Thread: Is NCLB a National Plague?

How does one vote? I only see the results of voting by two posters.

I don't like it for a couple of reasons.

1. I dislike the centralizing tendency- education is a state matter and if I were President, I'd reduce the Department of Education down to a shadow of itself, mostly functioning as the dispenser of financial aid for higher education, perhaps monitoring to make sure whatever I replaced IDEA with was working, etc. And NCLB would be significantly revised, if not done away with altogether.

2. I am not against testing, per se. I think the fact that we have testing has done some good- because if we didn't, we'd have some people in the classroom who would be doing things only vaguely resembling what they are supposed to be doing. I think the testing system in use is quite wrongheaded- I think it should set a minimum benchmark of proficiency, with more knowledge and less "critical thinking" in subjects where that is appropriate, and fewer tests at the elementary level.

3. I think some exceptions need to be made for testing Spec. Ed students. There are some tests these kids have no hope of passing- why make them take it?


BTW, the article you linked to is very biased......

I agree with JohnBoy on this one (mostly). I've come to know that several 'teachers' would make their courses ridiculously easy so all their students passed without actually learning anything. Once the student has the credit, they lose the opportunity to re-take the course and learn the material. For my subject, this is particularly damaging. Each course is truly a prerequisite for the next and success is partly dependent on background.

I don't like the current tests, though. They've been touting that these tests are tied to our standards, but at the high school level, the tests are called "9th grade math", "10th grade math", and "Exit level math". Try as I might, I can't find the standards for a course called "10th grade math".

Texas has decided to make a change in that department (thankfully) and our new high school tests will be End of Course Exams tied directly to the standards. Now if I can just get my district to stop telling me exactly how to do everything, I can really make some magic happen. (That's a pipe dream).

Originally Posted by JohnBoy

BTW, the article you linked to is very biased......

Ah ... yes .. but then, so am I.

One of the last questions asked during my interview for the position of chef instructor was why I left the field of elementary education.

As I told the building administrator, I used to be one of those rare teachers who "dressed up" to teach thematic units. For example, when I taught about the age of exploration, I came to school dressed as Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. I wore $600 custom fitted handmade thigh high leather boots, baggy hand stitched pants, and a shirt with slitted puff sleeves. I wore a custom fitted stainless steel breastplate over my shirt. A feathered combed morion steel helmet sat on top of my head. A long woolen cape hung from my shoulders and in my hands I clutched a staff bearing the royal flag of Spain. I even had the pencil thin mustache and pointed beard of a Conquistador.

To interact with me, my students had to learn some Castilian Spanish. In reading we read stories about famous explorers. In language arts we learned Renaissance poetry and discussed the nautical flags used by 15th and 16th century sailing vessels. Students designed their own flags which were subsequently run up pulleys that we put together in science. In math we worked with equivalent fractions. We used photo copies of Spanish gold doubloons that were cut into various fractional pieces.

In short we had a blast and the students probably learned more about the age of exploration than did those students whose teachers simply assigned them a social studies passage to read and a worksheet to complete.

So what happened? The building administrator decided to "standardize" instruction. She killed our creativity and our individual strengths as teachers by requiring all teachers on each grade level to write lesson plans together. All teachers were expected to teach the same lesson, the same way.

Do you think any of the other teachers wanted to teach like me?

Not hardly.

We dumbed down our lesson plans and effectively taught at the ability level of our weakest teacher. Instruction became a boring repetition of textbook passages and worksheets. In time, I no longer felt like a teacher. I felt like an educational accountant whose only purpose in life was to tweak student performance on our frequent practice tests.

Unable to teach this way, I quit my job at year's end in 2002.

I blame NCLB for this fiasco. The move towards standardized instruction is simply another example of how building administrators are reacting to the concept of accountability.

I wore $600 custom fitted handmade thigh high leather boots, baggy hand stitched pants, and a shirt with slitted puff sleeves. I wore a custom fitted stainless steel breastplate over my shirt. A feathered combed morion steel helmet sat on top of my head. A long woolen cape hung from my shoulders and in my hands I clutched a staff bearing the royal flag of Spain.

That $600 part is the biggest reason why I don't do that- although I am putting together a Renaissance Festival outfit piece by piece..... I'm up to sword, sword belt, shirt, big feathered hat. Our admins would probably tolerate that- at the secondary level in my system we really haven't gotten slammed by forced standardization all that much. Our outgoing principal went as far as requiring a quarterly assessment test in our tested social studies classes, although since he didn't really specify using the data, in my opinion it didn't amount to much. I imagine at the elementary level things are different.

Originally Posted by JohnBoy

That $600 part is the biggest reason why I don't do that- although I am putting together a Renaissance Festival outfit piece by piece..... I'm up to sword, sword belt, shirt, big feathered hat.

Dare I mention that the steel breast plate and combed morion helmet cost $300 each?

8O

Heh-heh-heh ...

Democratic presidential candidates at the annual convention for the NEA spoke out AGAINST NCLB in Philadelphia on July 3rd.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, said she had heard stories about teachers who tailor lessons to ensure that their students do well on the reading and math tests (while ignoring other subject areas).

John Edwards said, "These tests do not tell us what we need to know about our children."

Senator Chris Todd said, "It's time that we get this law right." He wants to "reform" the law by changing the way AYP is calculated. Under his revisions, schools would get credit for additional benchmarks beyond that of student proficiency on math and reading.

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/03/dems.nea.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch[/url]