Educators Petition To Repeal NCLB

by turfgrrl

May 21st, 2007 · 12 Comments

Tags: Education · In the News

12 Responses so far ↓ “Educators Petition To Repeal NCLB”

• 1 anon // May 21, 2007 at 2:17 pm

  NCLB, with all it flaws, is the best chance of changing the status quo in public schools–bottom line, the schools have failed for too long, Norwalk is a great example of failure without reason—great funding, caring city, small classes, they could have figured out how to close the gap on their own but self-interest, complacency, excuses rule the day—if they had done their job right when they had the reins, it would never have had to come to NCLB.

• 2 Mike Lyons // May 21, 2007 at 3:51 pm

  The public school system is a monopoly, and to expect consistently high performance from ANY monopoly (public or private) is unrealistic. I sympathize with the goals of NCLB, which attempts to force some accountability on a system which is generally failing (particularly in large cities and with minority populations). Obviously, the NCLB law is full of flaws (find a law passed in the US Congress that isn’t!). Keep in mind that NCLB is a joint production of George Bush and Ted Kennedy and you can begin to understand why …

  Now the obvious antidote to monopoly power is competition. The antitrust laws exist to promote competition in private industry. Vouchers would bring true competition to the public school industry. Note that while our secondary schools rate quite poorly in effectiveness in comparison with those of most other industrialized countries, by contrast our colleges and universities are viewed as the best in the world. And there is NO monopoly in higher education — there are thousands of colleges competing for business, with many grants and student loans that can be used at ANY of them — the same as vouchers would be with public schools.

  Politically, of course, vouchers haven’t made much progress, since entrenched, powerful unions and governments oppose them. NCLB was an attempt to find some ways of forcing the giant monopoly to change course WITHOUT going all the way to vouchers.

  The critics of NCLB rarely come up with any alternative other than what we’ve been hearing for 50 years — ’spend more money’. But we’ve done that for 50 years and the general performance of our students has continued to fall.

  I think the burden of proof has to shift here. Those who oppose NCLB — like those who demand ever-increasing school spending before local finance agencies — have to come up with a VIABLE alternative to NCLB if we are to take them seriously. If that alternative is just another rendition of ’spend more money’ — well, the longer that mantra gets repeated, the more attractive vouchers will becom.

• 3 anonymous // May 21, 2007 at 9:03 pm

  How about no teacher left behind? When I was a kid -(and I swore once I would never start a sentence with that) we all did our best, had morals and wanted to learn. Those students that could not keep up found other roads to take. I never heard a fellow student talk back to a teacher or just not do the work because they had enough of a grade to pass. Nobody was happy with a D. NCLB does not talk to the apathetic student or the mentally ill student or the ESOL student as individuals. It groups everyone into one great big group. It is like telling everyone in one homeroom they will be Doctors and in the room next door they will all be stock brokers. People aren’t like that. They all have differences that need to be addressed with varing ways to learn. NCLB is to heavy into the testing and not about real life skills.

• 4 turfgrrl // May 21, 2007 at 9:22 pm

  Mike Lyons: Competition is not the be all solution to educational problems. I don’t think there is a measurable economic product that comes out of the educational system, and thus NCLB and the “measuring tools” of accountability are designed to fail. That’s not to say that certain aspects of education can’t be held to high standards of accountability, but those tend to fall into operational aspects.

  The problem with NCLB is that it sets an expectation that there is some way to measure the progress of a “school”. In fact that is like saying you can measure the progress of parenting by children’s shoe size. After a decade you’d get a nice chart, with comparative results over siblings, and like standardized test scores, not much else.

  The beauty of the American public school system is that it is free to all. Somehow in the last 30 plus years we’ve taken a simple system that had always put the teaching in the hands of teachers, and instead crafted a bureaucracy filled with administrators bent on measuring things. We went away from little blue books filled with essays on why the pen was mightier than the sword to little bubbles offering a) the pen b) the sword c) both and d) neither.

