Archives for category: NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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Jan Resseger: The Debate About NCLB

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2013 //
13

Jan Resseger, one of our most articulate and passionate advocates for public education, has started her own blog. She lives in Ohio, which is one of the states where the privatization movement is moving fast to take money from public schools and transfer it into private hands.

Please consider following her blog.

Here are her reflections on the the Republican proposal to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. Note that even though the Republicans want to shift control from the federal government to states and localities, their legislation is still obsessed with testing and setting targets based on standardized tests:

 

House Passes NCLB Rewrite Version

This morning in a highly partisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Republican version of a No Child Left Behind (NCLB)  reauthorization.  However, a reauthorization this year remains unlikely because a version previously passed by the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee is vastly different in important ways, and it is unlikely the differences can be resolved.  Whether the Senate version will even be brought to the floor this year remains in question.

The “Politics K-12 Blog” at Education Week is probably the best source of information aboutthe debate in the House this week and the bill’s passage this morning.  The NY Times summaryof the bill and the politics of the NCLB reauthorization debate is excellent.

Here is a summary of the bill passed by the House this morning:

  • Would maintain the annual standardized testing schedule of NCLB.
  • Would continue to break out students’ scores by demographic groups and economics.
  • Would eliminate the federal requirement that evaluation of teachers be tied to students’ scores on standardized tests.
  • Would give states leeway in setting achievement goals for specific groups of students.
  • Would cut federal education funding by locking in budgeting at today’s level, including the cuts imposed by the sequester.
  • Would turn Title I, which now is directed to helping school districts meet the needs of poor children, into a block grant that would also encompass programs for English Language Learners, neglected and delinquent children, rural students and American Indian children.  Many worry this would further deplete funding for all of these groups with special needs.
  • Would end the competitive grant programs like Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants that have undermined the Title I formula and supported grant writers and consultants at the expense of direct investment in Title I schools that serve a large number or concentration of children in poverty.
  • Would eliminate the requirement that, to qualify for federal funds, states must at least maintain current state funding levels for public education.
  • Would permit Title I portability, permitting parents to carry federal Title I dollars to a different public or charter school if a student transfers to another school.  This would tie the money to the child, not to the school providing service and would be a very significant change in federal funding.  It is a sort of public school voucher program.

While the law would  reduce the involvement of federal intrusion into local schools (positive in some ways), it would also reduce federal funding, and through Title I portability once again reduce support for public schools in America’s poorest communities and neighborhoods, further threatening the viability of such schools and undermining support for the teachers there.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing, US Education

How “Reform” Is Ruining Education and Killing Schoools

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2013 //
22

A comment from a reader who has seen the results of No Child Left Behind:

“1) The system is broken from top to bottom. The vast majority of people making these decisions have not set foot into a classroom since they graduated from college.

2) An administrator makes any where from double to four times as much money as the teachers who work 50+ hours a week teaching, prepping, and grading.

3) Common Core, NCLB, Race to the Top, and any other program designed to “make education better” are nothing more than band-aids that only slow the bleeding. We need to completely reconstruct our education system from the bottom up and focus more on the individual needs of every child through curriculums designed to highlight the creative exceptionalism of each child.

4) Cutting money from the public system to then allow room for vouchers should be a red flag to any citizen with an ounce of common sense – we’re not addressing the issue of horrible school reforms of the past, but instead we’re aiding in the speed of how fast our public system will die. If every child deserves a quality education, why aren’t we evaluating our current system and finding ways to completely reconstruct it in a way that it is successful.

5) For everyone on this board who has attacked educators and their apparent “lazy” behaviors, it is obvious that you have no idea what is happening inside the classrooms now. Since “A Nation at Risk”, teachers have been slowly stripped of their ability to do what it is that they are overpaid to do: teach. Instead, they have been forced into a world of teaching to a test that barely covers the amount of practical knowledge students need. I am an English Teacher at a community college here in NC, and every semester in my 2-3 freshman comp classes I see the results of NCLB. I have 30 18-21-year-olds who can’t write a complete sentence. I have never blamed a single high school teacher, middle school teacher, nor have I blamed any elementary teacher for this lack of skill. 15 years ago when I entered the profession, the quality was much higher even for a community college. I have witnessed the slow decline of intelligence, and it has nothing to do with the teachers, but the resources that these teachers are losing. You want to support the cut in funding? Fine. Let’s divert the money that administration is getting into better programs, let’s re-envision how education works and construct a system that allows for the money we are dealt, and let’s face the facts: “bad” teachers make up less than 5% of the working population. The rest of the teachers out there are fighting to keep this sinking ship afloat.

