NCLB is a disaster. The absurd idea that 100% of all students would be proficient simply by testing them every year and firing their teachers and principals and closing their schools is now exposed as a great fantasy.
Do waivers help? Or are they just another way to fasten the federal noose and pave the way for privatization?
This reader reflects:
“As a mother, educator and someone who worked on a state waiver for NCLB, I often felt like I was doing the devil’s work. I do NOT agree with standardized testing as the primary measure of a school, student, or teachers effectiveness. I also know that the NCLB rules of 100% of all students performing on grade level by 2014 was wildly unrealistic. Sadly what I have discovered is, at least in my state of Maine, there is a sense of hopelessness & helplessness among educators with regard to their ability to impact any of this. I disagree. It’s time that teachers make their voices heard, and take back the reigns of their profession. Which is the exact reason why I elected to get involved in the NCLB waiver process in my state. It was a glimmer of hope that perhaps all of this hoopla over standardized testing would be diminished over time.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There’s an old joke whose punchline goes, “I see, so you had the cold showers instead.”
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Diane, I fear that you are right on track with regard to the waivers potentially paving the way for privatization, which would devastate education for many in this country, and is something I fear and continue to fight against. Please don’t think that I in any way condone what is going on with regard to NCLB, or the waivers. However my experience has exposed me to the dilemma that I think many educators face, which is, how do we get involved in educational public policy in a meaningful way when it seems that all the world, and many policy makers are against us. How do I impact their thinking without becoming one of them? The answer, I think, comes by way of simply being involved and getting an audience with them. I was only one of the very few educators involved in the process, but at least I had a voice at the table. I know in my heart that although I was working within a flawed system, I was doing my best to try to improve things for the children and educators in my state, and will continue to do so even if it means working with the very folks who create policy that I am against.
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Waivers are another way for Feds to stay in control. You do what we want and we’ll give you a waiver. Why set standards for anything if waivers are so freely given?
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No there is no hope. I feel no hope. I have to close the door and do what’s best for the kids. When they go after me I will lawyer up…get a labor lawyer on speed dial soon.
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If you are in a protected class, make sure you have EEOC on speed dial. I was never told by my “union” about my rights to sue, and therefore missed all of the deadlines.
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Thank you….I found some timeline information here.
http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/timeliness.cfm
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Good. To be prepared is very important for teachers because you find out you really have no rights at all against administrators.
I had to learn all of this the hard way, and I am paying for it by being destitute.
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I am just curious (as a teacher) what rights can you exactly protect if they want to get rid of you? In my state we have a right to due process but I know of 2 teachers whom they fired because they did not like their “style” in the classroom. And what will a labor lawyer do to protect you?
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The battle is like Hercules vs. Hydra. Don’t try to get around so much as kill it. It’s no small task, big money won’t give up their digs easy. Let’s rally by relentlesly exposing corruption and refutation of false claims. We do have a stake to claim.
http://signon.org/sign/repeal-no-child-left-1
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It seems that the waiver is more of a mechanism to divert the federal funds from students and instead use it for testing and funding the unfunded mandates of Race To the Top. In my urban district, the admins took advantage of the waiver (New York State) to remove the funding from all after school programs and divert it to the creation of a new admin-heavy district department devoted to the Race To theTop, Common Core and SLO development (along with the assessments, etc.).
Buffalo, NY
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Waivers give unelected bureaucrats method and motive to claim or create power to circumvent the law and govern by decree.
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Ok, this is kind of off topic, but I’m never really sure where to post when I have a question/comment unrelated to recent posts, so here it goes. I’m am about to write a paper addressing 10 questions regarding poverty and teaching. The required reading was “Teaching With Poverty in Mind” by Eric Jensen. The author refers to a lot of brain based research as that is his area of expertise as he has authored several books on the subject. The book started off great, and I found a lot of the research interesting. He describes a lot of how poverty affects how the brain develops and functions and “changes the operating system.” As I read, I started to recognized just a touch of some of the “charter language” often used. Eventually, as I suspected, he made his first reference to KIPP and its success as well as other charters. I had to put the book down until I could get past that so I could read with an open mind. Glad I did because he also referenced successful public schools. Also, he seems to define success frequently by measuring achiement on standardized test scores. The book was published in 2009, and I know a lot can happen in 4 years in research.
Wondering if blog followers are familiar with the Author and his work. Is he a charter/KIPP zealot? Is there substance to the brain research and poverty that he references? Does it change the operating system and how kids in poverty learn? Do we know more now than in 2009 about brain functioning and development with resepect to poverty? Or anthing else readers might like to comment on.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.
