<p>Citygirlsmom: Your credentials, if you please. Your’s a higher schooler, college student?</p>
<p>Interesting. As any good researcher will state: More data needs to be collected and interpreted before a conclusion can be proscrided.</p>
<p>Everyone, more, please. At least I can understand some of your comments, although everyones’ level of writing seems to be college level. Dumb down to 11 grade,</p>
<p>Joke. Everybody’s OK.</p>
<p>I imagine that NCLB applies only to public schools?</p>
<p>Yes - it only applied to public schools – which of course is one more problem with the law, to the extent that it puts constraints on the curriculum.</p>
<p>For the well-to-do – it is one more law for “everybody else’s kid”.</p>
<p>Despite Mini’s comments, I do think that there are problems with public schools, and many parents, teachers, and employers are rightfully concerned about kids who are passed from year to year and graduate without even rudimentary skills. Minority families in low-income areas are some of the most ardent supporters of increased standards and school vouchers – they see the reality of public schools essentially warehousing their kids without educating them.</p>
<p>And parents of kids with LD’s are frustrated when their kids are similarly shuttled off to special ed classroom with lowered expectations and dumbed down curriculums, when with proper help and accommodations the kids have the same potential as any others. </p>
<p>So the impetus for standards and school reform is driven in significant part by the parents of kids who are in public schools that truly are “failing” and need drastic improvement.</p>
<p>I think the vast majority of parents would favor some kind of law that holds teachers and schools accountable – it’s just that this law doesn’t work.</p>
<p>My experience has been very different from that which many people espouse. First, I went from a private school to public in 4th grade, and was one year behind in math and science. My friend’s D just graduated from a private Christian school, and her reading abilities are weak, to say the least. However, she kept getting wonderful grades, because the school wanted the tuititon! Oh, sure, if you are talking about private prep schools…but there are many out there that don’t educate to the level of the public schools in out area. So, please don’t lump all public schools together or all private schools together. But that is what nclb does. Yet, states set individual standards. We have been testing for many years in our district and have always done well. Now, we are becoming more diversified, and test results have dropped. Whenever a HS in our area gets the Blue Ribbon rating, minorities move in, and the schools’s test results go down. The groups move from Blue Ribbon school to Blue Ribbon school. These parents think that just dropping their kids into that school will solve the problems with their kids without any involvement on the part of the parents. Many middle and upper class schools do so well because they parents are involved in the child’s education - pre-K, etc. They are prepared, etc. Many of the schools in our area have now started programs for the parents! And the level of involvement is minimal even though they offer babysitting services, food, etc., to get the parents to come. As to accountability of schools and teachers - yes, there are some bad teachers out there. But the vast majority really care and do their jobs. It’s just that funding makes their time limited. Classes are overflowing, conference periods are being cut, and good teachers want to not just teach the subject, but enrich and challenge their kids. NCLB does not allow for creativity or thinking. It is teaching rote, minimal skills. The talented student doesn’t have to worry - the tests are easy for them. Those kids in our school say they couldn’t understand how anyone can fail. Yet, a kid who doesn’t speak English well, how can they pass? And special ed? Please!!! Many teachers think that this is a move to eliminate them eventually - teachers’ salaries are the largest budget line item for a district, and replace them with videos, etc., with teacher’s aides to babysit the kids. The best teachers are looking to go elsewhere. I recently took the principal’s test after taking classes at a top private uni in our area - long test, lots of reading. English native speakers passed- non native speakers didn’t. The prof and I were talking after the test, and he asked how it went, etc., and what I thought. He said that he didn’t know what to do about those that had taken the test 4 times and couldn’t pass, because English was not their native language. Nuances in the language changed the answers dramatically. So, tests aren’t always the best means for determining if someone can do the job. These were experienced teachers, who in class performed beautifully, and yet, couldn’t pass this reading marathon type of test. I don’t know the answers to all this, but nclb isn’t the answer. I am a teacher, also.</p>
