"NCLB: The Implausible Dream"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
Date: June 11, 2005 12:01:02 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: For IP: "NCLB: The Implausible Dream"


NCLB's implausible dream

Jennifer Wilmetti
PERSPECTIVE

While the intent of the No Child Left Behind Act was praiseworthy,  
the means
put in place to achieve the goals are flawed in several ways.

1. This is an under-funded mandate. We are told to perform miracles  
for every
student with a lack of necessary resources. I am supposed to make  
sure that
all of my students read up to grade level, but yet I can't buy any  
books to
help me do it!

2. We have been told "all means all." In other words, when the act  
said that
100 percent of students would have to be proficient by the year 2013,  
they
meant all. This includes students who have disabilities that make this
completely impossible. By simply enacting a piece of legislation, it  
won't get
rid of the fact that we have students with mental retardation,  
cerebral palsy,
fetal alcohol syndrome, Down's syndrome, etc., who are never going to  
be able
to achieve this. Period.

3. Many people have started to call this act "No Child Left  
Untested," as that
seems to be the focus of our teaching these days. How are we supposed  
to get
these students up to proficiency when we never have a chance to teach  
them
because we spend so much time testing them? We can test them until  
the cows
come home but that doesn't change the fact that as it stands we haven't
increased the amount of time that students spend in school. We have  
to find
the time to test them somewhere, and that time is coming from our
instructional time. Thus, we are teaching them even less than we were  
before
this act.

4. Finally, this act holds all school staff members accountable for  
student
achievement (or lack of student achievement). But we are missing two key
pieces of the puzzle: students and parents. Teachers can do everything
imaginable to increase learning but if neither of these groups buys  
into the
package, nothing will improve. In Wyoming, none of the mandated tests  
are used
to hold students accountable. Students learn this very quickly and  
fail to
take these tests seriously. A couple of years ago, I was speaking  
with a class
that included the valedictorian at our high school about the WyCAS  
test. When
asked, the students, including the valedictorian, said that they  
hadn't taken
the test seriously! If this young man, who was obviously bright and  
driven,
didn't take it seriously, how many students did? And yet, this is one  
of the
measures of whether we as teachers are doing our job or not!

As for the parents, if parents don't care about education, students  
usually
don't care either. Parents who don't read to their children, don't  
attend
school functions, don't participate in parent/teacher conferences,  
fail to
provide safe home environments, etc., are not doing their job as  
parents. The
schools can try to educate them on the need for these things, but  
sometimes
there is just no reaching them. Sometimes they are worried about  
making enough
money to keep food on the table. Others are caught up in a web of  
drug abuse.
The reasons are as numerous as the students who aren't making  
proficiency.
Because no lawmaker wants to try to enact a piece of legislation that  
would
hold parents accountable for their child's achievement in school, the  
law was
passed that made the educators solely accountable. This isn't fair  
and it
isn't realistic. Education needs to be seen as a table with four legs:
teachers, school administrators, parents and students. If any one of  
these
legs doesn't hold up its weight, the table will fall over and there  
won't be a
flat surface for the education to build on.

While I can agree that we do need to do something to reform U.S.  
education,
"No Child Left Behind" is not the tool to do it. Let's repeal this  
act and
start fresh with realistic expectations. Let's include everyone in the
conversation, not just lawmakers. And we need to realize that we  
aren't going
to be able to reform society through the schools. Reforming society  
as a whole
is a different conversation.

Jennifer Wilmetti of Rock Springs is a teacher.

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/06/11/editorial/forum/ 
e223ef748e82be328725701c006ee83d.txt


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