If you think you can do a better job, get the damn degree and do the job yourself. Other wise, let the people who have been trained to do this job do their job.

Categories Common Core, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Are You a Quantitative Learning Gains Facilitator?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2013 //
5

In this post that appeared on Valerie Strauss’ “Answer Sheet” at the Washington Post, David Lee Finkle takes on what passes for education “reform” these days.

Finkle is a cartoonist and middle school teacher in Florida.

Finkle takes on the myth that American schools are failing and points out that they are far more rigorous than ever.

The federal government’s obsession with test scores is not improving education. To the contrary, it is ruining real education and demoralizing teachers.

He concludes:

“We have a choice in this country. Keep listening to the story told by the “reformers” and end up with test-score mills even worse than the ones we have now, or listen to teachers who want a public education system that isn’t an industrial factory spitting out test takers but that offers schools that are places for deep thinking, learning, creativity, play, wonder, engagement, hard work, and intense fun.”

Which will it be?

You decide.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Los Angeles Times: A Wise Editorial about NCLB and Race to Top

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2013 //
23

The Los Angeles Times published a first-rate editorial about the disastrous federal micromanagement spawned by NCLB. It also takes the Obama administration to the woodshed for its own misguided micromanagement of the nation’s public schools.

It says: “The nation is ripe for rebellion against the rigid law and the Obama administration’s further efforts to micromanage how schools are run.”

It adds:

“Passed in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act used the leverage of federal education funding to push states into doing more for their disadvantaged, black and Latino students, whose academic achievement was appallingly low. Although public schools fall under state rather than federal purview, the rationale behind the interference was that because Congress provided some funding, it had an interest in making sure that the money was achieving its aims. That’s fair enough.

“Unfortunately, the punitive law ushered in a regimen of intensive testing and harsh sanctions against schools that failed to meet improvement markers that were extremely difficult to achieve, sometimes meaningless and often counterproductive. Later, the Obama administration added more layers of interference by pushing its own favored reforms — such as a common curriculum for all states and the inclusion of test scores as a substantial factor in teacher evaluations — in some cases in return for waivers on the No Child Left Behind requirements.”

The federal government was wrong to make scores on standardized tests the measure of all things. It was a colossal error. We didn’t need NCLB to tell us that poor and minority kids were not getting the same test scores as their advantaged peers. We knew that from state scores and SAT scores and multiple other sources. The issue was what to do about it. Congress decided that measuring the gap was reform. however, none of their “remedies”–enacted without any evidence–was effective. Twelve years after the law was enacted, none of the law’s so-called remedies has worked.

The fact is that no one–repeat, NO ONE–in Congress or the U.S. Department of Education (then or now) knows how to reform the nation’s public schools. Secretary Rod Paige didn’t, nor did Secretary Margaret Spellings. Certainly Secretary of Education Arne Duncan doesn’t. His Renaissance 2010 plan in Chicago was a much-hyped failure that has left the wreckage of lives and communities in its wake. Why was he allowed to turn Renaissance 2010 into Race to the Top?

The one-size-fits-all NCLB is wrong for most schools, and Race to the Top heaps on more punishments while blaming teachers for low test scores. This law and this program, and the thinking behind them, have diverted the public’s attention from the root causes of poor academic performance, which include poverty, segregation, and under-resourced schools. Instead of confronting root causes, our elites confront the failure of the NCLB regime of high-stakes testing by demanding more of the same and making the stakes higher for teachers and principals.

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for recognizing that the federal government has overstepped the bounds of federalism, has imposed impossible mandates, and is out of its league.

The dilemma in framing the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is that Congress can’t see beyond the narrow and punitive mindset of NCLB. It is locked into stale thinking. It refuses to see the disastrous consequences of both NCLB and Race to the Top.

Future historians will puzzle out why the Obama administration threw away the chance to bring a fresh vision to federal education policy and why it chose to tighten the screws on the nation’s schools and teachers and why it chose to lend its prestige and funding to the privatization movement.

