No Child Left Behind

[Hamlette]

just talked to my friend who tests kids for the public schools here. She also teaches part time. She said each school has to have their kids pass the test. If they don't pass, the parents of kids in the failing school can transfer their kids to a school with passing scores and the failing school has to pay to transport the kids!

She said kids with an IQ of 55 of less get a special test. So kids with an IQ of 56 or higher have to pass the regular test. The district can exempt 1% of the kids. She's so angry she's going to retire early.

Great teacher, great person, leaving the system because of Bush. This system is disgusting. 4 more years and we won't have public education as we know it anymore. Two tier system.

According to the NYTimes today, kids in charter schools test lower than kids in public schools. Where is the outrage?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/education/17charter.html?hp

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. 4 more years and we won't have public education as we know it anymore.

That's sort of the idea....

The public gets the sort of public schools it wants.

[Kanary]

2. Exactly. I never thought I'd live to see the day my country

got rid of public education, but that's their goal.

I respect the teacher's frustration, but the other side is...... these individual solutions are letting it happne. What it's going to take is teachers and parents coming together to fight this monster. Just like the senior are going to fight the damnded "prescription bill".

"The public gets the sort of public schools it wants."

I think the "public" has been too trusting, and let itself get duped. I don't think it was a matter of what it wanted as much as a lack of understanding of what schools *need* in order to improve. I think teachers are going to have to speak clearly, and louder,

Kanary

[2Design]

6. rw wants rw schools and then they can indoctrinate others to their

beliefs that is what the faith initiative really is...this is what bush wanted to do in iraq too.

[TrustingDog]

19. the public has already been 'educated'.... fear fear...blame someone else

[madfloridian]

3. Don't get me started. It makes me furious.

I retired just before all this crap started, because I could not deal with it. Give your friend my sympathy. Our schools here are in great disarray.

[Sugarbleus]

4. I need clarification on this issue...can you explain a little bit of

what this NCLB is about? I have a grandson in highschool. I just filled out the new term paperwork...didn't pay close enough attention but remember scanning papers.. something about this NCLB thingy. I can go back to superintendant and ask but I thought maybe someone could give me some info.......in a nutshell.

I'm always the one yelling at the way school is "done", to our district reps. I'm not sure whether I'm yelling for the right things or the wrong things though. It's good to get a teachers perspective.

What are we looking at here? thanks

[iconoclastic cat]

10. Here's a great site on the horrors of NCLB

My pal Susan:
http://www.susanohanian.org

[UdoKier]

5. IQ under 55 is disabled. Why should they be tested the same way?

n/t

[wadestock]

15. IQ under 69 is generally classified as "retarded"

The learning disabled have other impediments to learning, don't necessarily have low IQs....but generally score low on tests....

[ulysses]

7. here's a new problem with it that has come up to me lately.

Kids like mine (average intelligence level but learning disabled) and the mildly intellectually disabled kids next door take the same test as the general ed. kids, and their scores count in the overall school score. Kids like mine *do not* do well on standardized tests, and often have been overlooked for so long that they just "Christmas-tree" the test, as mine evidently did last year. It's unfair to them, and it penalizes a school that's already having a hard enough time because of a while range of factors, not least of which is the poverty of the neighborhood it serves.

NCLB is a political solution, and a poor one at that, to an educational problem.

[phylny]

8. A question for you

I should know this, as I used to work in schools - is the school NOT allowed to use the testing accommodations in your child's IEP?

I had a problem with NCLB from the moment I heard about it. Leave it to Bush to have NO KNOWLEDGE of what a bell curve is and how a child with an IQ of 120 and a child with an IQ of 80 are both 20 points from the median, but oh, my, what a difference there is between these two children!

[central scrutinizer]

13. impossible "goals"

Speaking of the bell curve - NCLB requires 100% of all students surpass the 75th percentile! That's like saying "all of you will be above average". Mathematically speaking, it is nonsense.

[ulysses]

17. we're allowed to use modifications.

As I recall - I'm not completely familiar with all their IEPs yet - all the IEPs for my kids call for modifications of some kind or another. Still, standardized tests are what they are.

[wadestock]

16. Here in NJ...

The situation with learning diabled is abominable...an entirely separate problem which has been going on for years....they push kids into the special program....and I believe their test scores do NOT go into the overall school scores....which is why they separately classify them and keep them IN these programs until they graduate.

