Archives for category: NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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Deborah Meier: Am I Part of the Problem or the Solution?

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2013 //
19

Deborah Meier has been blogging recently with Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Deb is known as a progressive, Mike as a conservative. Deb was one of the founders of the small schools movement and a leader of opposition to standardized testing through her involvement in Fairtest. Mike strongly supports standardized testing, charter schools, and competition a drivers of change.

In his previous post, Mike asked Deb whether she was part of the problem (because of her opposition to standardized testing and her general skepticism towards what is called “reform” today, I.e., No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top).

This is a good exchange. I wonder if they can bridge their differences.

Deborah answered here. I won’t begin to summarize what she said. Let me just say that she is at her best and what she wrote about children, about the shrinking middle class, and about what schools can and cannot do. Please take the time to read what she wrote.

Categories Accountability, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Parents, Poverty, Race to the Top, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Outstanding Proposal about ESEA/NCLB by AASA

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2013 //
18

Forgive all the acronyms but that is the way that headlines work.

The School Superintendents Association wrote a strong letter to Senator Tom Harkin about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the basic federal legislation for elementary and secondary education, which is currently known as No Child Left Behind.

NCLB is generally recognized to be a disaster. The best evidence of its failure is the ever louder cries for “reform.” If NCLB had worked, why would we need more and more reforming, using the same failed methods?

AASA does not have kind words for Race to the Top and urges Congress not to codify it into law.

The AASA clears away the legislative debris, recognizes the over-reach of the federal Department of Education, recommends the removal of the claptrap associated with NCLB, and urges the restoration of a healthy federalism, with a balance of powers among federal, state, and local authorities.

A welcome dose of reality.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Will Michael Fullan Stop NCLB and RTTT?

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2013 //
20

Officials in California have been meeting with Michael Fullan of Ontario to learn about the impressive improvements there.

Fullan wants to turn the state of California away from the carrots-and-sticks of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

The story linked her says:

“I want California to become an alternative model to No Child Left Behind; that would be a great thing to aspire to,” Fullan said last month during an interview in Sacramento. Instead of improvement through the “negative drivers” of standardized testing and quick school turnarounds, he would shift the focus to improving instruction through “motivational collaboration” between teachers and administrators.

Fullan believes that data should be used to improve, not to punish. What a novel idea! What would our Broad trained superintendents do if they were told to help teachers and schools, not to punish them?

Good grief! Fullan’s philosophy could cause the whole miserable, mean-spirited farce of federal policy to collapse.

Want to know more about Fullan? Read this.

His ideas might be powerful enough to beat the Billionaire Boys Club. They have this one important advantage: They work.

Categories California, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Zombie Federal Policies

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2013 //
116

Bill Gates is wrong. American education is not “broken.”

Federal education policy is broken.

Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is educational malpractice.

Basing teachers’ evaluation, their salary, and their tenure on student test scores is a bad idea. It doesn’t work. It is professional malpractice. The Gates Foundation has invested hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make it work. It doesn’t work. Arne Duncan has made it a cardinal principle of federal education policy. It doesn’t work.

Giving bonuses to teachers based on test scores is a failed idea. It has never worked. The U.S. Department of Education under Duncan put $1 billion into such programs. They fail.

Closing schools doesn’t make them better. It shatters communities and sends children to search for a school that will accept them. That’s federal policy. It’s wrong. It is wrong in Chicago and it is wrong everywhere else.

There is no such thing as a “failing school.” Schools are buildings. Buildings don’t fail. If the students in a school have low test scores, it is the responsibility of the superintendent to find out why and to supply the needed staff and resources to improve the school.

When schools struggle, it is the responsibility of the people at the top to help them, not to close them.

Federal education policy, from No Child Left Behind to Race to the Top, is broken. It has failed. It must be changed.

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

Wayne Gersen: What Obama Could Learn from Vermont

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2013 //
5

Wayne Gersen has been working in several districts in Vermont. He is impressed by Vermont’s determination not to allow testing to be the be-all and end-all of education. The state is determined not to let NCLB wreck its schools and not to ask for a waiver that would allow Duncan to impose high-stakes testing. If only Obama did what Vermont does!