In the future, I believe, the period that began in 2001 and continues to this day will be remembered as the “Bush-Obama era” in education. It will be recalled as a time when a liberal Democratic president watched in silence as states attacked the teaching profession, lowered standards for entry into teaching, enacted laws to end collective bargaining, authorized privatization with federal funding and encouragement, and passed laws permitting vouchers for private and religious schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top

Bad News: Top Lawyer for Dems in Senate Comes from Gates Foundation

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2013 //
18

Millions of parents and teachers watch and hope that Congress will scrap the failed policies of the Bush administration called NCLB.

It is this worrisome that the chief counsel for the Democrats on the Senate HELP committee was a senior policy person at the Gates Foundation.

Gates is infamous for its religious devotion to measurement. “What cannot be measured cannot be controlled” is the line we hear again and again, as children are reduced to data points and their lives are measured out in teaspoons and centimeters on a scale.

Maybe she is different. Let us hope.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

How “Reform” Killed My School: The Tragic Story of Delmont Elementary School

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2013 //
18

The following account of Delmont Elementary School was written by Jill Saia, who was its principal.

I have deleted the “Dream School” folder on my computer. I am hoping that enough time has passed since our school was closed that I can write about it clearly and rationally, even though what was done to us was neither clear nor rational. For the last ten years that folder on my computer has contained all our plans, hopes, and ideas for a school run by professional educators for children who need it most. We knew that if we could put the highest-quality team of teachers together that we could affect true change in the lives of children in an at-risk school.

Two years ago when I was given the opportunity to become principal of Delmont Elementary School, I cautiously accepted the position. You see, I never wanted to be a principal. My graduate work in Educational Administration and Supervision confirmed this for me: being a school principal was too stressful and too far removed from teaching and learning. So I finished my degree and became certified, although I was certain I would never use this credential.

After 28 years in public education, I was offered the chance to become the Instructional Leader of Delmont. This would give me the chance to put into practice everything I had learned about high quality instruction and ongoing professional development. The position had been very carefully designed so that I would have autonomy in decisions and would be able to focus my time on classrooms and instruction instead of administrative duties. I would never have accepted this position if those guidelines weren’t clear.

Those guidelines remained in place for about two months. I was able to hire a very skilled staff, six of whom were National Board Certified Teachers. But my request for an Assistant Principal and Dean of Students was denied, even though there was money in the budget for it. I very quickly encountered resistance at all my personnel suggestions, and it began to seem as though the district didn’t really want us to succeed. The next two years were the most rewarding of my educational career, but also the most disheartening.

A change in top-level leadership at the district caused the team that had written the plan for Delmont to be totally dismantled. The new administration did not seem to know or understand why we were designated a “turnaround school” and what that meant in terms of academic freedom. I started carrying the SIG plan around with me when I went to meetings so I could explain what we were trying to do and show what the guidelines spelled out. Yet I increasingly encountered resistance from the Director of Turnaround Schools, who was a former superintendent of the failing Recovery School District. Looking back on it now, I think that this was all by design; “leaders” in the Central Office really didn’t think we would be able to turn Delmont around, so they created obstacles to keep it from happening.

One such obstacle presented itself in our first year. After having spent the summer hiring a top-notch staff and building a collaborative team, the district swooped in on October 10 to move two teachers and one aide out of our building. My plea to stop this from happening fell on deaf ears, and I was even cited for insubordination when I tried to show them what the SIG plan said about staffing. (That we were entitled to additional staff because it was a turnaround effort). So we said goodbye to three valuable staff members, shuffled kids into new classes, and kept going.

We did not make tremendous progress on test scores in the first year. We did change the culture and climate of the school, increase enrollment, and foster a high level of parental involvement. At the end of our first year, we packed everything up and moved out, because the district had chosen to remodel our 60-year old building. It is hard work to pack up an entire school, but we hoped that the renovations would make for an even better learning environment.

We were allowed to move back in two days before school started. We began the move and the readjustment to new classrooms, then had to stop for a half-day district “convocation” called by our new Superintendent. After district officials, community leaders and politicians had all given us their “rah-rah!” speeches about what a terrific year it was going to be, we boarded our yellow school bus back to Delmont and got back to work getting set up for the first day of school. Office staff and I stayed until after 10:00 p.m. that night to make sure we had everything ready for kids and parents the next day.