<p>Occam’s Razor = ~KISS principle. Shortest line between two points is the shortest line. etc.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_Razor">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_Razor</a></p>
<p>evitajr: teacher of what and for how long, and what type of environment? Do you have kids?</p>
<p>What GWB’s Faith Based programs affect private schools’ programs? Other word, Does any NCLB $ go to private schools?</p>
<p>Evitajr1:
Why are special ed teachers feel jeopardized? They should be the most valuable in raising the LD level.</p>
<p>NCLB money can go to private after-school tutoring programs to help with basic skills. Basically there is a system in place where a private agency fills out an application to be included on a list of approved tutoring programs - the program must meet certain standards in terms of what it teaches & method used. </p>
<p>Low income students who are attending schools designated “failing” can select a program from their state’s list and use the tutoring. </p>
<p>If you want to know where the money goes, there’s a report out of George Mason University here:
<a href=“http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/epru_2005_Research_Writing.htm[/url]”>http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/epru_2005_Research_Writing.htm</a></p>
<p>(Click the link to the 5- page “Executive Summary” and/or the 3 page “Press Release” first – I had problems downloading the full report which I think runs to more than 50 pages. )</p>
<p>One thing the report says is that of the 25 agencies that most often are listed as receiving the money, 23 are for-profits. The only non-profits are Boys & Girls Club & YMCA, which rank 19th & 23rd on the list. Also that $2 billion/year goes to those agencies, and that unlike the public school teachers, they are not required to meet any standards as to qualification of their staff.</p>
<p>"Many teachers think that this is a move to eliminate them eventually - teachers’ salaries are the largest budget line item for a district, and replace them with videos, etc., with teacher’s aides to babysit the kids. The best teachers are looking to go elsewhere.'</p>
<p>Actually, there is an active move in this direction, but it is worse than you think. Under the rubric of “master teachers”, the idea is to train a single teacher (and pay her well!) to supervise 5-10 paraprofessionals who work in the classroom (where there are no teachers.) In Georgia, for almost 5 years now, they have been experimenting with this idea, employing non-college graduates with no teaching experience to work in the classrooms, under the supervision of the master teacher. The results? Test scores show no difference between classrooms where there are certified teachers and those where there are non-college educated paraprofessionals under master teacher supervision.</p>
<p>Slowly but surely, if I am correct, much of this will be moot. Once significant portions of public education go to the private sector as new profit centers, they will never return. If Calmom is right, the system will self-correct. If I’m correct, it won’t even have the ability to. We’ll just have to see.</p>
<p>pondering. Its alot of information.</p>
<p>Seattle Times</p>
<p>Assembly votes to override No Child Left Behind</p>
<p>By TOM BALDWIN
Gannett State Bureau </p>
<p>TRENTON – The state Assembly voted Monday to tell school officials that New Jersey academic goals take priority over the federal “No Child Left Behind” law, but only after Republicans rose to defend Washington’s program that critics say is underfunded.</p>
<p>“We need to follow our state mandates as long as the federal funds are not there,” said Assemblyman Douglas Fisher, D-Bridgeton, one of the bill’s sponsors."</p>
<p>So New Jersey, find the program difficult, with no funding, so does Utah, Connecticut</p>
<p>“Menendez singled out education cuts. He noted that the bill cuts funding for initiatives created under the No Child Left Behind Act, one of Bush’s proudest achievements, by more than $800 million from last year.”</p>
<p>“But new demands, including $870 million to administer the new Medicare prescription-drug program, forced cuts in scores of programs. The bill also provides money for two big priorities of the conservative movement: faith-based community outreach and abstinence education.”</p>
<p>In my school, we have lost a librarian, art teacher and administrator positions that provided counseling services…all this money is headed toward drill and kill special remedial sessions. Three hours of English, two hours of math and one period of gym does not make for a world class education. We might do better to spend a little money up front on a monthly magazine to pre-school parents to help them develop child rearing habits that will set the child up for success in school.</p>
