No Teacher Left Behind

Campus Report ^ | November 8, 2007 | Malcolm Kline

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No Teacher Left Behind

by: Malcolm A. Kline, November 08, 2007

Although education officials dreaded the Bush Administration’s allegedly two-fisted approach to public schools in its No Child Left Behind program, a new study shows that they seem to have found ways to work around it. “For one thing, the law included a number of loopholes that allowed states to claim that veteran teachers were highly qualified using a wide variety of criteria that might not be associated with quality,” the Aspen Institute found. “For example, in Minnesota, all elementary teachers licensed before 2001 were deemed highly qualified, regardless of whether they demonstrated subject-matter competency (McClure, Piché and Taylor 2006).”

“Similarly, Wisconsin considered teachers highly qualified if they had completed an approved program at any college or university in the United States (Education Trust 2003).” It should be noted that the Aspen Institute is hardly a free-market think tank.

Nonetheless, despite its bias towards government programs, the AI researchers found official measurements of teachers’ competence wanting, to say the least. “For example, a study examining the impact of certification on student performance of 150,000 Los Angeles 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teachers from 2000 to 2003 found little difference between the achievement of students taught by certified teachers and that of students taught by uncertified teachers,” AI reports. “Many non-certified teachers—those deemed not highly qualified under NCLB—taught students who exhibited substantial gains in achievement, while many certified teachers, who earned highly qualified status, taught students who showed small learning gains (Gordon, Kane and Staiger 2006).”

“A study of teachers in New York City produced parallel findings.” So did another in North Carolina.

[advertising guy]

let me prove the bullshit in this article..

several years ago (3 ish) the Arizona teachers were required to take the AIMS test juniors to be seniors have to take in high school.....

guess what the mean score was from the teachers ????

a 25..........honest......Then they took it again later and wow the better mean score grade had em all high fiving the clouds............

guess what the “better mean score “ was ???

a 52.....

[maine-iac7]

Same thing in Massachusetts = they took the test over and over and over - never did pass it

[advertising guy]

it’s a wonder why we don’t have bats with spikes in em takin care of business