BTW, she's the third one from the left.
Posted on 03/20/2007 3:56:46 AM PDT by theothercheek
Now that Congress is debating whether – and in what form – to renew No Child Left Behind (NCLB), some legislators on both sides of the aisle are openly wondering whether it’s time to face the reality that some children will never catch up, no matter what.
When Congress passed NCLB in 2002, the breakthrough federal education program aimed to have every public school student – whether middle class or poor, white or minority, native born or illegal alien - performing at grade level in reading and math by 2014. Robert L. Linn, co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA, recently told The Washington Post, "There is a zero percent chance that we will ever reach a 100 percent target."
A group of 57 Republican lawmakers have endorsed a bill that would essentially gut NCLB. The WaPo reports:
Under the House version, states could opt out of the law's mandates through a referendum or through a decision made by a combination of state officials. The Senate version would allow states to opt out of some requirements through negotiations with the federal government. Both versions would allow states to use nearly all their federal education funding, except money designated for special education, for any educational purpose.
One can make a credible case that it is senseless for NCLB to apply to special needs students or to non-English speaking illegal aliens (AKA"migrant children"), so the law was doomed to failure from the start. But The New York Times considers an additional factor that makes the educational goals of NCLB out of reach for millions of students, not just these hard cases: an acute lack of qualified teachers, particularly in the middle school grades.
Middle schools do not attract – and cannot retain – qualified, talented teachers, according to The New York Times:
[E]ducators in New York and across the nation are struggling to rethink middle school, particularly in cities, where the challenges of adolescent volatility, spiking violence and lagging academic performance are more acute.
As they do so, they are running up against a key problem: a teaching corps marked by high turnover, and often lacking expertise in both subject matter and the topography of the adolescent mind. …
"More people end up in middle schools because that’s where the openings are," said Carmen Fariña, a former deputy chancellor of the New York City school system who is now helping 35 middle school principals reshape their schools. "It’s not necessarily a choice." …
[I]n the Bronx, [Jason] Levy, the principal of I.S. 339, has worked hard to cobble together a staff capable of helping him revive a school mired in years of failure.
"Just go to a job fair," he said. "The lines for elementary school and high school are around the corner. We can’t get people to teach in middle schools."
One of his solutions has been to rely heavily on Teach for America. Twenty-one of his teachers, nearly a third, are part of the program, which recruits recent college graduates. While such teachers are often well-educated and energetic, many leave after their two-year commitments.
Why are these teaching jobs going begging? Because compared to middle school, teaching high school is a cakewalk – those students most in need of a dedicated, talented, innovative educator to inspire them to learn have dropped out already, the paper explains:
"Problematic kids in high school don’t come to school anymore, but in middle school they still show up," said Barry M. Fein, the principal of Seth Low. "I think that piece alone makes it more challenging."
The challenges surface in test scores. … The most recent results of math and reading tests given to students in all 50 states showed that between 1999 and 2004, elementary school students made solid gains in reading and math, while middle school students made smaller gains in math and stagnated in reading.
So there you have it: Tenured, unionized teachers who can’t – and don’t want to – make sure no child is left behind (second item, The Daily Blade, February 23, 2007). Whodathunkit?
NOTE: In case I did not put all the links in correctly, this is the second item in a feature called The Daily Blade and follows an article titled, "Nagin Has A Chocolate Chip On His Shoulder."
Really? I thought it was 80. Maybe they've dummed down the IQ tests too.
Half the population is below average.
Half the population is ALWAYS going to be below the average. lol.
Garbage men in NYC can make 100k. So what. Teachers probably should make more than any other public employee, with perhaps exceptions for police and firefighters.
This inability to catch up is nothing new. We have had affirmative action for 30 years or so and no one has caught up yet and furthermore they never will, it will go on forever.
A friend of mine, who is bright, capable, motivated, and (formerly) naive, joined Teach for America full of idealism and high hopes. I think that she lasted less than a year. The combination of arrogance, incompetence and turf wars among the "lifers" in school administration and the teaching staff, along with absurd rules that prevented effective discipline in the classroom, and arrogant, pig-headed, "don't give a damn" parents, became unbearable for her, and she had to get out in order to preserve her sanity and dignity and physical safety.
There are lots of horror stories just like hers on the web. There are a lot of good kids who are trapped in public school hellholes, because the system is not designed to serve them. Rather, it seemingly has been engineered to cater to the "interests" of a witches' brew of teacher unions, lawyer parasites, government hacks, and disruptive "students". Something is really broken in this society...