What a joy when the kids returned on the first day of school! They were so excited to see all of us again, to know that we were still here, and now in brand new buildings and classrooms. Hugs and high fives everywhere, and all the hard work of the summer instantly paid off when we saw their smiles. These children had suffered through tremendous staff turnover in the past, and it took a toll on their academic achievement and emotional well-being.

There were still the usual battles with the central office, but we were finally granted our extended day program that was in the plan the first year, but that the district chose not to fund. In the second year we convinced them that it wasn’t really their choice not to do it – it was written in the federal grant. So after Labor Day (and after Hurricane Isaac, which caused us to lose a week of school), we began doing extended day four days a week, with half a day on Wednesdays for team meetings and professional development. This gave us extra time to do targeted interventions, and also time to meet with each other and plan collaboratively.

We began to turn the corner – more children were reading, asking questions, and flourishing. Less behavior problems, more time on task. Children were communicating with each other, with teachers, with staff. They understood what the parameters were for being a student at Delmont, and they rose to our challenges. We planted our vegetable garden, had choir concerts, and participated in the Kennedy Center for the Arts program to integrate arts into the curriculum. We partnered with the local hospital’s health program to host the “Big Blue Bus” every week, which provided medical and mental health care to children and families. We were awarded a sizable grant from a local foundation to adopt a parenting program, and worked with a local university to design a new playground.

Then in November things started changing. Our new Superintendent announced his “Family of Schools” plan, which restructured many of the schools in the district. He called me into his office for a meeting on the afternoon of the first community forum held to discuss the changes. He told me that he was going to close Delmont. I remember being so stunned that I couldn’t even react at first. We did not see this coming; we were on our way up. But Dr. Taylor didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to be reminded of how much he loved our school when he visited earlier in the year, or how endearing the kids had been to him. This was a business decision, and he preferred to keep emotions out of it.

Much of our staff was in disbelief when I told them, and when they heard it later that evening at the forum. Many had been at Delmont for ten years or more, and had not planned on leaving. They loved the fact that Delmont was a true neighborhood school with a family atmosphere, and just couldn’t understand why or how that family could be disintegrated. And I had trouble explaining it, because honestly I still don’t know why this decision was made.

At the next set of community forums, the family of schools plan was tweaked, and Delmont was now going to remain open as a K-2 school. This of course would remove us from state scrutiny of test scores by getting rid of the high-stakes test grades. Then in the next proposal, Delmont was going to be a Pre-K center. This is the proposal that the school board voted for, which somehow changed before the next day to it being a PreK – K center.

The March School Board meeting had a packed agenda, and at around 9:00 p.m. they finally got to the item about Delmont. Several school board members spoke out about how much they supported our efforts, and knew that we were doing great work. But when the vote came, they all voted for the motion to turn Delmont into a PreK-K center. The Superintendent had successfully convinced them that we were going to be taken over by the state if they didn’t make this move. No mention was made of our 3-year SIG plan and the fact that we were only in year two…

The school board member representing the region Delmont is in declined to speak, and abstained from the vote.

On the Wednesday of state testing week, the district sent the deputy superintendent to Delmont to meet with parents and staff to tell them of the decision to close the school. Yes, in the MIDDLE of STATE TESTING WEEK! The insensitivity was astonishing. Parents who walk their children to school were the most upset, because the school that their children were now assigned to is three miles away. (It is also an “F” school), Teachers and staff members were assured that the district would do everything they could to find new positions for them, and that many of them would follow their students to the assigned school. No surprise here – not a single Delmont teacher or staff member has been hired at that school. They all found their own jobs, without help from the central office; many have moved out of state or at least out of the district.

As for me, well, because I stood up for my school and tried to keep it open, I was given another letter of insubordination. I was also rated “ineffective” at midyear because of my refusal to change my ratings of teachers to match their pre-identified quota in the value-added system. Their assumption was that if test scores were low, then the teachers must be ineffective. Therefore, I must not know how to evaluate teachers. I was placed on an Intensive Assistance plan. Two months later, I turned in four binders full of data, observations, meeting notes, mentor reviews, etc. My mentor was a local award-winning principal who was part of the original “Dream School” team. Needless to say, she loved Delmont and what we were doing there. She even brought her assistant principal with her on one visit so she could have another perspective. After looking at all of my documentation, the director said that it “looked complete”, but then a week later told me that I was still ineffective and would have to wait for his final evaluation.

