More outrage on the education situation

[loyalsister]

This is totally messed up!! The thing about No Child Left Behind is that it's institutionalized discrimination. It is a complete mess for our city because we have an unusual high rate of children for whom English is a new language. It reduces the level of participation in testing, thereby reducing the eligibility for funding instantly. The multi-culturalism of this small city is incredible.
We have a small population 84,000, a large university with med school and law school and 2 smaller colleges. The ed. opportunities bring students from foreign countries who often bring their families. Our kids are gaining a great social education by meeting kids from all over the world and their formal education is going to be withheld because of it? Unbelievable!!! The worst thing is that it could breed resentment from Americans towards the families who are here studying. I would be so sad if it were no longer viewed as a positive thing to have a population with so many different cultures represented. I think it is one of the most wonderful things about my city.

http://www.digmo.com/news/story.php?ID=3423

[LWolf]

1. Where do I begin?

There are so many things wrong with NCLB that I could hijack the entire forum with threads.

Public education is in dire straits, folks. It's going down. You want to throw a life preserver? Contact your state and federal reps and rip them a new one over high-stakes testing. That would be a start.

My 25 year-old son called me last night to ask me how the first week of school is going. A typical answer: "The kids are great. This is what we're having to deal with." His response to me:

"Mom, I know you love your job. I know you really make a difference for kids. But it's time for you to get out. I can't stand to watch you go down with a sinking ship."

We then discussed the dearth of careers out there outside of teaching for people with teaching credentials. The number of people who already don't have jobs in this economy. Etc. His response:

"Go teach at an embassy school somewhere. Go to Canada. Just go. Get out."

I've considered an embassy school before. But I won't leave my horses behind, so that isn't really an option. I'm hanging in there awhile longer, hoping you voters will speak up and boot bush. And speak up about education and boot all the testocrats and public ed dictators. I'd like to be able to go back to spending my time evaluating and meeting kids' needs instead of complying with continous punitive mandates from people who've never taught and couldn't teach if they tried.

Of course, my son speaks for his mom, not for the future of public ed. He'll sacrifice my contribution to public ed for a chance at respect, common sense and decency, and peace of mind for his mom.

Meanwhile, Discovery Times Channel aired a show on the testing issue this week. Here's a thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=117&topic_id=665

[liberalhistorian]

3. My parents are retired teachers,

who retired several years early because they couldn't take it anymore, and they are SO glad they did! They especially hated working their asses off all the time for peanuts, and watching the administrators who sat back in their air-conditioned offices and who hadn't been in a classroom for years, give all these bullshit orders and getting paid three times as much for doing nothing. Then it's ALWAYS the teacher's fault no matter what, even if the kid was beaten before and after school, lived in a hovel, with parents who didn't understand school or didn't give a shit, and was lucky to eat one full meal a day. I could go on and on and on and on and on, but suffice it to say that I remain very glad that I didn't go into education myself! I wasn't about to put myself through forty years of the same shit I watched my parents go through all those years.

[Yupster]

2. Looks very familiar

Once Bush passed his education bills in Texas, our local papers throughout the state featured stories showing how each local school did compared to other local schools and also state averages. These stories are now a standard every year. Overall, I think it's been a positive thing to let parents know how the kids at their local school are learning compared to others.

Before that, all a parent had to go on was the kid's grade, and at least around here, grade inflation had made looking at grades worthless. Our local papaer had a story a year or so back that over 75 % of the letter grades given in elementary school were A's. Obviously in my town if your kid is an A student, it doesn't tell you a thing.

The part that doesn't sound familiar is the 95 % part. In Texas the biggest complaint against the test is that school districts will aggressively exempt their lowest kids from taking the test, thus instantly raising their school average. The 95 % rule appears to be an attempt to counter that.

[recidivist]

4. There is a better way.

Just voucher the danged schools and let parents enforce accountability through choice.

Yes, NCLB and high stakes testing pose some problems. But any honest analysis has to begin with an acknowledgement of why we find ourselves at this pass: dumbed down curricula; erosion of discipline; mass social promotion; graduates who can't read their diplomas; 40 million illiterate adults.

I live in D.C. where, according to the mayor, a third of the adults are functionally illiterate. I can believe it.

Urban public school systems have presided over a social catastrophe, and people are fed up. Those who can afford to, get out. The poor are stuck. Meanwhile, the educrats just say, "trust us, and we need more money." That doesn't wash anymore, especially in places like D.C., which is now spending over $12,000 a year per student to produced a 40% dropout rate and miserable test scores.

NCLB and standardized testing are actually "long-leash" reforms; all they say is: "Produce results, and you can do what you want. But we're going to measure the results." And so the educrats, who have been failing on a massive scale, pitch a fit about being evaluated.

It would be simpler to attack the other end of the problem. Give parents a choice. Let diversity bloom. People who don't like testing can have no-testing schools, and take their chances on their kids reading well enough to get a job. Parents who want rigorous academics can go the other route.

[library_max]

7. This is the same song, second verse

NCLB and vouchers are the same at the root. They are based on the assumption that politicians and other laypersons know more about education than educators. They are based on the assumption that teachers aren't really trying to educate students. They are based on a lot of insulting nonsense.

How are parents supposed to evaluate schools, except by test scores? Do you really expect the vast majority of the parents to understand how education works well enough to pick non-testing schools? Parents have been panicked by dropping-scores hype.

Vouchers simply create a caste system of schools. Because no school can take all the students (or even a lot more than it already has), the sought-after schools will take only the best and most motivated students. Eventually it sorts itself out into tiers. Great for the best and the brightest, hell on earth for the students nobody wants and/or whose parents don't care enough to voucher them around. The schools for those students turn into dumping grounds. Might as well put bars on the windows and hire guards instead of teachers.