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How do we define this entity called poverty? I have not read the book, so I am speaking with absolutely no authority, but seriously, while we might recognize poverty when we see it, can we define it with any degree of mathematical precision? And then, can we predict its effects on each and every individual who experiences our definition of poverty? We know some things about what deprivation does to children from observational studies. My guess is we are in a much better position to make decisions about what works and what doesn’t based on what we observe. While we are learning more about the brain every day, it is its own universe that we are just beginning to explore.
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2old, great questions. In fact the question of “what is poverty?” is how the book starts. He provides the Office of Management and Budget’s definition(quantitative), but then asserts the complexity of defining exactly what it is. For the purpose of the book he defines it as “a chronic and debilitating condition that results from multiple adverse synergistic risk factors and affects the mind, body and soul.”
He identifies 6 types of poverty “situational, generational, absolute, relative, urban, rural.”
I think you may have hit right on the root of the problem that we try to define everything by numbers when in the case of poverty, as money is a factor, there are many more qualitative factors that are difficult or even impossible to quantify.
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I most recently heard his name at a Quality Teaching and Learning Workshop (but was actually kind of surprised to hear it because the brain based teaching is not new research–it’s been around for a while). I would not group that research as part of any harmful wave of thought. I think some of the reformist language is being presented as Best Practices in many areas and so it is bound to make its way into the vernacular even for those without an agenda (other than best teaching). In states where Common Core is being implemented through Race to the Top I imagine it is hard to dodge this language; I hear it coming down the chain from people who likely have not given it that much thought. It’s sort of like working in a restaurant where they are serving baked beans with sauces of specific names–you would have to talk about the baked beans with those names because it would be what you were serving. Whether or not it is a red flag per education agendas is probably not black and white. But anyway, maybe research Quality Teaching and Learning and see what you think.
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Joanna, thank you much for the input and advice.
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LInda, I understand exactly where you are. I see no hope for the system as it exists in our state, and no real hope that it will ever change.
The only teachers whose voices are heard are those parroting administration. The only teachers on Leadership Teams or department chairs are parrots, flying monkeys, or the occasional mute. The pressure from building administration, district, and state DOE has the cumulative effect of suffocation.
I am struggling to be who I am, who I want to be, and not what this suffocation is trying to produce.
Speaking of Devil’s work – we are forced to participate in clearly fraudulent activities involving data – at the state level- that will be used to evaluate us!
In my building we have been hearing how terrible we are for four years. It’s not poverty, it’s not the kids, not the families, it’s us – the teachers -who are failing.
The cameras in the building are used to watch teachers, not students.
We are verbally and psychologically battered at every faculty meeting.
WE are the enemy.
This environment is not conducive to success, but every teacher I speak with is doing their absolute best to do what is right for their students.
It’s just what we do.
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I agree that every teacher I know is doing the best they can to do what is right for their students, and I also agree that unfortunately many of the teacher voices being heard are those that are parroting administration. However, please know that this teacher has intentionally chosen a different path. I was recently involved in an administrative program, but elected to quit the program and instead use my leadership qualities to become a voice for teachers and students. It’s a difficult balancing act, being a full time educator, mother, union leader, and public education advocate, but it brings me satisfaction to know that at least I am not just throwing my arms in the air and saying there is nothing I can do. I encourage you to continue the fight to become the educator you want to become despite the negative atmosphere. I believe in this profession, when we work from the heart, and are guided by logic and history,we are less likely to go wrong. Refuse to be the enemy!
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Mama, Thank you for the encouragement. My next step is to attend a conference sponsored by our state education association- which, in my my assessment, has been in bed with the state DOE- where I hope to learn more about my rights and opportunities for leadership in that sector. It seems our union has neglected to protect its members from the trickle down consequenes of RTTT. The union president who signed on for the state’s “winning” RTTT application, was was “awarded” a nice position at DOE.
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The ONLY hope is to repeal both NCLB and the waivers… as Diane reported in an earlier blog post, hearings were held on Thursday in the House (http://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/subcommitteesjurisdictions.htm) and Senate (http://www.help.senate.gov.). It is heartening to read that Lamar Alexander might be open to some changes. That means a bi-partisan agreement could be reached. On a paper posted on the Senate Committee’s web page he is quoted as saying “The problem is that more and more decisions are being made in Washington about whether schools are succeeding or failing, when in fact the Secretary and I and Senator Harkin pretty well agreed on nine principles last year that would have basically moved most of those decisions out of Washington. So we’ve gone, in my view, in the wrong direction.” Once the c
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Lamar Alexander is not opposed to privatization, but he opposes DC controlling all the nation’s schools.
