Posted on 05/09/2009 11:26:37 AM PDT by AJKauf
The U.S. Department of Education has just released the latest findings from the “Nation’s Report Card,” the leading nationwide measurement of educational outcomes. The findings contained good news for critics of the 2001 federal education law No Child Left Behind (NCLB). But supporters of the law got good news of their own.
The good news for the critics is that the Nation’s Report Card shows reading and math scores still have not substantially changed since 1971.
The good news for supporters is that the Nation’s Report Card shows reading and math scores still have not substantially changed since 1971.
Welcome to the confusing world of education policy!
First, let’s run down the tale of the tape. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Here in NYC, they’re making the tests easier in a terrible attempt to raise test scores.
No Child Left Behind was no more a failure than any other previous federal level fixit in education.
And, it’ll be no more a failure than any other future federal level fixit in education.
Education can not be competently managed from the top down, ever.
Let me guess...the test scores are making the minorities look bad and this hurts their self esteem?
It the children come from a home environment where education, excellence, and success are not valued, then no amount of funding or special programs will do the trick. The vast majority of kids are influenced by their parents, role models (if any), and peers. If a kid is being raised by a single mom on welfare, chances are she will not provide an environment that encourages academic success. And since we have more kids (as a %) coming from these environments, I don’t see how education metrics are going to improve. Unless you fudge the results, that is.
In short, you get the kind of society you subsidize.
I don’t know about that, I haven’t taken an SAT since 2002, before they changed the scoring for no reason.
But making a new problem will not fix the original one. Generally, kids are getting dumber. There will of course be some gems in the bunch, but avoiding the problem will only make things worse.
So it looks like NCLB did reverse the score decline, and has raised them back up to the 71 level.
I did talk to a special ed teacher who told me that NCLB had the following negative effects:
I think standardized tests requiring action plans are an appropriate control. There were teachers on TV complaining that they were having to drop social studies classes to raise math and reading scores, and I think that's a good thing.
I am concerned that some of the scoring may result in gaming the system. But I think that calls for refinement, not abandonment of the system.
iirc, they also changed the scoring in the early ‘90’s.
What’s good about dropping social studies? Kids learn about governments with terrible policies, which destroys the population; they then learn about the American republic, which gives people the liberty to do as they please.
This was discussed on a local radio show, with a high ranking state education official. Can’t recall off hand who it was.
anyhoo...the gist was, that while both black AND white grades went up ,(locally)NCLB was being considered a failure because blacks did not close the percentage gap between their grades and those of whites.
If they can’t read and write, what good is social studies?
If you teach them the basics, they can read for themselves and educate themselves about issues.
I don’t have anything against Social studies, but it’s clearly a lower priority than reading and writing.
In 2001 George W Bush and Ted Kennedy teamed to fix public education by giving us “No Child Left Behind,” which was supposed to fix a system supposedly already fixed by a 1994 piece of federal legislation called “Goals 2000,” which was supposed to fix a system already fixed by “America 2000,” which was a 1991 response during the first Bush administration to a 1983 Reagan-era federal report on education called “A Nation at Risk,” which was published a full four years after Jimmy Carter fixed the nation’s public school system by first establishing a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.
“Didn’t slip an inch!”
Probably comforting, but hardly encouraging.
What is not a ringing success has to be judged a failure, if cost-benefit ratios are applied. This “No Child Left Behind” was certainly a most excellent method of suppporting a number of ancillary positions, that have little or nothing to do with learning.
Oh, that's good.
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