No Child Left Behind is widely considered a disaster.
The law mandated that 100% of all students would be proficient, as measured by the standards in each state, by 2014. We now know that no state will meet that requirement. Schools have been closed all over the nation because of this idiotic law. Principals and teachers who were doing their best to meet unrealistic expectations, were fired.
NCLB is the Death Star of American education.
When Secretary Arne Duncan offered waivers from the 2014 deadline, most states asked for them, knowing that they would never meet the law’s deadline.
But NCLB still has one stalwart supporter, one diehard fan who will never say die. She will defend NCLB no matter how many schools die. That is Margaret Spellings, who was one of the law’s architects; she served as Secretary of Education in the George W. Bush administration, following Rod Paige.
She believes. She will never waver. There is no evidence that will ever persuade her that she was wrong.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
the evidence will be when 2014 comes and this is proven false.,.She is a sad case if she thinks that 100% achievement in math and in English/reading is going to miraculously materialize…Too many variables and too many different populations of children…
But it’s like faith healing – it’s impervious to evidence. If (when) 2014 comes and states still aren’t meeting the goals, it will only be further evidence that the teachers still aren’t stepping up doing what needs to be done to get the job done.
NCLB has done more to suck the joy out of teaching and learning than anything else I have ever seen. In some cases we have seen student test scores increase- but at what price? Our curricula have been narrowed as students are subjected to endless test prep activities that cause boredom and a disconnect from school. Students, in many cases, have lost the ability to think for themselves- they have become little robots who are good at following directions and filling in bubbles. Teacher are stressed. What have we become? This is so sad.
Just went to Spelling’s website and my computer raged against it, with a very emphatic Malicious warning. If only ALL wolves in sheeps clothing could be called out like that, preferrably before they do harm to so many people.
The Death Star of American Education. What an illustrative and apropos analogy! As an English teacher I so love figurative language and its simplistic power without being shockingly offensive as when I make the direct COMPARISON between my Governor Bobby Jindal and a Dictator like Hitler.
I do believe that their original intent was to destroy the public schools. Just about everything that came out of the Bush administration was mislabeled to reflect the opposite of what it intended to do!
Right on! I said the same thing when I first understood the details. And the mislabeling was quite deliberate–To sucker the public into cutting their own throats.
Me too. All those years ago. My science colleagues and I called it as soon as we heard about it.
It’s amazing that anyone would make an argument about one of the most extensive and controversial pieces of national legislation concerning education using an analogy to a Frank Capra movie. Either this person is a fool, or she thinks the public is completely gullible.
Where do the percentages Spelling quotes come from, what research? Is it cherry picked, is it manipulated, or is it from a reliable source? Just asking.
In Texas we have gone through several test cycles; TABS, TEAMS, TAAS, TAKS, and now STAAR. During each cycle, scores went from bust to boom, educators overwhelmingly met the challenge put before them. Politicians however, never lost a chance to make political hay!
–At the end of the TEAMS cycle- scores were up but the test was too easy they said
–TAAS cycle- scores were low in the beginning, politicians said “see, told you we needed higher standards”. Scores improved dramatically, but there was little credit to the teachers, only criticism that the test was once again too easy.
–TAKS cycle- the same pattern happened again
–STAAR cycle- we haven’t seen all the scores yet, but it will not be pretty and our legislature will use that info to push vouchers
Standards went up 3 TIMES, but every time teachers in Texas have risen to the challenge, very seldom have they been given credit. Curricular expectations were a mess in 1980’s Texas, but that has changed dramatically. Where is the recognition for this accomplishment? I will say that many politicians used the good scores during re-election time, too few however fight for education on a regular basis.
Once again, teachers in Texas are under attack, this time for AYP. Almost 50% of campuses failed to meet AYP and more than 70% of districts failed to meet AYP. If you don’t think it was set up for failure in Texas, your’e out of your mind. NEW standards and NEW test, both at the same time that AYP standards reached the levels where all schools/districts were destined to fail. I remember promises to fix NCLB, but not one blessed thing has been done to adjust the most damaging expectation, the 100% requirement. There is no doubt this is intentional, it is now providing more cover for politicians/reformers to implement their agenda.
Texas started this testing mess and they also designed a no-win self- perpetuating accountability system where teachers can never be good enough, just look at the pattern above.
The same thing has happened in New York. Every time a new goal is reached, the goalposts are moved and the results are somehow meaningless. The latest canard is how graduation rates are calculated to exclude not only dropouts, but also GED diplomas, IEP diplomas and those who don’t finish in exactly four years from entering ninth grade. It serves to make graduation rates look as low as posisble, while true dropout rates may have fallen. It is deliberate and well financed, no doubt, and unionized public school teachers are always painted as the “bad guy.”
..and the goal posts keep moving with Common Core. My second-graders needed to be able to recall their addition and subtraction facts at 4 seconds per fact. Now they have 3 seconds per fact. I wonder how critical this extra second is. Will it add up to minutes of extra school time in their careers? At one point does the law of diminishing returns kick in?
Spellings is National Chamber of Commerce member.School to work. UN one world governance, Agenda 21, etc etc.
CAUTION..
What business do people like Margaret Spellings have in the field of education if they have no credentials? She majored in political science, not education.
My son refers to no child left behind as no child allowed ahead.
Did anyone else hear fifes and drums while reading this?
Columbus died refusing to believe he hadn’t discovered the Indies. No amount of proof would convince him that he’d discovered a continent Europe hadn’t known about. So Amerigo Vespucci got the naming honors because he wrote a book proclaiming the discovery of new continent. Oh well.