Face to Face with No Child Left Behind
Published May 21, 2009 @ 09:48AM PT
Public school parents have a huge stake in their children’s education and therefore in the laws that govern the schools their children attend. As an engaged and concerned parent myself, I had the privilege of serving on my local school board in Richardson ISD (TX) from 1997-2006.
It was the era of No Child Left Behind, following what was labeled the “Texas Miracle” –accountability based on state standards and a state-mandated test, followed by ratings for schools. Former Texas Governor and President George Bush took the Texas experience to Washington, D.C., and Congress authorized the NCLB Act in 2001. A new theme of accountability was ushered in, utilizing both federal and state measurements.
For local school boards, charged with implementing the new NCLB law, the water was murky and sometimes seemed to change to quicksand. Criticize the law, and you were tagged as not wanting to be accountable to the taxpayers for the money they invest in public education and for student learning. Defend the law, and you were accused of wanting to turn students into robots who could only take multiple choice tests as opposed to thinking critically and being creative thinkers and doers. Parents in my school district were mixed on the whole issue. They did not want schools to graduate robots, but they also strongly wanted the highest and best state and federal ratings for their schools. They wanted academic success as well as the prime real estate values that come from that success.
Several other issues were stand-outs in the implementation of the NCLB law. For starters, it was another unfunded mandate from government. The requirements of the law called for the expenditure of more time, paperwork, record-keeping, and staff. And enter attorneys in order to interpret whether or not we were correctly following the law. Since the law did not come with the funds needed and promised, this became a huge issue in school district budgets.
The highly-qualified teacher portion of the law pitted younger teachers against veteran teachers, many of whom had to reprove their worthiness to teach –after years of having already proven it in the classroom. It wasn’t good for teacher morale. It would have been preferable to grandfather in those veteran teachers who had already proven their value over the years.
Another challenge was that the state and federal standards and assessments didn’t exactly fit like a glove. Schools that were at the highest state rating could fail to reach Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) at the federal level. Confusing to parents, community, and taxpayers? You bet, and the phone calls ensued to school boards, asking for an explanation. There was no explanation, other than the fact that state and national standards/measurements were in conflict.
But perhaps the biggest travesty of all involved the most challenged and vulnerable students in the school district – children with physical and mental disabilities – which in some cases included those who could not even sit up. Sure, there was a provision in the NCLB law that allowed districts to exclude a certain percentage of special education students. But it had no relation to the number of special education students in the district. As a result, some children had to take the test who should have never been required to. It was cruel and unusual punishment. And it should never have happened.
As we come to the time that the NCLB law can be revisited and changed to reflect the things we have learned, some questions bear asking. Education Secretary Duncan and Congress, are you listening?
If Congress requires school districts to operate under NCLB, they should allocate the money to do it. It’s not fair for districts to have to use their basic budget when it’s needed to pay teacher salaries. And the law should clearly do nothing to alienate teachers –we have enough of a shortage without that.
State and federal standards and ratings should be reconciled and relieve the conflict between them. Otherwise, the public will have no confidence in either system.
We should all be for accountability. It doesn’t make sense to take taxpayers’ money and then not tell them the results. But we don’t have to graduate robots in order to be accountable, and someone needs to figure this out. Graduates of the 21st century need to be able to think critically and adapt to constant changes. They need more exposure to foreign languages and the arts. We must find appropriate ways to measure the attributes of the graduates we want.
And for goodness sakes, please figure out which students should not be required to take mandated tests. We do not have to test overly vulnerable children in order to show we’re doing the job. We can certainly be accountable and show progress without resorting to what amounts to a traumatic experience for some children.
Is it too much to ask the law to live up to its worthy name?
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Anne is the Executive Director of Parents for Public Schools, a national organization of community based chapters working with public school parents and other supporters to improve and strengthen local schools.
Well written! This is exactly what an article about NCLB should be about - our kids and families and how this directly affects them.
