No child Left Behind is without question the most destructive, the most intrusive, and the most misguided federal education legislation in history.
It has undermined federalism and put the federal government in charge of very public school in the nation, a role unimagined when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965 or when the Department of Education was created in 1965.
It has usurped the role of state and local authorities.
It has made standardized testing the be-all and end-all of education.
It has labeled children, teachers, principals and schools by test scores.
It has been responsible for the closing of schools whose “crime” was that they enrolled to many students with low scores.
Yet at Congressional hearings, none of these issues were raised. Instead, friends of tough accountability demanded more NCLB, please. More accountability, please. More of what’s harming children, please.
Who elected these people? To whom do they listen?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Please sir. May we have some more NCLB?” begged Oliver Twisted.
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That is really funny, I love the analogy.
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Love it!
I was telling my distracted students yesterday of a reformer paper I read (304 pages written by an investment company) where the authors stated that students want to learn but that they just aren’t being given the opportunity. If only teachers would teach!
I told my kids, “This statement is not grounded in reality. I know what you want. You want to text, and to talk, and to eat, and to sleep. You are teenagers. Most of you did not come into this room today thinking, ‘I hope I can learn more about Julius Caesar.'”
They looked at me and said, “Yep. That’s us.”
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I have a suspicion that plenty of us would find the teenage view of the world quite attractive: socialize eat, and sleep. Sounds pretty good to me!
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How can anyone think Race To The Top (RTTT), Obama’s waiver program, is “watered down” compared to NCLB? RTTT is NCLB on steroids in terms of its reliance on testing. The tests prove what we already know: children raised in poverty do worse on tests than children raised in affluence. We know this, but are doing nothing about it except to demonize the dedicated teachers who are working hard to help those children who need help the most. Worse, RTTT reinforces the traditional format of schooling with its emphasis on age-based grade-level cohorts and the assigning of “letter grades” to states. Here’s the bottom line on all of this from my perspective: Given the technology at our disposal today, our new understanding of learning based on neuroscience, why on earth are we perpetuating a model of education based on the factory schools of the 1920s?
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It’s even worse and probably illegal as it circumvents Congress’s NCLB legislation.
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Yea I have a problem with “how funds are being allocated and spent” on for-profit corporations for instance.
How’s this for radical? Repeal “NCLB”. End the drain of public resources for private gain. Hold the champions of accountability, well, accountable.
http://signon.org/sign/repeal-no-child-left-1
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Abolish the entire US Dept of education and send those Billions of dollars to the states where the money belongs. Let us decide how to spend it. We are sick of federal mandates with federal funding attached! No state can afford to refuse the money.
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This is the three steps back I was talking about.
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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.
We as educators know what is in the best interest of children and what are best practices for teaching and learning. My students and my own sons will NOT become better people of their community, state, nation, or world by taking a standardized test. I am please to see Diane and others reporting a growing number of anti testing groups organizing around the nation. I am hopeful that the sentiment will catch on in the northeast soon! In the meantime I will, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” and encourage my colleagues around the county to do the same.
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We have been taking steps backward since the US Dept of Education was created 40 years ago. I vote we abolish the entire department and send that humongous pot of money to the states. We will welcome those 5,000 fed workers into the school system.
I think they would all have a rude awakening actually dealing with “live” students instead of policy on paper.
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Agreeing that there are many problems with NCLB, the report linked to in Diane’s post appears to be a description of what 3 people planned to say. Are these the only 3 people who testified? If it possible that other people testified, raising concerns that are reflected above in in what Diane wrote?
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NCLB was a bipartisan educ law. RTTT is also bipartisan. Both major parties agree on takeover of pub schls by testing. Both support handing over pub schl budgets and buildings to private charters. Takeaway–we need a new political party that speaks for teachers, students, families and communities. Coalescence of Dems and GOP on economic and foreign policy only further this need–both rushed bailout of Wall St criminal banks, left underwater families to drown. The national assault of corporate agents on public schools is teaching us what we need to fight back and win.
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I agree…teachers on both sides of the political spectrum must agree that these politicians do not represent them neither do their union leaders. I wanted to vote for Romney simply to stop the financial bleeding in this country…money leaving our towns to support big fat Washington. If you want to make a difference in your schools, team up with your teachers and do what is best for the children..forget politics. There really isn’t a politician out there on either side looking out for the good of the children. They are more interested in keeping us divided because they continue to win that way. The media tugs at the emotions, uses events to distract, and meanwhile the system of education is “reforming” into a corporate factory!
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No surprise. Public ed is another prong in the ongoing assault by the elites against the public good, an attempt to sell off the public good for private profit. Our politicians, especially in Washington, no longer represent US, and the sooner we all recognize that, the sooner we can try and salvage this country.
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As a teacher I totally agree.
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Have you read this article? What’s your take? It’s more than a little overwhelming.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/got-dough-how-billionaires-rule-our-schools
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Joanne Barkan is one of the best commentators today on education trends. Read whatever she writes. She is a meticulous researcher.
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Good to know! I’m new on the scene, and still familiarizing myself with the landscape. I’m so grateful for the community you’re creating here. I’m sure glad my teacher friend referred me to your blog! And thanks for taking the time to respond.
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Barken has many questionable assertions. Among them are her assertion that there was “no research” to support the Gates Foundation efforts to create more small public schools. There are some terrific district large buildings that have been converted into small schools. These include the Julia Richman complex in NYC
and the Wyandotte complex in KC.
Here are a few of the the many studies available to show the value of small schools, (including small district public schools)
http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/size.htm
ince the mid-1990s, there have been efforts to summarize key findings of recent research on school size. In 1994, Howley focused on influences related to achievement and attainment (e.g., high school dropout rates), and noted evidence that smaller size seemed to improve the performance of schools serving impoverished communities. He also noted that several structural features of schooling had been reported to bear on the issue of size: grade-span configuration (the number of grades in a building), educational level (elementary vs. secondary), sector (private vs. public), location (rural vs. urban), and curricular focus (comprehensive vs. special purpose) (1).
Both Irmsher’s and Raywid’s research reviews, by contrast, summarized the influence on a wider range of outcomes, with each author concluding that a preponderance of evidence favored smaller size nearly universally.”
http://www.ruraledu.org/articles.php?id=2038
“Small schools also have much lower drop-out rates and more graduates who go to college. Students from smaller schools do as well or better in college than those from larger schools. Small schools are particularly effective for students from low-income families and for students of color, helping to reduce the achievement gap.”
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You can always tell when a politician is making a speech about educational policy without including any personal knowledge and a deep understanding of the challenge of teaching students in our schools. His/Her lips are moving.
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