I chose not to wait for that final evaluation. I began the job search, had several very promising interviews, but it soon became clear that no public school district in this area would hire me because of my track record in a “failed” school. I really wanted to stay in public schools, because it is where I have spent my entire career, and because I truly believe in them. But in this case the system let me down. After 29 ½ years in the state retirement system, I was looking at having to retire with less than full benefits – a sizable financial difference. And up until this last year, I have had a stellar record in public education. No blemishes, no letters, no confrontations.

I can’t begin to describe what this last year has done to both my physical and mental health. I have been bullied and blackballed, all because I stood up for the children and families that needed us most. I knew I could no longer work for a system that is so dysfunctional, whose superintendent has already threatened to quit a few times when he didn’t get his way. (He, by the way, does NOT have a stellar track record.) Our dream school turned into a nightmare.

I have now resigned from the district and accepted a position as Dean of Instruction at a public charter school about ½ mile from Delmont. Many of the parents have heard that I am here now, and have enrolled their children. This is a brand new facility with a young faculty and plenty of opportunities for me to build instructional leadership. Their test scores rose dramatically last year, and they have begun to stabilize after a few rocky starting years. I am looking forward to the challenges of this new school, but also can’t help but look back.

The two years at Delmont profoundly changed my life, and I would like to think that it changed the lives of some of the children. I cannot begin to describe the last week or day of school. It was a blur of tears, hugs, graduations, celebrations, and uncertainty. I moved through it on auto-pilot; no one ever trained me how to say goodbye to 400 students and families, not to mention a beloved staff. We are now all scattered – students to at least three different schools, and teachers and staff to many more. We vowed to keep up with each other, but I know that we will eventually move on.
By the way, test scores in year two were outstanding. While we don’t yet have a final SPS from the state, preliminary data from our chief of accountability show that we made AYP and would no longer be a “failing” school. Our fourth-graders had a 20% jump in the number of students rated proficient; the district average growth was 6%.

So, this is what “reform” has done; it has transformed our dream school into a nightmare. I hope that we all wake up from it soon in a better place, but I know that for a few years, there was no better place than Delmont.

Categories Closing schools, Louisiana, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Bravo, California!

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
35

The Los Angeles Times explains today that California has stubbornly resisted Arne Duncan’s demand that teachers be evaluated by junk science.

Despite the fact that researchers overwhelmingly agree that “value-added assessment” is flawed and unstable, that it reflects whom you teach, and that good teachers may be rated ineffective, Duncan blithely insists that it is essential.

Was Duncan successful in Chicago? Is Chicago a national model of school reform? Did Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 create a renaissance?

Why is this man allowed to tell every state in the nation how to evaluate teachers?

How awkward for California Democrat George Miller, one of the lead authors of NCLB, a favorite of DFER, and senior Democrat on House Education committee

Bravo, Governor Jerry Brown!

Bravo, Tom Torlakson.

Stay strong. Don’t let Arne bully you.

Categories California, Chicago, Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Teacher Evaluations

Find Contact Info for Your Congressman

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
4

Here is the contact information for your Congressman or Congresswoman.

http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Call Your Representative Today! And Tomorrow Too!

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
22

Friends of Education!

Congress debating the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is the basic legal framework for federal aid to education. In 2001, in response to the proposal by the new President George W. Bush, Congress added high-stakes testing as a requirement for federal aid. Congress wrongly believed that high-stakes testing had produced a miracle in Texas. We have had a dozen years of NCLB, and it has failed to improve education or to increase equality of educational opportunity.

NCLB has been a disaster for children, who are subjected to endless hours of testing; to teachers and principals, who are scapegoated for low scores; for schools, which are cruelly closed if their students don’t reach an unrealistic goal of 100% proficiency, and for communities, which are losing their beloved neighborhood schools.

TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS: STOP HIGH-STAKES TESTING NOW!

Here is a message from the Network for Public Education. Please join us!

