Nclb

Parent Cafe
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<p>A lot of little comments on CC during the past week of so, made me do a some cursory googling on “No Child Left Behind { & untested}.”</p>

<p>My kid is now a senior in college, and did very well in P.HS; Consequently. we as his parents didn’t have much concern for the various public school improvement programs. In Oregon we have the CIM, (Certificate of Initial Mastery) to certify that students have met certain cerification standards to prospective employers, of "mastery of capability, by the time the student graduate or not graduate. CIM is supposedy more comprehensive to getting a diploma. This program was initiated in the mid 90’s and supposedly fully implemented in 2001 (?). I personally thought that the various student achievement programs meant alot of testing which was primarily designed for average child. </p>

<p>In Oregon, the vast majority of students are PS’ers, more are being home schooled, and private schools (mostly religious affiliated) are increasing enrollments.</p>

<p>My question, for professional educators and parents of recent and current HS’ers: Your thoughts, pro & con of NCLB.</p>

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<p>I think NCLB is detrimental to the education of most students. There is a real problem regarding how some students are abandoned by their school districts, but this law is not the solution. Among the many things wrong with this law, is that states with the lowest standards will reach compliance first…so it becomes an advantage to have lower standards, using standardized tests is the worse way to evaluate a student or a program. </p>

<p>Since our tests are given a full month before school gets out we have been told to skip chapter sections so our students get through all the chapters before the test. </p>

<p>The qualification of highly qualified teacher is a nightmare. The end result will be more good teachers leaving the profession while those who are willing to read scripted lessons according to the districts timetable will remain and education programs will become what we tried to avoid. No child left behind is beginning to mean no one progresses.</p>

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<p>Mr B: Your credentials, if you please.</p>

<p>Are (Is) the test(s) the same in all states? (I thought that a national testing program was shot down by the majority party during Clinton’s administration) </p>

<p>You are also saying that each district has its own level for compliance? Higher achieving districts have a higher bar?</p>

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<p>The testing is not the same in all states – each state can adopt its own tests, but all are required to test annually. Also, each state can adopt its own standards as to how the students are expected to do on the tests – i.e., what is considered “proficient” in one state is not the same as another. Most states uses standardized tests produced by a few major publishing companies, but a few have commissioned and developed their own tests. So Mr. B. is right - it is in a state’s interest to set its standards lower.</p>

<p>It gets a lot worse. The law mandates that schools must demonstrate improvement from year to year by showing improving rates of performance of all students in all identified subgroups. So what happening all over the country is that schools that are generally acknowledged to be excellent are deemed “failing” because of one subgroup which either doesn’t perform well enough or has too many kids missing the test – usually this is the special ed group. To demand that special ed students perform to a specified level of proficiency - set by their grade level – is a contradiction in terms, since in order to qualify for special ed, the student must be significantly behind – usually 2 years or more. So you have the catch-22 situation of a law that mandates that special ed students perform on a par with non-special ed students … when if they could do so, they wouldn’t need special ed. </p>

<p>It also forces teachers to teach to the test – drilling kids on what they think will be covered – to the detriment of everything else. </p>

<p>Most of the standardized tests uses are NOT designed to measure proficiency in any case - they are norm-referenced tests which are designed as a statistical way of measuring a school’s performance, not an individual student’s performance. A norm-referenced test is based on a percentiles – it gives a score based on how students perform in comparison to others. So a score of 45th percentile doesn’t tell anything about how well the student is doing in terms of that school’s curriculum – but rather tells us that the student has performed better than 45% of students nationwide (and on the tail end of the other 55%). Across the board, this can tell us that school X has students performing at the 56% percentile level, school Y has kids at the 62% level, and school Z has students peforming at the 43% level.</p>

<p>But since NCLB mandates that all students perform better and better each year - with a target date of 100% proficiency in something like 2011 (I’m not sure of the exact year) – the law essentially dictates that all schools must have students who perform above average. Of course this is a statistical impossibility. Not only is it impossible for the lower half of the bell curve to be eliminated – but if all the kids improved so much, the tests would have to be re-normed in order to remain valid as a measurement of school performance. </p>

<p>The law also labels schools with the lower scores as “failing” – pulls out funding and threatens them with closure. But the reality is that the difference between the school Y and school Z above may simply be in the students they have – perhaps school Z has more special ed students, or more ESL students. School Z might hypothetically have the best programs to serve these kids in the district — and school Y might house the gifted program – so it makes no sense for the kids in school Z to be offered the opportunity to transfer to school Y – the bottom line is that these two schools can’t be measured by the same standard because they don’t have the same kids. </p>

