and do not view my involvement as merely “teaching to the tests”.

I can’t help but feel that for these particular students, in this locality, the NCLB program has given these students an opportunity that few of them could afford otherwise. However, when I view the program on a national level, all is not rosy. The program seems more like an unhelpful boss in many respects. “Students are failing. Fix that.” This program is not in any way the revamping of the US education system that its proponents were hailing it as. It’s more akin to the president saying, “Hey, there’s a problem with our education here in the richest nation on the planet. Someone should do something about that.” I think that the program, on a national level, is doomed unless a real model for success is found and implemented.

39

Humanist, thank you for the other side of the story.

How, specifically, has NCLB made these changes possible in ways that other programs did not? Were you hired with NCLB funding? Were there special directives given by NCLB that helped to discover or address learning problems that were being ignored? Why, in short, was it NCLB that was helpful in these 6 students’ lives?

40

Minor hijack here. A few people have mentioned the teachers’ unions, tenre, and the idea of “throwing money at the problem”. Each of these concepts need to be looked at from a slightly different perspective, I think.

Unions & Tenure : I’m going to treat these as a single issue for now. If you read some history about education in this country, you’ll find some very good reasons for strong unions and for tenure.

In my opinion, some but not all of those reasons have changed. What I tell people is that I support the unions in theory, but often not in practice. I agree they have to change some of their ways. But they are there for a good reason. Ditto on tenure. The structure of the educational requires it in some fashion, but I agree that that fashion could stand to be updated.

“Throwing Money at the Problem” : This I must call absolute bullshit on. OF COURSE IT’S GOING TO COST MONEY TO FIX THE EDUCATION SYSTEM!!! Folks, our answer to most problems is to throw money at it. Often, that’s what it takes. We don’t like it perhaps, but we do it. How come I never hear about not throwing money at the problem when it’s defense? Or road-building?

Yes, yes, I know - you meant: ‘I just don’t want to spend money that gets wasted’. Or ‘I want to get something for my money’. Agreed, but easier said than done. Every beaurocratic system ends up wasting some money, and that’s simply the cost of doing business to some extent. Education, like health care, costs money. Deal with it.

And besides, how do you measure it? I don’t need to rehash all the problems we’re discussing with regard to standardized tests. I suggest we let the teachers do what they do - they’re professionals. Most of the teachers I know have at least one Master’s Degree. And a good measurement source is industry. They’re pretty good at telling us what they need, and we should listen.

NCLB addresses none of this. It’s an attempt to wring more juice out of an orange without fertilizing the grove more. And then we beat the trees with sticks when they fail to produce.