Posted on 04/22/2008 5:03:52 PM PDT by SoftballMominVA
The Bush administration proposed major changes yesterday in enforcement of the No Child Left Behind law, including some regulations meant to tighten oversight of public schools, as efforts to revamp the landmark education act have stalled in Congress.
In the most significant shift, all states would be required by 2013 to use the same formula to calculate the high school graduation rate, an effort to shine a light on the nation's dropout problem and force schools to take steps to ensure that more students earn diplomas. The formula would be based on the number of students who graduate on time after four years of high school. States use a variety of methods to calculate dropout rates, prompting criticism that they understate the problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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I wish, as you know, that they would do away with the law altogether. I don’t mind being held accountable for anything, but I do mind being held accountable for children who come to the high schools with absolutely no prior knowledge.
To wit: today, I was teaching a poem and asked the students the significance of the Euphrates river. (Cricket chirp)
Anyway, the Bush administration has made its name on this law and I would like to see it repealed.
NCLB will never work- for many reasons:
1. Kids won’t go to school (worked late the night before).
2. America, many of your children are out of control.
3. Many kids mistake “cool” for intelligence. (Hence, they
know much more than the teacher.”
4. Learning isn’t cool.
5. Many teachers are as lazy as their students.
6. Mistaken priorities.
7. Concentration on grades rather than learning.
8. The majority of real students go to private school or are
home schooled.
9. Equality of outcome is subtlely replacing equality of
opportunity.
I could go on.
In my decades in public education, I have seen many changes. Students often say that they are different from past generations. I disagree. People don’t change, but prevailing attitudes do.
You get what you pay for - in money, time, and effort.
I’d like to be president. I would be installed in 2013. My first act would be to declare that every initiative I put forth would have no teeth in it before seven years after I left office.
I could get no blame for anything. To hell with whatever actually needed to be fixed. That would be secondary.
We ought to get rid of the Department of Education. The quality of education in the US has deteriorated every year since its inception. It is just as worthless as the other colossal boondoggle, the Department of Energy. What in the world has either department done to benefit the taxpayers who are being fleeced in paying for expensive, terrible schools and paying $3.50/gal. for gasoline, and having to keep these sluggard agencies funded as well?
This would put an end to grade inflation and return meaning to the high school diploma with much less cost to the taxpayer.
I agree. It’s a bad law. It’s made things worse at public schools (at least the ones my kids have attended).
It’s not the only thing wrong with public schools, and the law did not affect why we stopped sending my kids to public school. However, it just made their time in public school more unpleasant.
I also feel sorry for good teachers that get stuck with illegal immigrant children who can’t speak English and are supposed to teach them in a short amount of time.
You forgot to blame bad parents that don’t value education as one of the reasons why NCLB will not work.
Good teachers will never overcome bad parents.
How about defunding NCLB and while we’re at it, the entire Government Education Department.
Then, we can do the same at state and local levels, and refund the tax money that’s currently being wasted on poorly disguised indotrination and babysitting.
Every teacher will become a private contractor.
Some will become shrewd entrepreneurs, recognize a needy market and provide good schools.
Let the market loose!
“You forgot to blame bad parents that don’t value education as one of the reasons why NCLB will not work.”
Of course, you’re right, but sometimes I think that parents just don’t know what to do. When they demand a passing grade or the opportunity to make up late-late-LATE work, they can’t see beyond the grading period into a more important topic - character. What’s best for the kid is not always what is obvious, and that’s a difficult call.
Perhaps the obligatory Parents’ Night should focus more on parents’ role in the education process.
Until they address the problem of the continual influx of Illegal Alien Children into the system, this law will not work.
They purposefully ignore the problem and pretend it does not exist and it makes it impossible for schools to meet their targets.
My wife is a Reading Specialist Teacher in a district in California and I have a sister-in-law who is a principal in the same district.
The schools in the district are about 85% hispanic (re: Children of Illegal Aliens).
This large proportion of children, many of whom English is a second language, force the education of every other child, no matter how bright, to suffer.
Because they are so low academically almost all attention is given to reading skills. Math, Science, Arts, and Music are almost non-existent.
Furthermore, while the parents are respectful of the teachers and demand respect from their children generally towards the teacher, there is generally, as a rule, no support at home for the actual nuts and bolts of learning as you would expect from normal American parents. Our assumption is that it is not part of the Hispanic culture, however, we could be wrong about that.
Both my Sister-in-Law and my Wife agree that if we would simply go to a fee-based system where children who needed extra(primarily because they are from a different culture and language) have to pay extra for the extra resources they consume that this would have the proper effect of ridding the education system of a large number of these parasites. And I am sorry, even though they are children, the net effect is that they are parasites on the system and proper responsibility for their education should rest on their country of origin not the taxpayers of the US.
I agree, definitely time for changes. NCLB was good in theory but doesn’t work as is.
One of the main problems with it, is requiring special needs kids to take the tests and those scores being included.
Amen, inclusion will destroy schooling.
Inclusion, or mainstreaming, as well as a few other requirements.
We can’t include children, who are mainstreamed due to legislation and the feel good mentality, to be included in the testing and results. Some of these kids can’t even take the tests. For example, we have GEPA here. Grade 8 Proficiency Assessment. In order for an 8th grader to proceed to high school, they have to pass the GEPAs. Granted, it’s not a really difficult test, lol. Yet, we have children required to take this test, pass, and included in the results, who can’t even speak or function at all without an aide. How is that fair to the kid or the other kids?
We mainstream,imo, because parents insisted, when it does very little for the child in question and less for the others in the class.
Our special ed program gets tons of funding and we all know the funding is based on bodies. Kids who don’t *need* special services get put in those programs (mostly because their parents don’t know any better) because it’s all about the numbers. A friend of mine, her youngest child, a boy, smart as can be, was recommended for this *special* class. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with his reading comp (I tested him per her request), he wasn’t a behavior problem, etc. The school needed a certain number for funding. They also needed the *racial* number. Parents don’t even realize this happens. She asked me to test her kid, I have all the tests, and I tested him. This kid was so not a problem, reading comp or math, etc.
I’ll also say that our high school district rocks. It’s a great district and I’ve had no issues/problems with my teens in 3 years. They’re both honor/AP track but even the average (what I was in high school) rocks.
Tracking is important imo. Some kids are A students in some content areas. Or all content areas. Tracking or levels is important and to hell with the crap self esteem agenda.
Thank you for putting an excellent phrase to describe what I've been thinking. Parents see the immediate here and now and seem to be forgetting the longer term consequences of character development that should begin at home
Thank you for putting an excellent phrase to describe what I've been thinking. Parents see the immediate here and now and seem to be forgetting the longer term consequences of character development that should begin at home
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