  More regulations, more rules and more tests are not the answer. Neither is a voucher system, which just encourages a form of economic darwinism. A free education to all, requires all to participate.

  Our university system is not working either, unless the goal was to create a population of graduates of business administration and law. With all our supposed crack university systems, we have spawned generations of people incapable of building and maintaining roads and bridges. And for this we get to be ranked by the CIA as the most indebted nation in the world.

  Teaching kids how to think, and how to think critically should be the only goal out of our public school system, and some years that means great thinkers and some years that means duds. But the performance measuring remains with the child, not the school and not the teacher.

• 5 anon // May 22, 2007 at 3:10 am

  Dear Turfgirl—Don’t you think ‘reading’ should be the first goal of our public school systems (teaching kids how to think & how to think critically sounds good, but can mean different things to different people). Plus, absent reading skills, that McD job requires little critical thought. Who else but the school should be held accountable for reading failure,the kid? Statistically they only have a 1 in 8 chance of learning to read if they haven’t done so by 3rd grade; the older the kid, the harder and more expensive it becomes.

• 6 Watchdog // May 22, 2007 at 7:09 am

  Certainly, reading is a priority, but it’s become a witchhunt. Standardized testing called the DRP (degrees of reading power) is completely removed from picking up a book and loving it. In fact, one of the major concerns I have is that we continue to train our students to take this type of test by looking for context clues, etc. This, of course, makes every lick of sense, but what does it really say about comprehension? Do the kids really need to read the passage or simply target the blank? Please don’t misunderstand me. Kids must become familiar with how to take tests before they take them. The nature of this test, however, is not in sync with how a kid performs as a reader.

  If I may also reply to number 5 - I’d also like to say that many kids would benefit by seeing an eye doctor and having their eyes tested. We only test for distance in the schools and sad to say, some children are in need of glasses. I truly wish the state would step in and take care of vision testing for READING, and provide glasses for those kids who can’t otherwise afford them. Until then, we will beat these kids over the head with standardized tests while they continue to see words broken apart and trailing off the top of the page.

  Third point - some of us are verbal-smart, some of us are math-smart. Some of us can think out of the box without trying. Gardner’s theory of Multi-intelligences makes sense to me, since I know I can write but read maps? HA! If it wasn’t for those spatially equipped problem solvers, there never would have been a group that relocated to this country and announced, “Okay guys, we set up camp HERE, by the fish.”

  Thank GOD for multi-intelligences. That said, I have a major problem with the over-assessing of our students with tests that address only one type of learner. Is there a problem with our molding cookie-cutter kids?
  I’d like to hear others’ views on this.

• 7 turfgrrl // May 22, 2007 at 8:34 am

  Anonymous #5: I don’t think you can teach “critical thinking” without being able to read. But reading is just one skill in the arsenal of thought. It’s not something that can be adroitly measured by how many words a minute, or how many paragraphs can be deconstructed. And absolutely it is the child that should be held accountable for their learning progress. And I totally agree with Watchdog in that a curriculum should be flexible to adapt to differing learning styles.

  Here’s a sample question off a recent standardized math test for the fourth grade:
  Sara wants to measure how much applesauce she made this fall. If she uses metric, which unit should she use?

  A) gram
  B) liter
  C) kilogram
  D) centimeter
  

  I can explain why each answer choice can be the correct one, including D but it involves literal in the box thinking. Apparently the test writer chose B as the only correct one. For fun, go into a store and see how apple sauce is sold. (hint: http://products.peapod.com/381.html)

• 8 Mike Lyons // May 22, 2007 at 9:28 am

  Turfie, I agree that “Competition is not the be all solution to educational problems.” Competition doesn’t bring about perfection in anything. It just happens to work better than all the other even more imperfect approaches that have been tried.

  Now I spent four years at Marvin School in the mid-to-late 90’s as Chair of its School Council, helping the school to adopt the “Accelerated School” reform model created by Stanford University. We got the principal, teachers and parents signed on and generated tremendous parental involvement in school management. We started with Marvin ranked dead last — 12 of 12 — among the elementary schools across the board in CMT test results. By the time we had fully implemented the reforms, Marvin had passed 10 of the elementary schools and was in a virtual tie in test results with Columbus Magnet. And we did that with the same budget every other elementary school had.

