I’m sitting here at my desk getting ready to grade papers. Now that I’ve seen this, I feel a little sick.
I’m in favor of school choice. If a doctor or a lawyer can come to town, hang a shingle, and open an office, a teacher should be able to do the same thing. Folks like myself would thrive under a system of professional competition where parents determine which teaching is best for their children. The fact is that there are many different kinds of students, too, and schools should be able to quickly and effectively adapt to circumstances as they emerge. Parents have a right to demand ethical and moral structure in the education of their children, and the teacher needs to be able to respond effectively to that, too.
No Child Left Behind, however, is the socialized medicine of the schoolroom. My job has been federalized. Bureaucratic rules determine where I go and what I do. Some of this has not been bad; holding schools accountable on the basis of student tests scores has been useful, for instance.
The problem with bureaucratic rulemaking was well summarized in a book called “The Death of Common Sense.” The more detailed the regulation, the more opportunity there is for someone to find a loophole in those regulations, and eventually, you have to hire a professional regulation reader (a.k.a., an attorney) to wade through the thousands of regulations in order to determine what they are and how they apply to you. Compare the mind-numbing length of the No Child Left Behind Act to the simplicity and elegance of the First Amendment.
Here’s an example: I worked for 20 years as a reporter and editor at various newspapers throughout the West. No Child Left Behind says that I am not qualified to teach writing or reading. I must have a degree in English. There is a regulation that states I can take a competency test (which I took and passed with almost a perfect score), but my point is that background and experience matter less than a slip of paper.
I love to astonish my fellow teachers and ask them to find the clause in the Constitution allowing the federal government to regulate schools. Most of them haven’t even thought about it.
In the meantime, since the original tinkering with education is flawed - which makes sense, since it is top-down planning at its worst - there will be more tinkering. I’ll get conflicting messages from administration about what to do and how to do it as they wade through the changes. Maybe I’ll get to waste a few grand on useless college classes, only to find out that the regulations change again and I didn’t need to really jump through that hoop.
If you really want to listen to nightmares, speak with a special education teacher about their paperwork, due process hearings, and regulations. My observation is that half of a special education teacher’s job is spent filling out paperwork.
I can see the benefit to all this. Federalizing my job makes me and my colleagues wards of the government, and that means ready votes for the party of government, which is currently called “The Democrats.” Most of my fellow teachers are Democrats, although most can’t articulate the reasons for their support, but when we discuss the matter in depth they almost always return to the issue of job protection. Hayek would have a field day with that one. In essence, teachers are now serfs, with the federal government the lord of the manor.
COMING SOON: The No Patient Left Behind Act.
Way more than half, I'm afraid.
You cannot do anything with a special ed student without having the parent sign permission.
In the inner cities especially, parents are inclined not to want to bother to come to the meetings. Multiple written notifications as well as certified mail are used to assure the parent has received notice. Parents have to be notified of their rights on every occasion and these rights have to be published in many languages. In addition, if parents are not fluent in English, the school system is obligated to provide an interpreter.
Recently we were told that if a parent says they do not have transportation to one of these meeting, the school system is obligated to provide it.
About seventy years ago, teachers in some places in Texas were under individual contracts. The principal of my elementary schools started out that way. He was head teacher in a two teacher school. He had just got out of teacher’s college but was not afraid to go head-to=head with the farmers who ran the board. He frustrated the heck out of them because he refused to be cowed, but he had allies on the board who liked a man who could drive a hard bargin. Heck, THEY had to do it. He ended up as the best paid “principal” in the county. making almost as much as the County Superintendent. He left to go to a school in the East Texas field, one which could pay a lot more money. The war came and he went into the armyfor four years, energing as a msgt. Went back to work under Gilmer Aiken, where the district set a general schedule. Less room for negotiation, but he still did it, and found a way to get more than the schedule dictated as part of his contract. But as more and more teachers were satisfied to take what was offered, pretty soon only the coaches fought for higher wages. Now teachers are like civil servants, but with less job security.
You said that they required you to have an English degree but gave you an option to test out of that requirement. So.... what's the problem?
If federal money is going to states to pay for education, there needs to be standards for that funding. Testing. Not just testing of students, but of teachers, too. And letting the states make up their own tests was a huge mistake; those tests needed to be done nationally - one test for each grade. Children in SC need the same standards as those in IA.
I agree with your original point however - privatize the entier system. Get government out of it entirely.