Call Your Representatives About ESEA
A bill on NCLB is coming to the floor and we can impact its destiny

Call your representatives about the new NCLB proposal

For the first time in 12 years, a bill is expected to come to the floor of Congress to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as NCLB. The Student Success Act, introduced by Rep. Kline, may be voted on in the House as soon as this week. All parents, teachers and concerned citizens need to weigh in and call their House member as soon as possible. Try calling Monday or Tuesday; detailed instructions and a script is below. Two thirds of the House weren’t even in office when the last ESEA vote occurred; they need to hear from you about what your priorities are for the federal role in public education.

This is what we suggest: please tell your House member that the bill should de-emphasize high-stakes testing — by eliminating the NCLB requirement that states must test students annually in every grade from 3-8th. The federal government should also get out of the oppressive business of mandating how teachers are evaluated; and stop the linking teacher evaluation to test scores, which is unreliable, unfair and damaging to the quality of education.

Instead, they should refocus on the historic role of the federal government to increase equity in our public schools. How? First, Congress should require that states submit plans on how they will improve equitable funding of their schools. Second, they must remove the unconscionable provision in the Kline bill that limits to only 10% the amount of Title II funds that districts can spend on class size reduction.

Title II funds are primarily used to provide teacher training and lower class size. Districts spend about 40% of these funds currently on reducing class size. Ensuring that all kids have access to reasonable class sizes – especially poor kids in urban districts who are often disadvantaged with the largest classes — is one of the best ways to ensure equity and narrow the opportunity gap.

A script is below; a handy chart comparing the provisions of the version of the ESEA bill submitted by Senator Harkin and Representative Klineis here. (The Senate bill hasn’t yet reached the floor; we’ll let you know when it does; but you’re welcome to call your Senators after you call your House member.)

Call the DC office of your Representatives, (you can find their contact info here) and ask to speak to their education staffer or legislative director.

Then say: I am a (parent, teacher, concerned constituent).

I want Rep. ____ to push to eliminate the federal requirement for yearly standardized testing in the ESEA bill; and eliminate the federal role in prescribing how teachers should be evaluated.

Instead, the bill should focus on equity: by requiring that states submit plans showing how they will improve equitable funding in their schools, and by omitting ANY restriction on the amount of Title II funds that can be spent on class size reduction. Smaller classes are a proven strategy to increase equity, and there is no better way to give all children a better chance to learn.

Thanks!

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

The NY Times Tires of Testing

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2013 //
21

For the past dozen years, there has been no louder cheerleader for No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and their demand for test-based accountability than the Néw York Times’ editorial board.

Despite the fact that greater test score gains were recorded before the implementation of NCLB than since; despite the finding of the National Research Council that test-based accountability was ineffectual; despite numerous examples of cheating, gaming the system, narrowing the curriculum, and other negative consequences of high-stakes testing, the Times’ editorial board has stubbornly defended this regime of carrots and sticks based on standardized tests.

Even now, in an editorial saying that testing had gone too far and had turned into a “mania,” the Times can’t resist referring to the passage of George W. Bush’s NCLB (based on the non-existent “Texas miracle”), as “a sensible decision.”

It was not. NCLB was a disaster for the quality of education in the United States. Furthermore, it sent the privatization movement into high gear, since “failing” public schools could, under the law, be closed, privatized, handed over to charter operators. We now know that none of these remedies actually works unless low-performing kids are excluded or kicked out, and we know that the overwhelming majority of so-called “failing” schools are schools that enroll mostly black and Hispanic students, many of whom are poor, have disabilities, or don’t speak English. Schools are being closed and privatized because they enroll the neediest students, not because they are “failing.”

Now the Times looks forward to the Common Core and the computerized testing it requires to bring the wonderful progress promised by NCLB.

It is good to see that even the Néw York Times and its education editorial writer Brent Staples recognize that enough is enough. If only they had said so five years ago, before so many schools were unfairly closed based on test scores. If only they would acknowledge that standardized tests mirror advantage and disadvantage. If only they would ask questions about how more rigorous testing will affect the kids who are now struggling with the current tests.

But let us be grateful that after 12 years of NCLB and four years of Race to the Top, the Times’ ardor for high-stakes testing has cooled.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing
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