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He’s halfway there…. I’m hopeful that if STATES are allowed to set metrics and define carrots and sticks they won’t be recommending school closures as a remedy… and I’m also hopeful that the backlash in Texas and Settle is a harbinger of things to come in states and districts that have gone overboard on tests… but then I was hopeful Obama would abandon NCLB instead of pumping it full of steroids…
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The “waivers” are worse!!!!! If no one had “waived” out of NCLB it would have been exposed for the misreable policy failure that it is (sorry, Ms. Ravitch…). The “waivers” come with even more testing, common core and rigged teacher evaluations schemes based on testing and observation that is fed into a clever algorithim that seems to be about as valid and predictive as the weather in England!!! The tests and the teachers and the schools are then even more vulnerable to loss of tenure/dismissals and school takeovers. For example, here in New Jersey, under the new teacher evaluation scheme, everyone with tenure who is rated “partially ineffective” or “ineffective” can lose tenure and their careers after two such years. The beautifully rigged law allows the NJDOE to only consider those evaluations done under the new rubric as of the date the new law goes into effect….the teacher has no chance………..game, set and match!!!!!!
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I get fired up………….and type like a crazy person……..do not proofread……..sorry for my spelling…………………
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I know the feeling….happens all the time…….we understand. Lately I do everything like a crazy person.
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I agree with you! If there were no waivers, Congress would have been forced to repeal NCLB, not to tinker around the edges.
Duncan saved the failed premises of NCLB by removing the deadline.
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I’d like to know how Arne Duncan has avoided being impeached for circumventing Congress.
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He was appointed, not elected.
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The waiver mandates increase the over-emphasis on standardized tests. They require implementing a teacher evaluation based in significant part on standardized test scores- for every teacher; in every grade and subject. They require impementation of the Common Core State Standards, and the computerized standardized tests that are the main feature of CCSS. They continue to base school and district performance on standardized test scores. To move away from the obsession with standardized tests, don’t look to the “waivers” for help
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Looks like we all need a waiver to our waiver…….how do we bail out?
What do we lose?
If there ever was a need to disband the USDOE now is the time.
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RTTT has been appropriately referred to as “NCLB on steroids.” Since CT has gotten the waiver, I have felt the most pressure in my teaching career to get my students to make adequate progress. I was actually asked if one of my students had an IEP because he wrote some numerals reversed. Um, he’s SEVEN!
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Reading this I almost wanted to cry. I taught at the elementary level for 34 years. I retired when I was 55 because I just couldn’t handle what was happening then and it has gotten so much worse. My heart breaks for students and teachers all over this country. Why are teachers so often left out of the discussions? I could fill a book with standardized test stories. My favorite is about a chlid I taught in 1967. He cried every day of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.I was 21 and it was my first year so I asked my Principal for advice. He said to say the test was a game. Randy said, “But I want to win.” Has Washington noticed that they are NOT making a positive difference!?
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Thanks to Wendy for sending my way. Everyone just read this article…here is an excerpt and the link:
The secret to fixing bad schools….New York Times
What makes Union City remarkable is, paradoxically, the absence of pizazz. It hasn’t followed the herd by closing “underperforming” schools or giving the boot to hordes of teachers. No Teach for America recruits toil in its classrooms, and there are no charter schools.
A quarter-century ago, fear of a state takeover catalyzed a transformation. The district’s best educators were asked to design a curriculum based on evidence, not hunch. Learning by doing replaced learning by rote. Kids who came to school speaking only Spanish became truly bilingual, taught how to read and write in their native tongue before tackling English. Parents were enlisted in the cause. Teachers were urged to work together, the superstars mentoring the stragglers and coaches recruited to add expertise. Principals were expected to become educational leaders, not just disciplinarians and paper-shufflers.
School officials flock to Union City and other districts that have beaten the odds, eager for a quick fix. But they’re on a fool’s errand. These places — and there are a host of them, largely unsung — didn’t become exemplars by behaving like magpies, taking shiny bits and pieces and gluing them together. Instead, each devised a long-term strategy reaching from preschool to high school. Each keeps learning from experience and tinkering with its model. Nationwide, there’s no reason school districts — big or small; predominantly white, Latino or black — cannot construct a system that, like the schools of Union City, bends the arc of children’s lives.
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I meant MUST read….going too quickly.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bloomfield/education-reform-standardized-testing_b_882718.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=2005510,b=facebook
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