Stories of what the No Child Left Behind law is doing to teaching can get ugly. So it was interesting to see the upbeat view of the law’s 2014 goal of full proficiency in reading held by Jeri Powers, the De Soto reading specialist and former third-grade teacher who was named Kansas’ 2008 Teacher of the Year: “If you go into teaching with the mind-set that they can’t become proficient, solid readers, they won’t. I know things about the law need to be tweaked, need to be changed. But I have seen some good things come out of it, too. I have noticed over the years that I have students who have achieved higher levels because I’m held more accountable, and I know more clearly what the goal is.â€
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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28 Comments
“I have noticed over the years that I have students who have achieved higher levels because I’m held more accountable, and I know more clearly what the goal is.”
Accountability, wow! That’s a new concept for Union Teachers.
I would agree we teachers are holding a lot on our shoulders…
Imagine that, teachers being held accountable for (wait for it)
teaching…
I think that many teachers are complaining that the paperwork and the focus on testing and rote learning is not really condusive to real learning and understanding. I have friends who teach on the college level and they say that students coming in seem ill prepared for the critical thinking skills they need to succeed.
Exactly, “Mary Caruso” –
If you want a generation of Standardized People, you educate them with Standardized Tests.
I try to avoid throwing around the “f” word lightly, but it *is* an element of Fascism to indoctrinate kids *what* to think rather than *how* to think.
Don’t worry the teachers union will be contacting this teacher for her comments and instructing her on what to say and not say in the future.
Where do the Cons get off with all their rhetoric about the *powerful* teachers’ union?
If it were a *powerful* union, teachers would be paid tens of thousands of dollars more per year. They’d have limos delivering them to work or be driving Porsches to the job like doctors and lawyers.
Talk about a straw man! The “powerful” teachers’ union is a myth.
If the teachers union was so powerful, NCLB and all that it ruins would have been scrapped along with the idiot president in 2004
NCLB is only teaching to the test. These students will not have any real world concept but by gollly, they will be able to multiply
I have a grandson in the 4th grade who has struggled with reading. He was put in a program last year because of the NCLB policy. Not only is he reading at grade level now he is actually enjoying it for the first time ever. He has a book he was reading for fun this weekeng. I’ll take those kinds of ‘failures’ everytime.
oh kansas gram…stop swallowing the koolaide
NCLB did not bring any special classes..
and who wouldnt’ enjoy reading penthouse
MH,
Teaching kids what to think and how to think are two inseparable sides of the same coin. You can’t teach them how to think without content, which is what to think about.
I created and taught an independent-study math course to a student who had ADHD who was bombing regular math. So, we were doing stuff that conventional multiple-choice-assessment tests could not measure. For example, expand
(A + B)^5. Now try (A+B+C+D+E)^3. Now lets look at this interesting thing called Pascal’s Triangle, and let’s see how it corresponds to the coefficients we obtain upon expanding (A+B)^n for n =0 to 7.
You won’t find these problems in the 8th grade Kansas math assessment test or even the ACT for 11th-12th graders.
Let’s look at what happens when you divide a real number by decreasing fractions, to tiny ones, and then try to divide by 0. Let’s look at what negative exponents mean.
We need a calculator. Let’s see. Our choices are a TI-86+ Silver Edition and an HP 49g+. Let’s go with the HP, because it is the most powerful handheld math computer on the planet. And it costs only 50 bucks more than the TI. Let’s also use PacificTech’s PC math-graphing software for 3D color graphics.
We were both having a great time. But then I was subjected to pressure to have my student take the ACT to validate my teaching. So I surrendered to pressure to switch to a conventional curriculum that the ACT was aligned with.
We lost the “magic”. I know how to teach conventional math. I gave my student an ACT exam after 2 months of teaching. He scored a 13. After 10 months of ACT-aligned math, he scored a 26. Only a handful of Kansas 7th graders achieved that year, and it was the highest score for gifted Wichita 7th graders who took the test.
But teaching ACT-aligned math wasn’t what I wanted to do, because it wasn’t what my student wanted to do. I was really interested in exploring number theory with a student who had fantastic ability and was “grooving on” studying it. It was something both of us looked forward to doing every day.
Teaching to achieve high-level performance, even exceptionally high performance, on a standardized high school math-skills evaluation test was not fun for me, because it wasn’t what my young genius (with ADHD) student wanted to do. It required superficial coverage of a broad range of topics, the “mile wide, one inch deep” crap of American so-called “mathematics education”.
You can’t separate “how to think” from exposing students to “what to think about”. I taught my student how to prove the Pythagorean Theorem at age 13. Today, he can’t do it. Because it wasn’t WHAT he was interested in.
De Soto obviously does not have many ELL (English Language Learners). The law requires “newcomers” (those in the U.S. for the 1st year) to be reading AT GRADE LEVEL by the spring of their second year.
Imagine a 7th grader coming from Mexico and in the U.S. for the first time. Will that student pass the state tests in the spring of his/her 8th grade year? Uh, no – and you want to blame teachers for that?
Before you condemn educators for the issues raised about NCLB, be sure your opinions are INFORMED ones.