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama

The Mess That Is Obama’s Education Policy

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
55

Valerie Strauss does an excellent job of deconstructing the disaster of Obama’s education policy.

Remember when candidate Obama in 2008 spoke of hope and change. That encouraged many educators to believe that No Child Left Behind would be ended, tossed into the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

Sadly, President Obama built his Race to the Top right on the flawed foundation of NCLB, and made teaching to the test a necessity.

As the for-profit charters proliferated, he said nothing.

As radical governors destroyed collective bargaining and teacher due process, he said nothing.

As cyber charters grew, garnering huge profits but terrible education, he said nothing.

As vouchers spread, he said nothing.

As privatization accelerated, he said nothing.

The very idea of a “race to the top” refutes the principle of equality of educational opportunity.

The Bush-Obama program will go down in history as a disastrous effort to force the children of America into a standardized mold, while unleashing free market forces to make big bucks with scarce dollars.

It will be held up as an example of what school reform is NOT.

Categories Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama, Race to the Top

Why She Left Teaching

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2013 //
17

From a teacher who gave up:

After 13+ years as a successful special education teacher in Los Angeles and then Virginia, I resigned last year. I just felt like I could no longer teach one more year in the current atmosphere that the teaching profession has become. I decided to take at least a year off, but it may be permanent. I know I have helped so many students and families over the years, and the students remained the only pleasant part of being a teacher at all. The excessive paperwork and lack of funding and support from society, the administration, and the government got worse and worse with every year, and the major down-slide began with No Child Left Behind and the increasing emphasis on test scores. The pressure for my students to pass standardized tests became unbearable even though many did pass and advance in terms of progress, but who cares about progress if it isn’t a passing score, and who cares about whether my students have disabilities, and most importantly, who cares if one test taken on one day cannot possibly assess the many successes and advances my students make yearly? Maybe I will go back to the classroom one day, but for now, I sorely need a break from the circus education has become.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Jason Stanford: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Rhee

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2013 //
19

Jason Stanford, a first-rate journalist in a texas, looks for the lessons in the meteoric rise and astonishing descent of Michelle Rhee.

The major lesson, he says, is not so much about her as about the deep flaws in the test-and-punish philosophy she embodied. Putting the squeeze on subordinates to raise test scores leads to all sorts of negative consequences, but not to good education.

The flaw is inherent in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Until we get a better vision of education, there will be more Beverly Halls and Michelle Rhees.

Categories Corporate Reformers, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Rhee, Michelle, Testing

Randy Turner Explains His Suspension

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
23

Randy Turner was suspended not for his Huffington Post article but for his book. This is why teachers need tenure: Academic freedom.

He sent this comment:

“Thanks for the kind words from everyone. My suspension coming at almost exactly the same time as my Huffington Post blog was a coincidence. Basically, it happened because I wrote a novel, No Child Left Alive, criticizing many of the practices in education today, particularly those done by overambitious administrators. I just finished posting the charges against me on my blog: http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-joplin-school-districts-charges.html

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

How Arbitrary is NCLB?

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
6

Matt DiCarlo here describes a paper that shows how utterly arbitrary NCLB is.

Some states look good.

Some states look very bad.

But the states that look bad may actually be outperforming the states that look good..

When will our policymakers acknowledge that NCLB is a harmful, destructive law that has wreaked havoc on American education?

Where Matt and I part company is this observation he concludes with: “…accountability systems can play a productive role in education, but this analysis demonstrates very clearly that, when it comes to the design and implementation of these systems, details matter. Seemingly trivial choices can have drastic effects on measured outcomes.”

No, accountability systems are not likely to play a productive number in education. NCLB is a disaster. Race to the Top is a double disaster.

Who will be held “accountable” for low test scores? Teachers? Students? Principals? Schools? Superintendents? Local school boards? Legislators? Governors? The U,S. Department of Education? Congress?

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education
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