  So it is POSSIBLE to reform public schools and improve them (without busting the budget). But these success stories are rare. I think NCLB was a well-meaning attempt to make them more common.

• 9 Charles the Hammer // May 22, 2007 at 1:27 pm

  Mike Lyons has offered us contradictory results: In the Marvin School example, we see decentralized initiative by interested parties. The parents and staff at Marvin School looked at various plans and selected one that would work for them. That is a locally based market solution. The NCLB Act is a centralized projection of utopian socialist origins. The goals are all based around group identities and statist, standardized testing. The results bear scant resemblance to real learning. One can see the same massive central planning and overly complicated regulation in the latest offering from Bush-Kennedy in the 1,000+-page Immigration Reform bill pending in the U.S. Senate. It, like NCLB, is a grand, Federal non-solution, to what on the educational front, is a local/state matter.

  On the subject of “competition”, to say that public schools have no competition is a logical fallacy. Public schools are not a monolithic entity run by some all powerful Tsar. The decentralized nature of local and state school boards run mainly by elected officials, compete against one another. People choose were they might live or work based upon that very competition. Further, not all services should be based upon wide-open, laissez-faire theories about competition anyway. If that were true, we should have privatized fire, police, and military services that would compete for our tax dollars. The costs in certain essential public infrastructures such as highways, schools, or utilities are too great to ignore wasteful redundancy. The wide attack on public education as a “monopoly” is partially an attack on teacher’s unions. Because the principal unions have foolishly aligned themselves exclusively with the Democrat Party, Republican leaders see little value in relenting their pressure to break the current model by means of so-called “competition”. NCLB runs counter to the usual conservative positions regarding States’ Rights and “big government”, but it serves the end of bludgeoning urban districts with highly diverse populations as “failures”.

  Next, holding up the American post-secondary university system as exemplar is misguided. Current conditions at the college level are pushing costs out of sight. They have many serious problems of their own including a watering down of course content and stifling of intellectual diversity.

  Public education needs improvement, but calling for it to be largely dismantled makes little sense. Just as we all depend upon the Interstate Highway network to travel or transport goods, the vast requirements of an educated populace in a free society mandates public infrastructural investment. That is not to say that “more” is always the solution. We must seek efficiencies in methods, management, and innovation. Some of the tasks we currently require schools to perform are better left to families. I believe that local autonomy and school-based decisions are the best way to go forward.

• 10 turfgrrl // May 22, 2007 at 2:42 pm

  Charles the Hammer: Well said.

  Mike Lyons: There is nothing in NCLB that I can philosophically agree with. Call me an educational darwinist, some kids can excel in school some kids can’t, and I find nothing wrong with that.

• 11 Mike Lyons // May 22, 2007 at 4:13 pm

  Charles the Hammer — well put; I agree with much that you say. Lest people conclude that I am a big fan of NCLB, let me reiterate some points I made above (emphases added):

  “Obviously, the NCLB law is FULL OF FLAWS (find a law passed in the US Congress that isn’t!). Keep in mind that NCLB is a joint production of George Bush and Ted Kennedy and you can begin to understand why …”

  “I sympathize with the GOALS of NCLB, which attempts to force some accountability on a system which is generally failing.”

  “Those who oppose NCLB — like those who demand ever-increasing school spending before local finance agencies — have to come up with a VIABLE alternative to NCLB if we are to take them seriously. If that alternative is just another rendition of ’spend more money’ — well, the longer that mantra gets repeated, the more attractive vouchers will become.”

  I then gave an example of local reform that worked (Marvin School) for exactly the reason “Hammer” stated: it was “a locally based market solution.”