By the time they're out....they have a 6th grade education or thereabouts and would have to struggle to get through college.
The system therefore purposefully teaches them down.

Correct me if I'm wrong...but that's the way I think it works in NJ.

[ulysses]

18. they tend to be ghettoized, yes.

At least in my experience. Warehoused, forgotten until the tests come up - and the kids realize this, of course. People wonder why the behavior problems get worse.

[liveoaktx]

9. Education Secretary in charge of it is Rod Paige

Video Clip

Rod Paige at RNC- http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/09/time.education.tm/

But it also included an obscure Cabinet member who earlier this year referred to a teachers' group as a "terrorist organization." Education Secretary Rod Paige was surely picked to in part because the party wants to show its diversity. But Paige, who is black, also highlights what the Bush campaign feels is one of the highlights of the President's domestic record: No Child Left Behind, the education law Bush signed that requires mandatory testing for students in grades 3-8 and allows kids to transfer from schools that consistently do poorly on those tests.

No child left behind? (About that Houston, Texas Miracle)

http://www.metzener.com/chris/archives/2004/05/no_child_left_b.php

[LeftishBrit]

12. And I thought the UK had a lousy Education Secretary!!!

At least Charles Clarke doesn't call the NUT (teachers' union) 'terrorists'!

Apart from that, it all sounds quite similar. Huge emphasis on testing and creating 'league tables' of schools. Intensely stressful school inspections, and massive demands for paperwork. Many teachers taking early retirement, or spending periods off sick with stress-related illnesses. The pressures often cause teachers to 'teach for the test', rather than for real understanding; and non-tested subjects like art and music get neglected. The whole system causes lots of anxiety for teachers, parents and children (some of them as young as 4).

The development of a National Curriculum was probably a good thing in principle, and some of the curriculum changes, especially in mathematics, have been quite good. But the Government, like its Tory predecessor, seem to want an education system where the schools are factories, the teachers are assembly line workers, and the children are processed peas!

[mediaman007]

11. Its not about the kids...its a wedge issue

Do you think that Bush* actually cares about our education system? He never did anything to improve the system in Texas. Rod Paige, the Houston miracle worker, turned out to be cheating to improve the Houston test scores.

No, Bush* is all about making public education impotent and diffusing the power of the teachers' unions.

In my opinion he has mostly succeeded. At my school, the principal told me that in January '05, we will not teach curriculum, instead we will prepare for the tests in March. Can you imagine using the most productive part of the school year to teach to tests?

The NCLB has to go. Kerry could gain some mileage on this. (Maybe he's saving this issue for October...a good idea)

[nolabels]

14. The whole 13+ years a spent in public schools I got wedged

The longer I live the more I realize that whole time I spent in that public school system was nothing but a bunch of lies placed on more lies. Well at least as far as history goes anyway.

STOP the propaganda indoctrination or at least study it and tell your kids how,why and where they are lying. Just for starters, try this one: For years and years they have been trying to drill this crap into the kids head about how dropping the bomb on Japan was such a great thing

Turn on the History channel. We didn't have to A Bomb Japan.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=337703

(seems to me it was more like a sadistic Holocaust)

[Ducks In A Row]

20. any reports on what happens to the "good" schools after transfers

because of the increased load. And what about the "bad" schools? Removing the extra children, does it help them because there's a better teacher/student ratio?

[anelson]

21. Long term effect of NCLB ....my perspective

I am a public high school teacher in IL and will share what I can. Schools that fail to meet the unreachable goals outlined by NCLB not only pay for transportation for the student who decides to leave. They also must pay the TUITION for the new school. In other words, the students can leave the first school, and takes their allocated funds with them. This leaves a school behind with less resources to work with in the future. It's a downward spiral of leaving kids, and the resources they represent.

Interestingly enough, the recieving school is obligated to ACCEPT the kid froom the failng school. There is debate on what will happen when a school declines to accept such a student...lawsuits? My feel is that schools who somehow reach these incredible levels of achievement laid out by NCLB will be overrun by students from the failing schools. These students will put undo stress on their new school's infrastructure and programs. Before long, this formerly successful school is sinking under the weight of NCLB as its students start to fail.

See a pattern happening? when all the public schools are failing, the only optionns are private schools...ah...that will solve ALL the problems, right??