In Bush's No Child Left Behind Law Leaves Certain Children Behind from Educational-Portal, a Chicago study scratches the surface.
Students who are considered to be on 'middle ground' had significant test score gains, but those who were in the top ten percent saw no change. The bottom 20 percent of students, on the other hand, actually lost ground in most cases. In fact, these students did better in 1998 before the 'No Child Left Behind Act' was passed.Not another taxpayer dollar needs to go into this mandate. It is as poisonous to children as the tsunami of lies Washington politicians shower Americans with every day.
Economist Derek A. Neal, who co-authored the study, concluded that teachers in the area surveyed are being forced to practice 'education triage' and focus their attention on children who are in the middle, thus passing over those at the top or those deemed to have little chance of improvement.
Let's make sure NCLB is allowed to expire for good. Let your political party know you've had enough.
4 comments:
Would you care to address AYP (Acceptable Yearly Progress) across all subgroups?
And how schools that fail to meet AYP may be subject to intervention?
And that one of the sub-groups is the "free and reduced lunch" group.
I have no real use for these metrics at all. The only Acceptable Yearly Progress worth measuring is that of the individual child and the individual teacher.
The very concept of judging 'schools' is a horrific joke. Is there any school anyone has attended where every administrator and every teacher and every child marched in lockstep progress? This is an expensive and dangerous fantasy none of us can afford.
The interventions that need to take place are these;
Elementary education must stress reading K-4. Every child must read and any child experiencing problems needs personal interventions that identify and remedy the problem. In these grades, any elementary K-4 classroom that exceeds 15 students must be illegal. And k-4 teachers must get continuous time and training to ensure every kid reads. Teachers who cannot show sufficient evidence that their kids read needs to find a different grade level. These kids must be fed well (and public schools already provide healthier diets than parents do).
In schools that have higher at-risk students, the students need to attend reading classes year round. Studies show that summertime reading activity constitutes a key intellectual reading spurt for middle and well-to-do students.
In upper grades (5-12), schools need to be right-sized - as small as can be economically sustained. Larger class sizes (25-30) are okay for certain subjects although at-risk populations can and must be allowed to benefit from smaller class sizes where necessary.
Public schools need to be able to fire poor teachers but the bar must exclude political, religious, or wingnut witch-hunts.
Today, good teachers doing their best in difficult environments get blamed and punished for trying. By teaching to standardized tests, few children benefit from the curriculum and the entire teaching profession is reduced to sheep herding.
The teachers we all remember in our lives are those who shared their passion for the individual with the individual. Teaching is far more effective when a teacher can guide each student to the next natural and appropriate level of intellectual maturity that student is ready for.
The idea that bozo politicians who whore, gamble, lie, and pervert everything sacred will dictate what any child must know is a heinous law. Children need less advice from Washington and more local common-sense. You might note that Bush's failed drug czars, virtue-thought-control policeman, preacher thieves, page molesters, anti-democratic legislators, torturers, friendly-fire sharpshooters, and thinly disguised plunderers will soon be run out of office despite the fact that they deserve jail-time with a massive taste of their own dystopic "medicine".
For too many years these vile bastards have commandeered America's public schools along the path of educational-immolation. The best intervention for public schools is for America to demand the prosecution and impeachment of every one of the Bush administration who has anything to do with education. Nobody is ever likely to forget these disgraceful years and and only the deranged will ever miss them.
- Frank Krasicki
Thanks for the reply.
Perhaps school vouchers would
accomplish all that in one stroke?
What we need is not school vouchers but teacher vouchers. Teacher contracts need to be structured to supply a minimum teacher wage, say $40k per year.
Above and beyond that parents should be able to have a voucher that they can reward teachers with in any combination they choose, 10% to this program or teacher, 30% to that, and so on.
Today we have a retiring teacher workforce that is stuck in the industrial revolution. They refuse to learn what's new and their unions are brain dead and intellectually flat-lining.
Schools do not have to advocate change, they have to swim with it, and teach students how to swim alongside.
We need smarter, more innovative and creative schools - AMERICAN, WILD, CHAOTIC, learning institutions.
I am personally sick to death of educational junkets by the Departments of Education to totalitarian regimes. We should never emulate that nonsense. We weren't the envy of the world because we torture, maim, dictate, ignore, and brainwash people.
We are better than that and we have to get back to being America the world's leader. We did that with generalists as teachers, not micro-managers.
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