Posted by Doug Wells on 05/21/2009 @ 10:57AM PT
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Thank you for writing. I believe that the laws that govern our schools too often have unintended consequences that educators and parents are left to grapple with. How radical is it that Congress and state Legislatures should take more testimony from the people who will be affected, before they pass laws? In addition, anything as massive a change as NCLB should come with an established process for review to correct things that are not working --without waiting years to do so.
Posted by Anne Foster on 05/21/2009 @ 11:29AM PT
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Due to the many reasons you stated and many more, NCLB was a long and protracted train wreck of a policy. If anything it made things worse. As you said, critical thinking is something that our children need to compete in this century. They need functional knowlege and the ability to understand new ideas.
NCLB has become nothing more then rote memorization and how to take a multiple choice test. There is no teaching going on, only memorizing facts without understanding them, understanding why its important, and no fostering of an actual interest in learning. If anything NCLB is turning our children off from learning and school, if you have a parent that is less involved, no matter the reason, NCLB is an almost gaurenteed recipie for bored kids and drop outs.
Worse yet, because of NCLB and other issues, the door has been flung wide to introduce things that have no business in the classroom, or removing those things that should be there. See the Texas SBOE's current war on science and social studies.
NCLB was a great idea, but great ideas don't mean anything if they are implemented in a hap-hazard, Half-assed, and ignorant way.
Posted by Damon Ballard on 05/21/2009 @ 02:12PM PT
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Thank you for your thoughts. Ironically, a law that was supposed to move the education process forward has actually worked against many expectations for learning in the 21st century -- like problem solving, adapting to constant change, analyzing, innovating, and creating --all attributes that our graduates will need in the future in order to navigate their world. There has been alot of talk in education circles about the need for relevance in our curriculum. I think you pointed to this in your comments about bored kids. Perhaps the pendulum has swung far enough now that we will come back the other way now and rethink our goals. I do believe that we can be accountable for learning and results and still give our students the education they need and deserve.
Posted by Anne Foster on 05/21/2009 @ 02:28PM PT
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That is something that I was inferring. I was also referring to the 'smart' kids that are themselves being 'left behind' by a system that is designed to only locate and focus on the slower learners leaving those kids that actually 'get it' in class to be pushed aside under some mistaken idea that since they're smart they'll push themselves.
Kids are kids no matter how smart, they are not mature enough to necessarily smart decision about their future. A smart kid in a class going over the same thing for the nth time is bored, especially when they're being loaded with hours of homework they don't need which is designed to reinforce a concept they already have mastered the first and second time it was presented.
I don't mean to say that homework is not important, it can be, but how it is currently used is almost abusive. If a child is able to master the subject in class and prove that on a test without the homework then the homework is unnecessary. A small amount of homework is fine, but the levels my nieces and nephews bring home is insane, and the levels my daughter is expected to bring home is ludicrous.
There is a major disconnect in the education system, more work does not equal a good education. Kids need time to be kids, and when school takes away their ability to be kids, what motivation is there for them to pay attention in school. Which goes back to the homework issue, as a kid, if you're going to be spending all night after school on school, why pay attention while you're there.
Posted by Damon Ballard on 05/21/2009 @ 04:36PM PT
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Damon, thanks for your continued comments. I agree with you that homework for the sake of homework is not good. It should be designed to re-enforce the learning that is taking place is class and should have a positive outcome. I also agree that kids need time to be kids --but that's a whole separate discussion that includes the reality of over-scheduled children in every area of their lives, not just school.
While I agree with you that every child should be challenged in school with the highest level of competency that they are capable of, I have also seen parents decide that their children are not challenged simply because there are also students who are at a lower academic level than their child. I have experienced schools that are successful with all levels of student learning. That is not only what public schools should do, but it is what they must do -- because the diversity of our student population demands it. A public school must be equally successful with children from greatly varying backgrounds --whether affluent, living in poverty, from an English-speaking home, or from a home where English is not spoken. I am not saying that all schools do this. What I am saying is that some do, and it is possible to do it. Parents must let schools and school boards know that this is what must happen. Every parent wants his or her child to achieve at the highest level possible, in order to get the best education possible and have a chance at the best life possible.
Posted by Anne Foster on 05/26/2009 @ 08:22AM PT
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