<p>The net result of NCLB isn’t that more kids are getting help - it is that more kids are dropping out. That’s because many states hold kids who score poorly back to repeat grades – and statistics show that kids who are held back have an increased drop out rate. There is almost a 100% drop out rate among kids who have been held back in school 2 or more years – and of course you can see why (how many 18 year od sophomores are going to stick things out another 2 years?). NCLB doesn’t force schools to hold kids back – but it creates an incentive to do so – because at least it puts the kids into a different grade level testing pool – the kid repeating 3rd grade will presumeably do better on the repeat 3rd grade test administration than he would do on the 4th grade test.</p>

<p>Anyway - here’s a link for you if you want more info:
<a href=“http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2005/pr050223.htm[/url]”>http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2005/pr050223.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Calmom: lovely analysis of the shortcomings of NCLB. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Schools (and testing policies) are embedded inside the larger society. To understand them, therefore, you have to put them in this larger context. If you remember that the initial impetus in this direction came from the National Business Roundtable, you begin to get a better picture.</p>

<p>The core need behind NCLB is to have a lot of kids fail. There is no need to make the schools “better” - certainly no one is going to put significant new revenues into schools that are struggling the most. No, there is a need for large numbers of failures. Indeed, the entire rhetoric behind NCLB, “higher standards”, is built around the notion that if all the kids are passing the tests, the standards aren’t high enough.</p>

<p>Why would you want a lot of kids to fail? Simple, really. The needs of the 21st century, as seen by business “leaders” are not for doctors (plenty coming from India), lawyers (plenty coming from Harvard), engineers (plenty coming from China), or computer specialists (plenty coming from everywhere), but for low-grade, low-paid service workers. Wal-Mart itself already employs 2 million workers - add the families of Wal-Mart employees to that, and the population of Wal-Mart is already larger than that of 37 separate states taken individually. And it is expected to double by 2008. Add McD’s and Burger King, etc. and you know what society’s needs are. </p>

<p>But how do you get these workers? The best way is to ensure a large supply of workers who are thankful for the work, ANY work, who won’t rebel, won’t organize, won’t expect health care, and who are easily replaceable. And who will blame themselves for their low station in life. It is also helpful to taxpayers to think that they won’t have to help subsidize these folks college educations.</p>

<p>The precursors to NCLB were sold to states on the assumption that the tests weren’t about children at all, but about evaluating school quality. No one believes that anymore. And if too many kids pass the test, it must be because the standards are too low, and don’t equip kids “to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.” For the real challenge of the 21st Century is how to lower the expectations of the average citizen without having him/her rebel.</p>

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<p>itstoomuch, it you are going to ask for others creditionals, please share your own, its only fair,</p>

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<p>There are cross currents, too. When John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie & Co., through the University of Chicago and Columbia Teachers College, etc. molded the shape of modern education that exists to this day, they were mainly concerned with, as above, ensuring a supply of malleable, non-demanding workers, but also in offloading their training needs onto the workers themselves (so they themselves wouldn’t have to pay for it.) Pretty successful in that regard.</p>

<p>But one thing they hadn’t considered was education as a profit center. There’s huge amounts of money to be made there, but the big money is in moving education back out of the public sector (where Rockefeller and Carnegie wanted it), and back into the private sector, where “education” (and child care) and be bought or sold like any other commodity. The problem is that in order for the public to demand this happen, there needs to be continuing demonstration that the public sector can’t do the job. (No demonstration is needed that the private sector can.) There’s only one way to do this - create lots and lots and lots of failures. Of course, no one “who counts” believes that their own schools are lousy, only those where other people send their kids to school. But other parents’ kids have to fail, and in very large numbers, so that corporate America can go in and “save” them. </p>

<p>And if they aren’t saved, well, as above, they got what they deserved. As Calmom notes, more and more kids drop out (or are forced out) as a result of NCLB. That’s the whole point!</p>

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<p>Just a couple of thoughts: My impression after attending many a workshop concerning vocational-technical education at the public school level, is not that businesses are looking for the “any work will do” type, but rather the technically trained worker. Moreover, I have heard time and again that high school students do not have the skills to read and decode manuals, cannot write work orders, cannot communicate effectively with the people they are serving in our increasingly service-oriented economy. </p>

<p>There is clearly a need to improve schools, but I do NOT favor constant testing and I think NCLB misses the mark in many ways. Calmom is so right that many special ed students simply cannot meet the standards set for them. I think we will see further watering-down of standards, and alternate testing/portfolio models soon, as NCLB developers begin to see that there is no way this present system is going to result in 100% success.</p>

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<p>My credentials, as per your request…I have had teaching credentials in New York, Hawaii, and now California. I hold a BS (Economics) from Cornell and a MS in Elementary Education from the College of St. Rose. I also hold assorted certifications for completing specialized science, math and reading courses. </p>

