I should have titled this “one of the last living defenders of NCLB speaks,” but it required too many characters for a headline. I am sure that in addition to the author of this article, NCLB is still defended by Sandy Kress, Margaret Spellings, and others who designed it. Maybe there are another 50 or 60 people who still defend it. I just can’t think of their names offhand.
Most people, including educators and parents, think of it as a disaster. Most think it turned our schools into testing factories and squeezed out such things as art, history, literature, physical education, science, foreign languages, geography, civics, and other things that are important. No one can deny the importance of basic skills but no one should claim that they are a complete education, or that scores on standardized tests are all that matters.
NCLB was and still is a landmark in the dumbing down of American education.
The writer is under the misapprehension that NCLB had something to do with raising standards. If only.
The author, it may not surprise you to learn, was President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter from 2001 to 2006. He was also a member of the White House Iraq Group.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gerson’s job is to lie and mislead in order to sell people on something they don’t want or need.
He wrote the infamous “smoking gun/mushroom cloud” phrase in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
He also wrote the “soft bigotry of low expectations” phrase that helped sell NCLB.
His talent lies in, quite frankly, lying and misleading people.
You would think anybody who helped create the hysteria and propaganda that helped to sell the Iraq war would be banned from writing in any serious news journal from an ethical standpoint.
But you would be wrong.
In actuality, that’s why he got the job.
Lying and misleading people are talents and skills that are well-respected by the elite in 21st century America.
You can go into either advertising or political speechifying with those talents and skills.
As if there’s a difference between advertising and speechifying.
Looks like FUD in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
Here was my response to Gerson, a challenge to him and people like Kress.
Sir,
I see from your bio that we grew up in the same neck of the woods around St. Louis-South St. Louis County for me before I-255 was built, rural then. You seem, by your picture to be a tad younger than me (circa 1955), hope you have many more good years left!
Now let’s get to the heart of the matter. I saw your column referenced in D. Ravitch’s blog and I have now read it. I will address a few points although they all stem from one “umbrella” of a thought, bear with me.
“Education is a massive failure of federalism.”
Thoroughly agree. Education, by law is a very localized entity with, unfortunately, sometimes too much input from the state and way too many unfunded demands by the U.S. Department of Education. (DOE)
“By the second half of the 20th century, America’s public schools were betraying many of the students in their charge,. . . .” That is not true. We, in public schools educate more people to a higher level than ever before. If you need evidence I can supply it but that is not what my comments are ultimately about. And this next statement of yours hints at the “umbrella” of thought to which I was referring.
“There is room for improvement in NCLB — some adjustments in standards, but mainly to make them more uniform and rigorous.”
That “umbrella” of thought is that “a quality-teaching and learning, can be quantified-standards and standardized testing. That is a false concept. It is irrational as a quality cannot be quantified logically. So that these educational standards and standardized testing which you are unqualifiably supporting are falsehoods, a chimera, a “duende”, a figment of imagination that has no reality in the verifiable real world of logical thought and rationality as proven by Noel Wilson in his 1997 dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577 . His explanation of the invalidities involved in standardized testing can be found in his review of the educational and psychological testing bible “Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing” put out by the APA, NCME, and the AERA. That work is: “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at: http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html .
My challenge to you, sir, is to read and understand and then refute Wilson’s arguments in these works, that educational standards and standardized testing are invalid, and harmful to the students and teachers actually involved in the teaching process. Or find any professional, or otherwise, rebuttal to them as I have yet to find one and I’ve been looking for the last 12 years or so.
In conclusion, “Why is NCLB so unpopular? Because it exposes the failure of adults in the lives of children.” Yes it does expose the failure of the adults, those who push chimerical, illogical, irrational and unethical** policies of educational standards and standardized testing onto those who have no power to resist, the teachers and students.
I look forward to hearing from you with rebuttals for Wilson’s work.
Sincerely,
Duane Swacker, BAEd, MSEd.
Public high school Spanish teacher for 18 years
Certified to be an administrator but chose not to go into it specifically because of the NCLB.
dswacker@centurytel.net
636 932 4124
**All the major testing organizations, some mentioned above and even the test making companies themselves state that using the results of any standardized test for purposes other than intended is UNETHICAL In other words, using the results of a 5th grade math test which is designed to assess the student (and that’s an whole other problem) in 5th grade math and not the teacher as part of the teacher’s evaluation (VAM, you know) is completely illogical and UNETHICAL.
By the way I’m not holding my breath waiting for any rebuttals.
Nary a peep or acknowledgement of my request so far.