So Common Sense, all students in U.S. schools are from Mexico?
You might want to think about that. :)
From the start, the NCLB debates have echoed the classic American ambivalence about how much schools alone can be expected to do in closing historic achievement gaps and overcoming social and cultural disadvantages. But it has also had political overtones all its own: the belief, by some on the right, that people like Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) signed on only to leverage more money from the federal government and would be happy to let the accountability system fade away; and the belief, in some circles on the left, that NCLB, like all accountability systems, was a conservative trick to show the schools as failures and open the door for vouchers. “The president’s ultimate goal,” said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, “is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he’s starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools.”
There will never be a time when ALL will be proficient in reading and math, not when you set one standard for all….forgetting that children are not little robots.
They are different inside, they think in unique ways. It takes a variety of methods used by a skilled teacher to reach goals of any kind….not ones that just keep on getting out of reach.
I fully believe the program was geared to failure. So did many teachers I taught with…they figured it out early on. It does not take rocket science to figure that when you label all kids alike, set the same goals for them…you will have failure.
I am fully in support of the NCLB law. This is the only thing that the Bush bunch actually got right in 7 years! The fact is that teachers, schools and administrators need to be held accountable for what their schools are putting out. We have been putting plenty of money into public schools for decades and getting less and less out for it. Private schools turn out superior students for the same or less dollars per student. This is not acceptable. Now, if the law needs some tweaking then we should discuss it. But the schools need to get used to the idea that we are no longer going to hand over billions of dollars and accept HS graduates that cannot read a Dr Suess book. And if they cannot do better, they need to close and/or allow the parents to move their kids to better schools.
Kev finally something you and I agree on. Leave thinks that the authors of NCLB think all kids learn alike when the opposite is actually true.
The teachers are now forced to acknowledge this and treat each child in the way that will allow them to learn. We push way to many kids through with unacceptable results. When they are out of school and unable to fill out job resumes we say whoops!!
Thank goodness something is now being done to prevent this.
No Dentist Left Behind
My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don’t forget checkups.He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts me, and I’ve got all my teeth.
When I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he’d heard about the new state program. I knew he’d think it was great.”Did you hear about the new state program to measure effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?” I said.
“No,” he said. He didn’t seem too thrilled. “How will they do that?” “It’s quite simple,” I said. “They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at age 10, 14, and 18 and average that to determine a dentist’s rating. Dentists will be rated as excellent, good, average, below average, and unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. The plan will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better,” I said. “Poor dentists who don’t improve could lose their licenses to practice.”
“That’s terrible,” he said.”What? That’s not a good attitude,” I said. “Don’t you think we should try to improve children’s dental health in this state?” “Sure I do,” he said, “but that’s not a fair way to determine who ispracticing good dentistry.”
“Why not?” I said. “It makes perfect sense to me.”
“Well, it’s so obvious,” he said. “Don’t you see that dentists don’t all work with the same clientele, and that much depends on things we can’t control? For example, I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper middle-class neighborhoods. Many of the parents I work with don’t bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem, and I don’t get to do much preventive work. Also, many of the parents I serve let their kids eat way too much candy from an early age, unlike more educated parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay. To top it all off, so many of my clients have well water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?”
“It sounds like you’re making excuses,” I said. “I can’t believe that you, my dentist, would be so defensive. After all, you do a great job, and you needn’t fear a little accountability.”
“I am not being defensive!” he said. “My best patients are as good as anyone’s, my work is as good as anyone’s, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists because I chose to work where I am needed most.”
“Don’t’ get touchy,” I said.
“Touchy?” he said. His face had turned red, and from the way he was clenching and unclenching his jaws, I was afraid he was going to damage his teeth. “Try furious! In a system like this, I will endup being rated average, below average, or worse. The few educated patients I have who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating is an actual measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I’ll be left with only the most needy patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse. On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?”
“I think you are overreacting,” I said. “‘Complaining, excuse-making and stonewalling won’t improve dental health’… I am quoting from a leading member of the DOC,” I noted. “What’s the DOC?” he asked. “It’s the Dental Oversight Committee,” I said, “a group made up of mostly lay persons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved”"Spare me,” he said, “I can’t believe this. Reasonable people won’t buy it,” he said hopefully. The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, “How else would you measure good dentistry?”
“Come watch me work,” he said. “Observe my processes.”
“That’s too complicated, expensive and time- consuming,” I said.
“Cavities are the bottom line, and you can’t argue with the bottom line. It’s an absolute measure.”
“That’s what I’m afraid my parents and prospective patients will think. This can’t be happening,” he said despairingly. “Now, now,” I said, “don’t despair. The state will help you some.”
“How?” he asked. if you receive a poor rating, they’ll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out,” I said brightly. “You mean,” he said, “they’ll send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had much more experience? BIG HELP!” “There you go again,” I said. “You aren’t acting professionally at all.”
“You don’t get it,” he said. “Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score made on a test of children’s progress with no regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools.”
I just shook my head sadly, but he had brightened. “I’m going to write my representatives and senators,” he said. “I’ll use the school analogy. Surely they will see the point.”