<p>One of the side disadvantages of this law has been the increased amount of tension and stress between some teachers and principals. When you have a teacher who is concerned with the well being and long term interest of each student and a principal who has been hired to increase test scores at the school, it can get very uncomfortable. In our district the standard you are teaching must be written out on the board and teachers are frequently chastised for teaching anything else. Where in the past, a teacher might have been praised for recognizing a teachable moment; today, they would be scolded for moving off the message. Many of our schools best teachers retired five years early to avoid the impacts of NCLB.</p>

<p>Incidentally, to be a highly qualified PE teacher in California, my friends have to pass the three CLAD exams. While the CLAD course is useful the tests are not valid (do not reliably indicate understanding or reliability) for most teachers. I am not allowed to divulge questions but could tell you that some of the answers are based on 1980 and 1990 census data, not 2000. So people who are aware of current data are disadvantaged as are people don’t even have their own experience to draw from because they weren’t not born in 1980. </p>

<p>One last comment about standards…when we can only teach the math formula, but cannot relate it to the music, the history and the art of people, we are short changing our students. California school libraries are in general pityful because there is less need for books in a school that focuses on basal reading programs. </p>

<p>IF the federal government approached resturants the way they approach schools. Every restuarant in a state would have the same microwave meal and all the good chefs would leave.</p>

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<p>I have no credentials in the educational field. I currently building a business in financial services and have some issues in educating my associates and clients.</p>

<p>I am 55, have had several major career changes, married 30 years (close to it anyway), son going to legacy school of andrew carnegie and his banker, mellon.</p>

<p>What started this line of inquiry, was in another thread on “younger-older child in class” where I mentioned that our son skipped (thus younger in his HS) and where I had dated a girl who skipped two grades (in my HS graduating class) and who went to NW (another thread where student wanted to know how parents found their current career). Did some googling, found her, read some of her papers and drew a line that she had some influence in NCLB. Mini, commented (Hiliary thread) about "no child left ‘untested’ " All of this was catalyzed by too much virtual whiskey and smoke at the sinners alley, a fall off a ladder, and generally uninterested in the other threads.</p>

<p>Your statement of credentials need not be extensive. What I’m inquiring is whether you have a child in HS, College, your experience as parent or professional educator, politician, researcher. </p>

<p>I am mostly a good listener and take all arguments equally. I then stew in pot, taste, and season as necessary.</p>

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<p>Please give a full wordage for technical terms as CLAD.</p>

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<p>Itstoomuch,
Certificates of Initial Mastery surfaced in some ugly programs known as School-to-Work, America 2000, and Goals 2000. Most of these programs had most of their funding cut after 9-11. Do you mean to say that C.I.M.s have surfaced again as part of NCLB? Did your son receive a regular diploma as well?</p>

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<p>istoomuch, I am an educational writer (among other things) with specific interest in the field of learning disabilities. Also trained as a lawyer - which helps me when it comes to reading a law. I recently wrote a book which had a chapter on various laws such as NCLB and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act), ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act and 504 (Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973). As you can see from my post above, my primary focus has been with the way NCLB impacts special ed students - or students who have learning disabilities whether or not they qualify for special ed. Many kids with ld’s actually are also gifted; they tend to learn poorly with traditional methods such as rote learning, memorization, drill - and to learn well with hands-on, exploratory approaches - and they really benefit from integration of arts (where they tend to excel) with the other curriculum. </p>

<p>I also live in the SF bay area, so I am very aware of the very large number of ESL students in urban California schools, where typically districts must serve students coming from dozens of linguistic backgrounds. It is ridiculous to expect a youngster to do particularly well in a test that is not in his native language – even after he becomes reasonably fluent, it will be many years before he is able to read the questions & answers and respond as quickly as the native speakers, and the multiple choice format is particularly tricky because of small nuances in language that are easy to miss. Of course, this also applies to the LD students as well. </p>

<p>I suppose that many of the NCLB issues could be addressed by exempting ESL and LD students from its provisions. Parents of ESL & LD students do want standards, too - they don’t want their kids’ classes dumbed down or their kids ignored – but at least these kids need a different path for testing, with appropriate accommodations.</p>

<p>I agree with Mini about the net effect of the law, though I don’t necessarily agree that to be the intent. I don’t really see NCLB as representing a uniform, nefarious agenda, either to create low level workers or to undermine the public school system – but rather as a bad law that was enacted because it had elements that were attractive to people with many different agendas – which is probably how most laws get enacted. Conservatives favored it because they saw it as imposing more accountability on school systems that seemed to be going awry with experiments like fuzzy math (“write about how you feel when doing this problem”) … and liberals favored it because it promised to give poor kids a way out of their dismal, inner city schools – the law does have a provision that requires states to fund private tutoring for poor kids in schools deemed failing. (A boon for the private tutoring industry, by the way - outfits like Sylvan Learning).</p>

