No Child Left Behind - A Trojan Horse?

[Athena]

In 2001, the No Child Left Behind act flew through the House and Senate to become America's most recent federal education reform. In short, the act bolsters outcome-based education - set standards high and enforce accountability, and students will eventually improve. On the other hand, with standardized testing being used to determine improvement (improvement that's tied to funding), we risk teachers "teaching to the test". While the debate over NCLB and the theories surrounding it continue to be hotly debated, does any of it even matter?

From Time:

There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush administration's signature domestic achievement. For one thing, in the view of many educators, the law's 2014 goal — which calls for all public school students in grades 4 through 8 to be achieving on grade level in reading and math — is something no educational system anywhere on earth has ever accomplished. Even more unrealistic: every kid (except for 3% with serious handicaps or other issues) is supposed to be achieving on grade level every year, climbing in lockstep up an ever more challenging ladder. This flies in the face of all sorts of research showing that children start off in different places academically and grow at different rates.

Add to the mix the fact that much of the promised funding failed to materialize and many early critics insisted that No Child Left Behind was nothing more than a cynical plan to destroy American faith in public education and open the way to vouchers and school choice.

Now a former official in Bush's Education department is giving at least some support to that notion. Susan Neuman, a professor of education at the University Michigan who served as Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education during George W. Bush's first term, was and still is a fervent believer in the goals of NCLB. And she says the President and then Secretary of Education Rod Paige were too. But there were others in the department, according to Neuman, who saw NCLB as a Trojan horse for the choice agenda — a way to expose the failure of public education and "blow it up a bit," she says. "There were a number of people pushing hard for market forces and privatization."

Could it be that the administration knowingly signed sweeping but impossible reform in an effort to expose the shortcomings of public education, dishearten citizens and push them toward the goal of privatization?

It's possible. But I'm not even sure if that matters, either. If we are headed toward a situation that brings the question of privatization front-and-center, we ought to be discussing it now.

Personally, I'm all for giving various forms of privatization a try to see which works best. What do you think? Please see the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education for clarification on what privatization involves and the pros and cons of privatized institutions.

[swivel]

Great post.

I think parents should be able to "opt out" of the public education system. We should be at liberty to assure the BEST education for our children. This does not mean that we should have complete freedoms with the education of our kids (no religious indoctrination instead of teaching the basics, no criminal neglect of a child's brain, etc...). Importantly, I think that the parents should get a TAX BREAK if they secure an education at least as good as the public system by their own means. This break should EQUAL the amount spent, on average, for the education of children in the resident state, per year by each taxpayer. Parents can use this money to homeschool or pay for a tutor/private education.

Standardized testing is necessary to even know what is broken, and to show how superior homeschooling and private education are to public schools (and other trends like urban vs rural, North vs South, correlations with money spent, etc...). But I don't think teachers should know exactly what will be on these tests. What is measured is NOT how kids are doing, compared to the test... what is measured is how kids in school A are doing compared to kids in school B. This will leave teachers free to teach how they think best, and put pressure on the test-creators to create an exam which reflects basic understanding in a general manner in order to make the A/B comparison valid.

In my opinion, the hostility to "No Child Left Behind" is 100% due to the unpopularity of George Bush. His detractors are actively looking for reasons to hate the legislation in much the same manner that Conservatives looked for reasons to hate NAFTA.

[celtic friend]

Personally, I know a few teachers that hate it. I think it is definitely good for the schools that seriously are sending HSers out into the world who can not even read.
I do not like how they grade now, all of it is either Advanced, Proficient, Partially Proficient and Not Proficient. They send home notes that NP, might mean they just starting touching on the subject, and PP might mean the child is still where they need to be. Also, technically PP is NP when you think about it. It is all worded to make no child really look like they are failing. Every parent I know hates this wording ( and I know a LOT of people :) ), we would much prefer the old A, B, or C, or if you went to Catholic school like me, Outstanding, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory.
Back to topic here, while testing might not be totally indicative of the school as a whole, it really does show if the teachers are at least getting through to some of the kids, and we needed something in place to get the changes needed.

[CPL CHUD]

I think it is definitely good for the schools that seriously are sending HSers out into the world who can not even read.

Now I know what we must do to increase traffic flow to this site.

Bright....pictures....instead of written posts.

I drew one.

[ImmortalOne]

My understanding is that if a child fails a teacher/grade etc. That the parents have the option to allow that child to progress. I.E. 5th grader fails the grade and teacher wants to hold her back... parents A&B can say "hell no, we want her as a 6th Grader".

truth? or no?