He walked off with that look of hope mixed with fear and suppressed anger that I, a teacher, see in the mirror so often lately. If you don’t understand why educators resent the recent federal NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT, this may help. If you do understand, you’ll enjoy this analogy.
Oh I get it…
Children are like cavities and teachers are the amalgam…
:D
Maybe we should be looking at this from the childs point of view.
“What do you mean you are in the 3rd grade and reading at 1st grade level? Are you stupid or something”
“I guess so.”
When will this child get a chance to learn to read. His teacher doesn’t have the right attitude. She resents the NCLB law. She doesn’t have the time to devote to helping him so what is he to do?
Oh yes, next year he can be in the 4th grade and read at a 1st grade level, and so it goes on and on but don’t expect anything from his teachers.
ksgrm
work in a school. Then tell me its a good thing. IT is not. Teachers WANT their kids to be successful, but NCLB is not the way
but you are too far up bush’s rear end to think otherwise
I am done
How can this be?
http://www.firedupmissouri.com/voucher_oucher
A remarkable story from today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel makes a devastating case against voucher advocates like Rex Sinquefield and Jane Cunningham. From the piece:
A study being released today suggests that school choice isn’t a powerful tool for driving educational improvement in Milwaukee Public Schools.
But more surprising than the conclusion is the organization issuing the study: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has supported school choice for almost two decades, when Milwaukee became the nation’s premier center for trying the idea. The institute is funded in large part by the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, an advocate of school choice.
The story goes on to explain about how Milwaukee –a place where the most longitudinal hard evidence about the effect of “school choice” programs exists– has not seen the improvement in its schools that is regularly touted by advocates of “school choice” or voucher programs.
Don’t look for this empirical, data driven conclusion about the ineffectiveness of school choice to stop the anti-public schools jihadists like Rex Sinquefield and Jane Cunningham from pursuing vouchers in Missouri, however. They’ll disregard the study even though it comes from a conservative, pro-voucher organization.
For people like Sinquefield and Cunningham who don’t care whether public schools succeed or fail, the results of “school choice” programs are unimportant. For them, vouchers are an end in themselves, fully apart from the qualitative effects that the programs will have on our schools and our children.
but you are too far up bush’s rear end to think otherwise
I am done
Posted by: Leave | November 25, 2007 at 10:40 PM
Well, there it is then.
Situational analysis, anatomically re-located and set in place.
Must be that every random thought that portrays analysis and exhibits injury has the result of purulent ooze from partisan mindsets.
How else can minds be changed without use of the hammer and spike. :)
ksgrm
work in a school. Then tell me its a good thing. IT is not. Teachers WANT their kids to be successful, but NCLB is not the way
but you are too far up bush’s rear end to think otherwise
I am done
Posted by: Leave | November 25, 2007 at 10:40 PM
I hope LEAVE is a janitor. With writing skills and persuasive power like this, pray she is NOT a teacher.
This must be a lie.
http://www.ncspe.org/readrel.php?set=pub&cat=126
111. Charter, Private, Public Schools and Academic Achievement: New Evidence from NAEP Mathematics Data. 2006.Author: Chris Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski
Common wisdom holds that private schools achieve better academic results than public schools. Assumptions of the superiority of private-style organizational models are reflected in voucher and charter programs, and in the choice provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. However, most studies that compare achievement between private and public school students either fail to account for differences in student background characteristics or are based on assessments of students who have since graduated from high school. This analysis compares student achievement in traditional public, private, and charter schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) mathematics exam. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to control for demographic characteristics and school location. Findings reveal that demographic differences between students in public and private schools account for the relatively high raw scores of private schools on the NAEP. Indeed, after controlling for these differences, public school students generally score better than their private school peers. Three other findings warrant mention. First, Lutheran schools are the highest performing private schools. Second, Conservative Christian schools, the fastest growing private school sector, are the lowest performing private schools. Third, fourth graders in charter schools scored below public school students, but eighth graders in charter schools scored above public school students. This suggests that assessments of charter schools must pay careful attention to the sample population that is being examined.
I was out of town most of the weekend and just now viewed this threa. One sentence into: “I created and taught an independent-study math course to a student who had ADHD who was bombing regular math……………..”
It was OBVIOUS who posting this diatribe without even scrolling to the end.
This isn’t even worth my time………………….
Of course, this was followed by the usual litany of reichwing posts………………..
…………….again, NOT worth my time.
Leave,
Thank you for your posts. Thank you for your work with children. Some people DO “get it.”
“”"No Dentist Left Behind”"”
I have a right to choose the dentist myself and my children go to. I do not have the right to choose which school they will attend. Forget the argument over “vouchers”. I do not even have the right to choose which PUBLIC school my children will attend. The rich have that right because they can afford to enroll their children in exclusive private schools. I have 3 and work for a living. Therefore, since they have to attend the school that the local school board has dictated by drawing a line around my neighbourhood, you damn right I support NCLB! And if the school they drew the line around FAILS to do what we are paying it to do, I want the right to move my kids to a school that does. NCLB gives parents that right.