  I disagree with Hammer on two points, however. I don’t believe it is “contradictory” to give a successful example of local reform but to point out the possible value of a central system that provides carrots and sticks to get other local systems to also reform. My company (US Surgical) operates in precisely that way. General goals are set by corporate HQ, but the divisions are largely autonomous in the WAY they try to reach those goals, with bonuses for those that are successful and interventions for those that (consistently) aren’t. I see no theoretical reason that such an approach can’t work with schools, too (granted that NCLB may not be the right approach).

  Further, I don’t think “to say that public schools have no competition is a logical fallacy” because people wealthy enough to do so can move to other towns to use their schools. My tax dollars in Norwalk (or whatever town I live in) can ONLY be used to pay for my kids’ education if they go to Norwalk schools. By contrast, student grants, scholarships and loans can be used to pay for ANY college. That gives me MUCH more choice — and subjects the colleges to MUCH more competition — for my kids’ college educations than we have regarding elementary or high school education. That is a simple economic fact.

  That doesn’t mean colleges are perfect; I agree with Hammer’s views about the problems with our colleges. But it is a fact that hundreds of thousands of students come to this country to attend our colleges; how many move here to attend our high schools?

  So Hammer, you raise valid criticisms of other attempted solutions. But other than favoring “local autonomy and school-based decisions” (such as we instituted at Marvin), do you have any suggestions about how to SOLVE the problems you so thoroughly catalog above?

• 12 Charles the Hammer // May 22, 2007 at 5:51 pm

  Mike Lyons, I’m glad you asked. In fact, I do have a few ideas about improving schools. This frank and open public forum is part of the essential task of engaging people in discussion about this very important matter.

  As I mentioned earlier, we are requiring schools to perform tasks for which they are ill suited. For example, our high schools have full service clinics called “school-based health centers”, we are engaged in providing federally subsidized meal programs for both breakfast and lunch, and we must discipline and socialize students in conduct that extends well beyond the requirements necessary for classroom instruction. Public schools have become the repositories of anachronistic “Great Society” expectations for equality of results rather than opportunity. Such peripheral activity and unrealistic notions dilute the limited resources required to elevate our youth. It is a question of trade-offs.

  Your comparison of using tax dollars to send children to whatever school you choose is incongruous with using tuition dollars to select a college. You are a resident of Connecticut, but would have no expectation of discounted residency in Colorado. Taxes are allocated not by how much you pay in for “your kids”, but rather by how we decide legislatively for the common good. For example, those without any children at all still contribute to public education and they benefit obliquely by living in free society of educated citizens. Should I be exempt from taxes that support the Firehouse because my house is not ablaze? That said, I think charter schools and magnet schools are good innovations. I am not opposed to the idea of school choice provided that any school accepting vouchers must then be governed by the massive regimen by which public schools are hamstrung.

  It is becoming increasingly difficult to exclude obstreperous students from the schools. The Connecticut General Assembly unanimously voted to eliminate out-of-school suspension. What could they be thinking?

  Now, we are faced with a strange and eclectic revision of grading rationale in the Norwalk schools that will lower rigor, allow late submission of assignments, mandate re-testing when a student scores below a “C”, and flatten non-performance by eliminating the zero as a grade.

  So here it is: Teachers should be permitted to teach and hold students to high standards without being micromanaged by arcane policies that strip them of discretion. Schools should focus on their traditional tasks. Students who are wildly disruptive must be excluded and those who are mildly so, strictly rebuked. The teachers and administrators who go the extra mile, who make the schools a life’s work, must be nurtured along with their students. Those advocating the abandonment of long standing and proven practice, the radical disregard for historical continuum, should be ignored in favor of those embracing strategies and work ethic that are timeless.

  Mr. Lyons I cannot accept the premise that schools are “generally failing”. If we take the long view, far more people graduate high school than ever in history. More go on to post-secondary education. This applies across the board for all minority groups. A greater percentage of our population is literate than ever before. Such broad upturns are evident in tremendous prosperity driving the economy. Let us not forget the remarkable success before us. I invite you to commencement at one of our high schools if you doubt the authenticity of my optimism. Despite the challenges before us, great things are happening each day.