If you want to know how No Child Left Behind has injured our society’s most vulnerable children, read this heart-breaking story about the sanctions imposed on the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.
Written by a recently retired teacher at the school, it describes how the standardized testing regime struck the children and the school like a sledgehammer, causing it to be labeled Persistently Low Performing.
The story begins:
“I recently participated in the inspiring and informative webinar “How to Organize a Grassroots Group” put on by the Network for Public Education and the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education. I am a retired teacher of the deaf, having retired from the Rhode Island School for the Deaf in the fall of 2011 profoundly dismayed by the unreasonable sanctions placed on the school by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), headed by Deborah Gist (Broad Superintendents Academy 2008).”
Read this post and ask yourself how anyone associated with the punishments inflicted on this important school can sleep at night or look themselves in the mirror every morning without grimacing.
And the next time you hear a pundit or think tank jockey praise NCLB, tell them about the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So deeply, deeply sad. I have experience of this. I grew up with a deaf cousin who went to an amazing school for the deaf. She ended up with a college degree and a successful career. However, she wouldn’t have met one-size-fits-all proficiency requirements.
I cannot say this often enough: THERE ARE NO STANDARDIZED KIDS, AND WE SHOULDN’T ATTEMPT TO STANDARDIZE THEM. Anyone who thinks otherwise is completely divorced from reality.
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This is very sad. Years ago, when I was a senior in high school (LaSalle Academy in Rhode Island), I did my peer ministry at the RI School for the Deaf. It was a great experience.
I have taught for 16 years at Shea High School, another “failing” school in RI that has been forced to undergo “transformation” for failing to raise our graduation rate quickly enough (even though we were able to prove that we had, in fact, done so — we were told that the revised data had come “too late” and that we would be going through “transformation” anyway). Now we are responsible for raising our graduation rate to the state average in one of the poorest and most troubled districts in the state.
Gist has been a blight on RI’s education system since she blew in here four years ago. Sadly, her contract is up for renewal and it looks likely that the new Board of Education will be signing up for four more years of her. Too many Rhode Islanders figure that if the teachers and their unions don’t like her, she must be GREAT — and Gist, like Rhee, is a fantastic self-promoter.
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Actually, a recent poll put forth by the Providence Journal (which usually can’t seem to stop cheerleading for Gist) revealed that over 80% of those who responded felt that the state should NOT renew Gist’s contract. To be fair, the union did spread the word about the poll, which must have skewed the numbers — but over 12,000 people responded, and in the nation’s smallest state only so many of those could have been teachers.
The poll is still up on projo.com — I think they’re still hoping that some pro-Gist people trickle in and make the numbers less embarrassing for their girl.
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Read only part of
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/04/sheila_resseger_testing_destro.html
where national standards ignore the marginal. I read enough
to understand ‘one size does NOT fit all’.
I cannot think of a better justification for dissolving 100% of the Dept of Ed.
Well, maybe not 100%, but almost all of it. DoEd should create “common cores”
for local and states to CONSIDER. It should not mandate CC for all to get continuing
funds.
Grant the national government the power to fund your local schools and NCLB, RTTT,
Common Core and a whole bunch of other evils descend on education.
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Indeed. The Department of Education has become a horror. The hubris of this department has to be unequaled in our history.
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And it’s only going to get worse. I heard that in the new budget proposal many, if not all, NASA Education and Public Outreach programs are cut so that funding could be provided to USDOE to develop…yes, not even there yet….a STEM office. So, instead of funding and using systems already in place, with the interest in space and other NASA-related studies, to encourage STEM, the government chooses to go down their own path.
Absolutely ludicrous!
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My newlly learned politeness restricts me from ‘enhancing’ your statement.
🙂
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Now you’re talking like a true Ronald Reaganite. 100% YES (do it. Vote Republican)!
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Reagan introduced the current mess in “family” court where states get a percentage of every dollar in child support they collect as “kickback” from the federal government. This has led to a host of unintended consequences that have yet to come fully to the public’s attention. I’ll just say that I’m divorced, I have a son from that marriage who is in my care over 90% of the time, I am ordered to pay child support (yep), I have never missed a payment — and I have been in jail because of some of these unintended consequences.
No love for Reagan here.
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