<p>I see NCLB more as the “educational publishers welfare act” - because it basically funnels a lot of money into the coffers of the companies that design the tests. The test publishers also are or have close ties with text book publishers - the kind of publishers who put out basal readers – so they have a very strong interest in seeing more rigid adherence to book-based curriculums, more need for supplemental materials like workbooks, and more tests. For example, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills is a product of Riverside Publishing, which in turn is owned by Houghton Mifflin, a leading text book publisher. Testing means $$ to them and they have lobbyists in Washington just like any other corporate group pushing their agenda.</p>

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<p>willow: forget about CIM. I only mentioned it because I am only slightly more familiar with it than NCLB. Our kid earned an IB diploma, what other diploma and certification he received is irrevelant to our other concerns has exploring things, keeping a open perspective. </p>

<p>I have no idea how CIM relates to NCLB other than there seems to be a lot of testing. That is one of the lines of questions that I am exploring. </p>

<p>your credentials please.</p>

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<p>IMHO, credentials does not make one an expert. Likewise the lack of credentials does not make one ignorant. I am trying to establish where you are coming from when you making your comments.</p>

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<p>“I agree with Mini about the net effect of the law, though I don’t necessarily agree that to be the intent. I don’t really see NCLB as representing a uniform, nefarious agenda, either to create low level workers or to undermine the public school system – but rather as a bad law that was enacted because it had elements that were attractive to people with many different agendas – which is probably how most laws get enacted. Conservatives favored it because they saw it as imposing more accountability on school systems that seemed to be going awry with experiments like fuzzy math (“write about how you feel when doing this problem”) … and liberals favored it because it promised to give poor kids a way out of their dismal, inner city schools – the law does have a provision that requires states to fund private tutoring for poor kids in schools deemed failing.”</p>

<p>I think you’d miss the agenda (and it is no more “nefarious” than the agenda by which the modern school system was set up to begin with) if you take it out of its historical context, which begins at meetings of the Business Roundtable and the Hudson Institute held in the mid- to-late '80s. I don’t know why you’d view “meeting the needs of the 21st Century” as nefarious. But, as I noted, the agenda, even within the context of the business community, is not uniform.</p>

<p>I think there is an “Occam’s Razor” for complex social systems, and that is, always use as your first hypothesis that the result obtained is the intended one. If the result is lots of failing kids, and lots of dropouts, the burden is to prove, not as a matter of mere rhetoric but as a matter of action, that this isn’t what was intended, before going on to consider other, less likely alternatives.</p>

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<p>Mini, the context you have to keep in mind is the legislative process – which as we all know is kind of like making sausage. Nothing gets through Congress without passing both houses, and no piece of legislation even gets onto the floor without passing through committees in the respective houses, where various amendments, changes & riders tend to be made. So no matter what the “agenda” of whoever first proposed the law, what ultimately gets passed is often a very different animal. There is also a “law” of unintended consquences. </p>

<p>I understand where you are coming from - but resorting to citations of Occam’s Razor and the like is an intellectual shortcut. Makes for a nice argument but in the end its a rationalization for not thinking things through. Worse – it leaves you in a corner with no way out. If the law was passed because big business wants kids to fail and work in low-wage service jobs – and all of our people in congress are merely tools for big business – then there is not much likelihood of change. If, on the other hand, it was voted into law by senators & representative who thought it would improve education for poor kids in their states … and the law is having the opposite effect – then its likely that the people who voted for the law will favor reform.</p>

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<p>But rhetoric can change too - instead of saying you are preparing students for low-wage service jobs, you can say that you are preparing THOSE OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS for an expanding, vibrant service sector that will reflect the needs of a new and changing America in future years, and the continued growth and health of the American economy that is the envy of the world! YEAH! The legislators don’t, for the most part, send their own kids to public schools, and, on the whole, middle class white voters are becoming less and less likely to do so. In the South, that process started 35 years ago, but the rest of the country is catching up. It’s all about “other people’s kids”. Oh, and they all have jobs with health insurance.</p>

<p>As for tools - well, the reality is that the shape of public education hasn’t changed much since John D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago, and the first graduate school of education, and if you read the foundation documents, it is explicitly clear what he had in mind. </p>

<p>You’re right, though, it leaves you in a corner with no way out. Which is why we will see more and more drives for the privatization of what remains of public education, more scapegoating of schoolteachers, less money in the budgets, more efforts to cap property taxes, more takeovers of “failing schools”, greater “standardization”, and more kids “failing” and dropping out. We are seeing that already, but I would bet on an acceleration. In other words, there will be changes, but not of the type you are imagining.</p>

<p>Your explanation would assume that observable data are in fact an aberration, and that the conditions that produced them are (politically) self-correcting. Since the drive to NCLB and its predecessors were embraced overwhelmingly by both Democrats and Republicans alike, I see no evidence for it, but would love to be happily surprised.</p>

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<p>he Problems with No Child Left Behind
Monday, April 5, 2004
By M arty Solomon</p>