[recidivist]

8. The bars are already on the windows ...

... of urban public schools all around the country. Do you think these places aren't already dumping grounds? I live in D.C., where the middle class is either in the suburbs or private schools already. They won't be coming back unless the public system is radically improved. Anyone who can afford to has already voted with his feet.

The bars are already on the windows. I want to let the poor kids out. You want to keep them trapped. Why?

[sybylla]

10. Because your local public schools suck

doesn't mean they all do. NCLB will crush the good with the bad and reduce them all to teaching the lowest common denomonator because that is exactly what the testing is about. The way NCLB will work, good students will leave the public schools and all that will be left will be the poor, the disadvantaged, the challenged, and minorities. It is bringing the educational system of many southern states to the whole country and doing it with our tax dollars.

NCLB isn't about making schools better; it is about privitization and greed, pure and simple.

[MassDem4Life]

9. no they are not

they are simply telling the educrats that we have let you institute reform after reform for thirty years, and nothing you have tried has worked, so nw We are going to monitor your progress through objective standards. This way we can compare your progress to other schools in the area. and the parents will be able to as well.

this hopefully will eliminate some of the obfuscation surrounding the educrats public statements.

[ulysses]

12. swear to god, if I hear another Democrat

advocate school vouchers, I will have to hurt something.

Unless you are going to guarantee enough funding in a voucher program to send every last child in America to a private school, and unless you are going to ensure that there are enough private schools in existance to accept every last child in America, vouchers will never be anything more than a political fix that does nothing except sound good on paper to people who've had a bad experience with public schools and consign millions of poor kids to even worse public schools than many of them have now.

:mad:

[recidivist]

14. You had better get used to it.

Here in D.C., which is the most Democratic major jurisdiction in America, the mayor, several members of the city council, and even the Washington Post have come out for a serious voucher experiment. African-Americans are the most Democratic block of voters in the country, and a significant majority of A.A.'s favor vouchers.

It's only a matter of time. I think the Democratic Party should lead the parade, not be trampled by it. But that would mean setting policy independently of a certain entrenched special interest ....

[ulysses]

15. ah yes

Another opportunity to slam the teachers' union. Why am I not surprised?

Wonder how long it'll take schools to recover from this little experiment...

[LizW]

5. NCLB is screwed up

I, too live in a very multicultural city. We have almost 10,000 students in the public school system, and over 40 different languages other than English spoken in homes. We also have a 20% transient rate (families moving in or out during the school year).

The arbitrary pass/fail of NCLB burns me up. I am a stay-at-home mother, and I spend 10+ hours a week helping out at my kid's schools. I know what goes on there and the fine job they are doing. Yet my younger son's school didn't "pass" under the rules of NCLB.

It gives the people who would like to kill off public education more ammunition to claim that public schools are "failing".:grr:

[recidivist]

6. A teacher friend's complaint about NCLB ....

A young friend of ours is a teacher with certifications in secondary social studies and special ed. I am in no position to evaluate her as a teacher, but from the tenor of her conversations on the subject and her overall competency factor, I suspect she's pretty solid.

She is currently sitting out a couple of years with young kids but was interested in a part-time slot for elementary level remedial math. She was told, however, that she didn't qualify under NCLB because she didn't have the appropriate credential. She freely acknowledged that she would not want to tackle higher level math, but elementary addition and subtraction were within her competence.

I sympathize with her complaint, but I observe that what we have here is the death of common sense. D.C. is among the school systems notorious for hiring teachers who could not themselves pass a tenth grade competency exam. And D.C. is not alone. We read again and again about adventures in teacher testing where staggering percentages of public school teachers, both veterans and recent ed school graduates, can't make the grade.

For decades, the powers that be in places like D.C. have swept this under the rug and hired the incompetents. I can only imagine the frustration of the good teachers ....

So now comes the backlash, in the form of an inflexible requirement that gets in the way of a perfectly capable young teacher. Obviously a better way would be to give principals more latitude in hiring and firing, backed up by giving parents the ability to vote with their feet. But that would mean shaking up the system, and that scares the deadwood. Hence the political resistance to reform.

[MassDem4Life]

13. 3 years ago, here in Mass.

60% of graduates from Ed Schools failed to pass a test that was on a 10th grade level at best, and yes I have seen the test.

After 3 retakes OF THE EXACT SAME TEST 41% STILL FAILED!!!!!

And you want these people at the head of a class? why?

and btw, the NEA did not berate the teachers or the college, they challenged the test, saying it was not fair to expect future teachers to have their entire careers based upon passing a test.

Even a truck driver has to pass a series of tests to drive, why should teachers be any different.

In 1996 the NEAHP did a survey of 3000 frshmen in teachers colleges across america. They asked what their SAT scores were. The average SAT score for these people was 1062 combined. The national average the same year was 1093.

The high was 1102, the low WAS 686!!!!! HOW THE HELL CAN YOU GET 686 ON THE SAT's? You get 400 points just for signing your name.

This person is a functional idiot, yet they were accepted into a school of education.

do you see the problem?

[uptohere]

11. the one thing I don't see mentioned after scanning this

is the lack of parental involvement with poor performing kids. No amount of money spent will replace parents that require effort and lovingly give the support kids (even "smart" ones) need to do well.

Sure, there are some bad teachers. There are a lot of terrific ones too. But even the best one cannot make that kid who's been deserted by his folks do well (at least without God's intervention, some kids excel despite the most horrible circunstances).

Find a way to change this and you'll see progress. Only answer I can see, and its not a good one, is to make those parents accountable but how can you do that except with legal/financial sanctions ? They have problems as it is, fining them is more trouble that they have show they won't do anything about.