ThisYahoo story discusses today’s ruling regarding the federal No Child Left Behind law. In his opinion the judge, Chief U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman, claimed that
[Quote]
“Congress has appropriated significant funding” and has the power to require states to set educational standards in exchange for federal money.[\Quote]
My questions:
Is significant = sufficient, or is a higher standard needed to force compliance?
Where in the Constitution is education mentioned as a retained Federal power?
If as Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said, “This is a victory for children and parents all across the country. Chief Judge Friedman’s decision validates our partnership with states to close the achievement gap, hold schools accountable and to ensure all students are reading and doing math at grade-level by 2014,” how can school districts going broke because of more standardized testing help any children?
Finally, and I don’t know how to ask this without making it partisan. How did this huge usurpation of states rights get passed by a Republican Congerss?
It isn’t. But the federal gov’t isn’t forcing states to comply (at least not directly), they’re just saying they won’t get federal education funds if they don’t. If I offer to pay you 20$ to mow my lawn, I’m not making you do it. Same deal (kinda sorta)
The Republicans ranted and railed against the Dept of Education during the 90’s, and it turned out to be a big vote looser. So in 2000, part of Bush’s compassionate conservatism was to go the other direction. He passed this big education reform bill, which met largely with support from both parties (Ted Kennedy was a big supporter) and helped immunize him from accusations of being “anti-education”. It also looked good to Repubs since the NEA didn’t like it, it “held schools accountable” and because it incorperated a voucher system that gave parents some school choice in some situations.
Obviously NCLB has not been seen as a wild success in most quarters. I don’t know enough about it to voice an opinion on why that is, though.
My scant understanding of the opposition to NCLB is that the biggest problem is the need for continual improvement. To pull an oversimplified example, if 90% of your second-grade students pass the standardized test this year, then next year your federal funds are at risk if you can’t get 91% of the second-grade students to pass. Never mind that the students taking the test this year aren’t the ones taking the test next year, never mind that a 90% passing grade is nothing to squeeze at – if that delta isn’t positive, your money is at risk. Public schools, already strapped for money, end up spending more time drilling kids to pass the test (and protect the money) instead of working on non-testing education.
I’m also under the impression that Senator Kennedy threw in his support for NCLB because he was assured by the Bush Administration that it would be well-funded – but it hasn’t:
Of course the Feds aren’t required to fund education, to any particulary degree. There are many things they fund because most people think they’re good things to fund.
But I’ve seen it up front that NCLB has done little to help things. States and school districts toe the line to get the money, but I’ve seen little real benefit because of it. There’ve been a lot of standardized test scores tauted, but if you look at the tests, and the amount of time that goes into the testing, really what’s happening is teachers are getting more familiar with the materials, and students are getting better at taking this particular kind of test. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because standardized testing is part of life. But it’s eating into so much of instruction time that I’m afraid we might be producing a generation of test-taking zombies.
Granted, most schools get funding from other sources, and some are saying “No, thank you” to the Fed’s money. But some are despartate for every dime they can can get.
The Needy Children Left Behind act goes further than simply holding too little funds out as a carrot. It imposes a rigid set of guidelines for curriculum that handcuffs school districts (foolish enough to accept the money) so that innovative approaches to specific problems are stifled. The bill was also not quite an offer of “we’ll give you money to play our way.” It replaced several channels of money that did not come with such strings, so districts that saw problems with the program were compelled to go along or to lose funding they had previuously received.
rjung’s point was correct, but does not actually address the specific problems of NCLB’s worst aspect: schools that face really horrible problems that cannot be addressed simply by throwing money at them, but for which a certain minimum amount of money is necessary for survival, are destined to fail (or lie) in order to keep their pittance. There is nothing in the NCLB funding to address the situations of kids moving from school to school within their districts so that the child cannot build on a steady program throughout the year. There is nothing in the NCLB funding to address a parental culture that is not focused on education. It does nothing to address cultures of drugs or violence in schools. Instead, it simplisitically says that a school where the teachers have not miraculously overcome all the unaddressed problems of their students while concentrating on the NCLB program is undeserving of its pittance in the next school year. Since administrators live or die by the stupid test scores, they lean on the teachers to provide those score or else with a huge incentive to simply lie if the scores are not provided.
School districts have been caught tutoring the kids on the test answers, encouraging kids to be absent on test day, and a number of other “irregularities.” While it is satisfying to some people to bemoan the lack of “ethics” in the education community, the response could have been (and was) predicted when the law was passed. If you put people in a hopeless situation, it is unreasonable to expect them to bravely march forward and be axed for failing to accomplish the impossible.
The really hilarious part of NCLB will occur in 2015, when 100% of all children in every public school in this country are required to meet state standards.
As a teacher, I agree with the intention of NCLB, for example many teachers (especially in elementary and middle schools) do not understand math and sciences enough to teach them, student in special education were not expected to work towards grade level standards, there is inequity in supports for students in urban areas, etc.
As implemented, NCLB does nothing to address these issues. In California, if the state gives you a credential (as opposed to transfering from out-of-state), you’re highly qualified. What’s the difference from what we have been doing? Keep in mind that this is the state threw out a provision to assess elementary teachers’ math instruction competency because so many failed in the pilot testing. The underfunding means that states will have LESS money to spend on interventions. Class size is not addressed. etc.
The answer here is that the act is inherently elitist (and thereby racist). What the result is, is that the poorest districts, the ones with the most blacks and latinos, will have the students with the poorest test performance. They will be punished, and the control of those districts shifted out of local control. IMHO