BTW, she's the third one from the left.
The National Education Associeation has a strangle hold on the education of kids. The NEA is a union that protects the lowest common denominator in the teaching profession and removes any possiblity of rewarding competitence in teaching.
In addition, the ability to discipline kids for bad behavior no longer exists in schools which results in talented teachers leaving the school systems. This is the result of the "feel good" concept pushed by do-gooders that is ruining the country.
The problems you mentioned are not a result of NCLB, but rather IDEA. If No Child had never been conceived, that child would still be in the classroom, with two assistants, without a zero change because of the requirements of IDEA. This law was put into place by Carter and reauthorized by every president since.
For better or for worse, the public school system is supposed to teach all children. So a little fellow with a 40 IQ is just as entitled to an education as the one with a 160 IQ. It's just how the services are delivered that will be radically different.
Again, this is not a result of NCLB, but IDEA.
Click on the last link in the article I posted and tell me whether teachers are worth $100K. Firemen and policemen risk their lives so that ought to be worth something. If garbage men did their jobs as well as teachers do, there would be pestilence sweeping NYC so they deserve what they get too (especially those who work the dangersous neighborhoods). Sorry, there is documented proof everywhere you look that teachers aren't doing their jobs and are not worth the salaries they are being paid. Go ahead - click on that last link, read it and weep.
All American children deserve an education. It's not that "little guy's" fault that he was born with an IQ of 40. He's a human being. If special ed teachers were able to teach these students adequately, then parents would not have pushed for mainstreaming them. At least when they are mainstreamed they are visible and people have to pay attention to them - they are not just "baby sat" for 6 hours until they go home. Unfortunately, this is disruptive for the other kids in the class. And if you want to carry the argument further, "normal" IQ kids slow down and are disruptive to high IQ kids who are forced to share a class with them. In addition to piling more homework on high IQ kids teachers commonly use them as unpaid laborers tutoring the normal IQ kids in math or science right there in the classroom, instead of devising lesson plans that meet the needs of all the kids in the class.
Gee, I would have thought you would have been equally - or more - angry at illegal aliens who have to be educated on your dime. First taught English, then taught to read, write and do math at grade level. NCLB has pages and pages of mandates for these kids. If our tax dollars weren't spent educating the citizens of other countries, maybe there would be enough money to adequately educate special needs kids and make them productive members of society, and to educate high IQ kids so they can be the innovators and leaders our country will need in the future. Before we start educating illegals, we should make sure that no American child has been left behind.
LOL. I've been doing a lot of substitute teaching lately, at one of the "better" school districts, and this goal is sheer fantasy.
OMG! izzat really true?
We agree on the right for an education. It's just that the education for someone with an IQ of 40 will look different from that of someone with an IQ of 140.
At least the Democrats have the teachers union to blame. Republicans are just weak, worthless wimps.
Sounds good on paper but try formulating lesson plans every day that target kids from 3rd to 9th+ grade level math (it is a 6th grade class).
Top it off with the fact that no special ed inclusion teacher ever visits the classroom and most classes have 26+ students. Oh, the classes are 50 minutes and the support from the administration is not there..that is no support with behavior issues at all.
Now, unfortunately, my district is moving to full inclusion which means that all of the students that are served in resource classes (small groups with a trained sp. ed teacher) will be in the regular classroom. So, going from a small group situation with a trained sp ed teacher to a large group with all students higher level and less personal attention. Smaller chance of building their confidence and having them experience success. Not only that, the time that I will get to spend with these students will be minimal since most classes have another 20+ kids that don't have a clue what is going on as well.
Teachers get a lot of crap here on free republic but honestly, most teachers that I know are busting their butt trying to do their job and do it well. The expectations in many cases are unreasonable (teaching 6 different levels successfully in a 50 minute math class, for example) and the level of support that teachers get from administration is sometimes lacking.
At my school another problem is that many of the parents are not well educated and are passing their educational values onto their children - which where I teach translates to unmotivated and uncaring kids...don't care about grades, failing, doing any homework...it is video games and TV, including many R rated movies.
I take responsibility for the things that I can fix and change in my classroom..however, lots of the problems in public education are out of the teachers control.
Not only are the normal students being cheated, so are the special ed and the gifted students. And, I might add, so are the teachers because most times, no matter what they do they can't win.
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