The Seven Deadly Absurdities of No Child Left Behind

[LWolf]

That seems to be the key to Bush absurdities, doesn't it? They are all deadly.

This article is several months old, but it's points haven't changed any. With Bush and Spellings poised to expand NCLB even further,these deadly absurdities need to be a higher priority with the general public, imo.

THE SEVEN DEADLY ABSURDITIES OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
By Gerald W. Bracey

Gerald W. Bracey is an associate professor at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia and an Associate of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, Ypsilanti, Michigan. His most recent book is Setting the Record Straight: Responses to Misconceptions About Public Education in the U. S.: Second Edition (Heinemann, September 2004).

<snip>

1. The No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) uses the phrase “scientifically based research” 111 times and demands such research from educational researchers, but no scientifically based research-or any research--supports the law's mandates.

2. NCLB lacks research support because NCLB depends solely on punishment. As schools fail to make arbitrary “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) the law imposes punitive, increasingly harsh sanctions. No psychologist, educator or organizational theorist would establish such a system, much less expect it to work (can one imagine Tom Peters or Peter Senge coming up with such a harebrained notion?). NCLB is in the great tradition of “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”

3. Even those who think punishment can occasionally be beneficial would never use it as NCLB does. It punishes the entire school for the failures of the few, often the very few. If a school's special education students fail to make AYP, the whole school fails. If a school's English language learners fail to make AYP the whole school fails. If 95% of any group fails to show up and bubble in answer sheets on test day, the whole school fails. NCLB requires schools to report test score data by various student categories. Most schools have 37 such categories (California has 46). Schools thus have 37 opportunities to fail, only one way to succeed. This is nuts.

4. All students must be proficient in reading, math, and science by 2014. This is ridiculous. In his 2003 presidential address to American Educational Research Association, Robert Linn, projected it would take 61 years, 66 years, and 166 years, respectively, to get fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders to the proficient level in math. Alas, Linn's projections are wildly optimistic because he reported only national aggregate data, not data disaggregated by ethnicity. In the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 5 percent of African-American eighth graders and 7 percent of Hispanics were proficient in math. Only 37 percent of whites, 43 percent of Asians, and 15 percent of Native Americans reached this plateau.

5. As a consequence of #3 and #4 above, California projects that by the witching year of 2014, NCLB will label 99 percent of its schools “failing.” Minnesota, one of the nation's highest scoring states, projects that 2014 will find 80 percent of its schools wanting.

6. Any school that fails to make AYP for two consecutive years must offer all students the option to transfer to a “successful” school. Thus, if a school's special education students fail to make AYP one year and its English language learners fail the next year, the school must offer all students the “choice option” in spite of the fact that the school worked for the other 36 student categories.

<snip>

7. Schools alone cannot accomplish what NCLB requires. After all, between birth and age 18, children spend only 9 percent of their lives in schools. Family and community factors such as poverty affect achievement. Poor children enter school well behind their middle class peers, and while research finds they learn the same amount during the school year, they lose that learning over the summer and they fall farther and farther behind. Critics, of course, blame the schools for what happens in the months the schools are closed.

More:

http://nochildleft.com/2004/oct04absurd.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Easy to explain: NCLB is the mechanism to end federal funding to

education. Instead of cutting off the spigot, * & Co. create a charade of tests that are impossible to test. When failure inevitably occurs, the money stops because of the fault of the school.

[LWolf]

2. Easy to explain.

Many of us have been explaining it since the birth of the acronym.

Harder to stop. Who listened when we complained? Who's listening now? When I complain, as an educator I am a "special interest," or "incompetent," etc..

When will the general public complain?

And, pardon my frustration here, but

When will Democratic Leaders stand up and call this legislation what it is, and fight with us?

[rodeodance]

4. Many Dems support it--believe more funding for tutors, surport is the

answer. Maybe, but many Dems (others)still are critical of the punitive santions against schools, as they stand, are terrible--and the "fact" based tests. The 'idea' is seductive (no child should be left behind), but, the effect of this program-- is that "many kids are left behind.

[LWolf]

5. Another 4 years, and all but the children of the wealthy

will be left behind. I think that's part of the point; maintaining and strengthening the "haves" and "have-nots" system we operate on.

You'd think that the Democratic Party, the party of the "people," would be standing up for the people. They have to be smart enough to see past the seductive language to the reality; they're politicians, aren't they?

[rodeodance]

3. yes, still very pertinent, esp. with the expansion to High Schools

[LWolf]

6. A glimmer of hope:

Even Bush allies on NCLB, both Republican and Democratic, are gearing up to oppose the high school expansion.

BUSH'S HIGH SCHOOL PLAN FACES FIGHT IN CONGRESS
Associated Press -- February 9, 2005
by Ben Feller


<snip>

Washington -- President Bush's plan to expand high school testing is facing a fight from some of the same leaders in Congress who pushed through his first-term school agenda.

Bush wants Congress to require yearly reading and math tests in grades nine through 11, further extending a greater federal role in education. The No Child Left Behind law Bush championed requires tests yearly in grades three to eight, and once during high school.

Congressional education leaders are wary, if not opposed, to the way Bush wants to change high school, as outlined in his new budget proposal. He wants to spend $1.2 billion on high school "interventions,'' for example, but erase about as much from vocational education.

More:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0210testing10.html

[liberalitch]

7. NCLB in the classroom....

the law makes no provisions for schools that can't attract superstar teachers.... then there's no money to make more superstar teachers.

Lately they have been pulling some of my African American boys to "talk to recruitersr" instead of leaving them in class so that they can learn what to do to pass the NCLB tests (that are made by business men.... not teachers and parents). These are not kids who would not go to college these are kids who are in AP Hist. classes and could get academic scholarships.

.... oh, heck who needs an educated peasantry anyhow?

[LWolf]

9. Can they pull them without parent permission?

Do the parents know? Do the boys want to talk to recruiters?

If the parents know, and the boys are willing, there's not a lot we can do about it. But if the parents don't know....

A phone call expressing concern over missed class time, and calling to see if "they're having any trouble keeping up, since they've missed class time with the recruiters," might be an idea.

[indepat]

8. Absolutely everything emanating for the neocon cabal is a big lie