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<p><a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625192,00.html?internalid=AOT_h_05-24-2007_how_to_fix_no_c[/url]”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625192,00.html?internalid=AOT_h_05-24-2007_how_to_fix_no_c</a></p>
<p>I don’t have any numbers or anything, but by casual observation I don’t really think it’s “working” insanely well or anything. Which isn’t that far off logic to me, but maybe I’m crazy, I don’t know. </p>
<p>I came from a school that went from being in danger and “failing” (this was before NCLB though, but our state has always had high stakes tests, NCLB has made it even worse), to pass, under a new principal. This was achieved by many unconventional methods, such as taking all 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and dividing them into ability groups for reading, math, and writing. This pulled in more faculty including special education teachers, etc, for these groups and ultimately lowered the amount of students per teacher. However this is unconventional here. There were also groups that met every few weeks throughout the year that were 1st-6th graders, assigned to a pair of teachers, in order to do cultural enrichment activities that reinforced a variety of classroom skills at all levels (the idea being something of the Montessori variety of learning by doing, and older helping younger/younger striving to be like older). These methods, and some other methods that have since been introduced (principal pushed to start a Chinese program where the kids would study the language beginning in 1st grade, ongoing currently) have been very successful in meeting both the school’s needs and a lot of individual needs as well. Even if these some of these kids don’t/can’t go to 4 year universities, they have the chance to end up trilingual (as some spoke a language at home other than English). This has potential to give them more of an edge in the workplace I would imagine. </p>
<p>Trouble is, with NCLB, unconventional methods do not seem to be able to be pursued as much. There is too much at stake. Some principal comes up with these great ideas like my former principal did, but they can’t try them because there is too much at stake. In addition, there is only a year to “see results”, really, with these types of tests (meeting AYP). But this, to me, seems unrealistic. In some cases progress will take longer than a year and in the meantime programs that can potentially benefit the student population greatly cannot go forward until AYP is met, but without such programs, the liklihood of it being met is lessened. Vicious cycle, the way I see it, not to even mention the funding issues. No change is enacted and they are stuck in a cycle of rote memorization and “teaching to the test” as best they can, almost futilely in some cases. </p>
<p>The idea in theory is not so bad but I just think we have become almost paranoid to the point where there is this force negatively controlling almost all activity in education. And I believe people are starting to resort to things not in our best interest. We had the story of a principal here who took all “high risk” minority kids (because the tracking of progress breaks down subgroups by race) and then forced the teachers to divide them into “able to pass” and “possibly able to pass” and “not able to pass”, so that all efforts could be automatically targeted to the middle group. I was sad. It almost reminds me of Mao’s China duing the Great Leap Forward where provincial leaders exaggerated harvest numbers using less than straightforward methods, so he would keep them in his favor, but then the GLF was seen as working when it really wasn’t. But the stakes are so high, it seems like you have to do anything to pretend it is working, because that is what they want to hear. Of course maybe (hopefully) the effects will be less drastic than they were after the GLF.</p>