Look for an assault on No Child Left Behind when it starts hitting suburban schools as has just happened.
And though some of the schools continue to perform well overall, bringing every subgroup up to the same level–the stated goal of No Child Left Behind–remains a daunting task.
“The more subgroups you have, the more likely you are to not make [testing goals],” said Phil Prale, assistant superintendent of Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200, with a student body that is 66 percent white, 27 percent African-American and 4 percent Latino. Prale said that while the school’s overall test scores improved last year, low-income students did not reach state goals in math.
“These are top-notch schools,” he said. “When they land on these lists, I suppose we could reexamine what are the criteria and goal of the legislation.”
The blathering of NCLB supporters tries to sell opposition to the criteria as being against standards whent he real opposition is to rather bizarre and statistically unsound methods of determining whether a school is failing or not.
The suburban schools on No Child Left Behind’s so-called “underperforming” list are racially and economically diverse schools, including my local high school, Evanston Township. Schhols that are overwhelmingly white and wealthy have fewer standards to meet, so don’t expect an outcry about NCLB from Bush-land.
Actually, where the other schools will get nailed is special ed. Making matters worse, if you only have say 5 ESL students, you can be labeled as failing–it’s happened in the City of Chicago at some of the better schools and with that low of a threshhold–lots of non-diverse suburban schools will get hit too.
NCLB is all about destroying public education so that it can be privatized – nothing else. It’s about less government, not about sound government, or education.
Hiram’s right on.
From Phil Prale: “When they land on these lists, I suppose we could reexamine what are the criteria and goal of the legislation.”
…the goal is to have a built-in reference showing public schools are “failing.” Thus, we should offer the public an alternative: charter schools, private schools, home-based education, etc. This was never about children or even education, it was about how to pull the wool over Congressional Democrats’ eyes long enough to begin destroying the NEA and privatizing one of the most ubiquitous forms of American government: the local school district.
Why do you think it’s been as underfunded as it has? I’m not saying “throw more money at it” is a good solution, it’s not. But not devoting the funds promised to this Bush program helps hammer the nails in the coffin quicker.
ArchPundit’s response to the first comment also reflects where this problem is going to hit first: the wealthier areas which have “good” schools. I don’t know if the conservatives were smart enough to have anticipated this effect but the language of the Act does lead to a magnification of problems for schools that have, up until NLCB, done well for the vast majority of their student body. The schools aren’t failing under normal circumstances, but they fail under NLCB’s contrived standards. Could it be that hitting the worst schools first (which happened) and then following that with a 1-2 punch of hitting “good” schools second was the plan all along? “Why, see here. Glenbard East in Lombard is faring poorly — it’s failing NLCB standards. If it can happen here it can happen anywhere. Perhaps we ought to think about starting up more charter schools to prevent further erosion of our children’s education…”
Of course, there’s always this argument against charter schools, which would pretty much leave private schools or home-based education (both of which are generally a-ok with Republicans):
Testing scores lag in charter schools
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0408170330aug17,1,5066913.story
Please check some relevant pages in the field of… Thanks!!!
Wow, I love how the focus of any topic of discussion falls right back into the government. That was sarcasm. I actually get pretty sick of it, but that’s just an opinion, which we are all entitled to. My point is, I’m not really sure I agree that the government has some scheming mad-scientist plan to destroy the democracy of the school system. What is most likely going on is a largely uneducated decision. Most of those politicians who voted the NCLB into action haven’t been into a school since they graduated high school unless for some charity I-need-to-look-good speech or project sort of thing, and many of them were probably never in public schools. They have no clue what it’s doing to the schools and the students. They wanted to look like they actually care about the education of the children, so they passed the first act that said “child” and “school” in it. That’s why they support it. Obviously more standardized tests and sticking non-English speaking students and Special-Ed students in the same classroom as the average student and the “gifted” student is not going to solve many problems. I know that because I make it a point to know, as my job, and you may know because of whatever you do. But they don’t know. There is at least one good thing about the NCLB, and that’s that no child can be refused an education for any reason, like if they don’t have an address. That’s great! But only a diamond in the ruff. Yes, the NCLB is mostly really annoying and really frustrating and much more a hinderance than a help. But what is the point of sitting here and posting a statement on a website? This is a democracy, a government of the people. There are a lot more problems to be worked out in schools than just standardized tests. What about the inequity of districts? The still prevalent segregation in urban and suburban schools???
Instead of telling each other about how bad it is, when most of us already know, why don’t we tell, instead, the president? IF YOU WRITE A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT TELLING HIM ALL OF THE ISSUES IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEMS, SO WILL I, AND IF ALL OF US WRITE A LETTER ENOUGH TIMES, MAYBE SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN. WE ARE THE PEOPLE. WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. TAKE ACTION.