<p>Treating the patient for one sympton (low test scores) without regard to the side effects (reduced opportunites to explore a world of culture and science and a an increased detachment from school) is a prescription for disaster.</p>
<p>Children should look forward to school, to learning how to investigate and solve a problem…NCLB is meeting its insidious intention - sabotaging the public school education system.</p>
<p>At the coast today for a quick trip to mow a lawn. Darn Oregon weather has made the grass grow. Using the library’s computer. Thankyou Bill G. </p>
<p>? Am I correct in assuming that there is NOT a good survey of private schools for student achievement and effectiveness?</p>
<p>Does NCLB apply only to Title 1 Schools? Or does NCLB apply to the entire district?</p>
<p>From my reading, NCLB also is applied to ethic groups within a school. Each group must make an improvement, Am I correct?</p>
<p>NCLB applies to all schools, but the teeth for enforcement lie in the Title I funds. The federal government has no jurisdiction whatsoever to tell states what they can do in their schools, outside of constitutional concerns like due process & equal protection. But the feds can withhold money, and Title I is the biggest and most significant source of federal money the schools rely on. </p>
<p>The funding issue is one reason some states are pulling out. NCLB also included federal funds to pay for all the testing – but that funding has not been authorized. So now states have to pay out $X on their own in order to preserve $Y in federal funding – but if X > Y then its better to opt out. </p>
<p>And yes, all subgroups (including ethnic groups) must show improvement.</p>
<p>For ethnic groups:
Suppose an ethnic group already has a very high achievement level; Staying static or slightly slipping would be a more likely outcome than improving scores, because the increasing effort in resources to make that improvement is too great for a school to manage. Is this correct? </p>
<p>Suppose a different ethnic group who has lower achievement; If, same amount of effort that was applied to the higher group, was applied to the lower group, a much greater probability of improvement and higher achievements would be expected. Is this not correct?</p>
<p>The end result of the combination of the two, would be averaging affect. The brigher group would be losing resources and will leave the system, lowering the overall achievement of the school even though the lower group would be performing higher. Am I correct?</p>
<p>I’m not sure I follow you. The problem is that NCLB doesn’t average the scores - if a school has 10 subgroups, and 1 subgroup fails to make required improvement, or merely fails to have requisite number of the group participating in the testing, then the school is deemed “failing” under NCLB. It is true that the school would need to expend its resources on the group least likely to improve without the help. And you are correct that the whole idea of “improvement” is misguided, especially when schools rely on norm referenced tests. </p>
<p>I think the more likely impetus driving higher performing students away will be the labeling – the higher performing students are more likely to have highly involved parents who do not want their children at “failing” schools – those are the parents who would be most likely to opt for another school when given the opportunity.</p>
<p>? The re-norming downward, would leave the school either better off in terms of NCLB because the failing ethnic minority group would become the passing numerical majority, ethnic minority? But the school overall has been dumbdown.</p>
<p>Whatever the case, it would seem that NCLB accelerates the flight into private, and parochial schools? (shades of Islamic education system?)</p>
<p>The general perception of NCLB, at least among those who oppose it, is that it was passed with the ultimate goal of doing exactly that - accelerating the flight into private & parochial schools, and paving the way for a voucher system. </p>
<p>Step one is to increase perception that public schools are failing and that the solution is to attend a different school. Step two will be the shortage of spaces available at public schools to accommodate students granted the right by law to depart from “failing schools” – and step three would be the introduction of the vouchers so that the kids would have somewhere to go. In theory. But of course there is no system of testing in place for the privates, so there is no particular likelihood that they are in any way better. </p>
<p>More likely will be that NCLB drives more well-to-do families toward private schooling because they get disgusted with the teach-to-the-test and overall dumbed down and boring aspects of the public school… with or without vouchers.</p>