Welcome to my whole city :) And they wonder why El Paso doesn't perform as well as other cities in Texas. Well shiiit, if my HS didn't have enough money to buy protractors for every student in every geometry class (my school only had 1000 kids in it anyways) BEFORE NCLB, why would they have enough money after NCLB? Especially when making AYP determines whether you get federal funding or not.



Something to consider....abiding by NCLB and all that comes with it is NOT mandatory. You don't have to follow what the federal government (or even the state government) says, but if you schools/school districts choose not to follow them, then they get NO funding whatsoever. If every school district in the nation decided to stop following NCLB, and teach the way teachers are suppose to think, (so essentially it's a boycott) do you think that would be enough of a clue for our administration to reconsider NCLB?


ETA: Why are you all still engaging gamma/MM? Just ignore him, and let him rot.

Maybe if you'd spent all summer on a lesson plan . . . oh, the lament.

I get where you're saying, but the kids we're using as the "problem" are a niche. Maybe there are quite a few in your school (or El Paso), but that's not a massive, overwhelming issue - so why do teachers, on a massive, overwhelming level, hate the program? There's a disconnect between the anger and the rationale, and I find it very interesting.

I'm not a teacher, but I'll hazard a guess that the teachers feel threatened that they are being assessed on the children's performances on one test when, no matter how good a teacher they may be, there are many other factors that determine how successful a child is on said test, including all the other teachers that have ever taught that child! Should an 8th grade math teacher be judged on how their students do on this test when, in reality, the child has been behind in their math skills since 1st grade?

But it's typically not one kid; it's all your kids. And most evaluators are very aware of what particular teachers do and who they teach. Sure, you may superficially look bad to have all the failures, but if you teach all the learning disabled kids, anyone with any sense knows that your kids aren't like the other kids by definition.

And, unless I've missed something major, NCLB doesn't really require that anyone do anything to teachers based on the results of the test. If that's going on, it's an example of a local or state policy that the district is blaming on NCLB.

NCLB is basically being scapegoated for everything going on educationally that people don't like. Not all of it, and I'd even say a majority of what we hear about, isn't in NCLB itself and may only be loosely connected to it.

Well, if one kid in your class had a really bad first grade teacher, wouldn't it follow that about 1/6th of your kids had the same teacher? If your district isn't blaming the individual teachers, I think you're lucky. The teachers I know, up here, are very much judged based on how their kids do on those tests even though the test is administered in October, when the teachers have only been teaching those particular kids for 5-6 weeks. It was really crazy in the elementary school, when teachers would approach you and ask you to request them for your child for the next grade because they knew your kid was a good student and, therefore, would make them look good. There were 3 teachers at our elementary who did that. I deliberately requested different teachers because of it. And no, NCLB doesn't say to punish the teachers whose kids don't do well, but sh*t always rolls downhill, as the saying goes. The blame all goes to the teachers when the district is in danger of losing its funding.

But aren't the scores judged based on improvement from last year, and not so much whether or not they're actually at grade level? I mean, grade level is the goal, but I was under the impression that improvement and retention of improvement from year to year was what was actually being measured.

I only know how they are measuring it on the tests here. The MEAP gives a score of 1-4. 1 is performing above grade level, 2 is at grade level. A 1 or a 2 is considered "passing". They look at the percentage of kids who meet that minimum vs those who don't. Their raw scores work like this: A 420 means they are working at a 4th grade, 2nd month level. 490 is 4th grade, 9th month level. If, in second grade, a child earns a score of 140, they are not "passing". If, when they take it in third grade, they score a 280, they are still not "passing", even though they've advanced a year and 4 months in one year. They are improving, they are catching up, but the way it's measured doesn't reflect that. Either way, they failed to meet the minimum required. That may be a problem with the tool being used here? Also, they used to test in May, so they were testing the learning from that school year. They changed it to October though, a couple years ago. I'm not sure why. It seems to make more sense to me to test at the end of the year if you're going to judge teachers on how their kids perform.

One problem with the tests, is they don't always test on the standards.

For example, AIMS 3-8th grade is a combination norm-referenced test and criterion-referenced tests. The ADE literally states that the test includes questions from the SAT-10, which is a norm-referenced test. The SAT-10 doesn't align with AZ standards, so therefore the kids are being tested on items that they might not have learned as they aren't a standard for that particular grade. When I taught 3rd grade, I focused on the 3rd grade standards.

Another problem with AIMS is that it is given, in most districts, the 2nd/3rd weeks of April, when there is still a good 6 weeks left of school. So right there we have lost 6 weeks worth of instructional days. Teachers would LOVE for AIMS to be pushed back, but the state won't "get the scores in time" to determine AZ Learns (that is the excuse they are giving as to why AIMS can't be given in May instead). The reality is, the scores are back to schools by mid-July, its just that they aren't "official" until October, so I quite honestly don't buy their excuses.

But it is due to NCLB that put these high stakes tests on the map, which therefore translates down to the teachers. It's not the districts that blame NCLB for the kids failing, the districts blame the schools administrators, who in turn blame the teachers. Blame is never put on the district or administrators. Blame is never put on the parents or child (god forbid), it is always the teachers fault that the kids are failing. And it isn't the previous teachers fault, it is that teachers fault. I have witnessed it first hand.

Like I've mentioned I taught 3rd grade. Before I moved up to 3rd grade, there was a lot of "problems" (according to adminstration) in the grade level. When the scores came back, 3rd grade was the reason the school failed to make AYP and was labeled failing by the state. My principal was very good at blaming the 1 remaining 3rd grade teacher (myself and the other one were moved to the grade level). He had no problem saying that she was the reason the school failed. This made her feel like crap! Of course my administrator wasn't taking into account that that particular 3rd grade students were awful not only in behavior but in academics. Hello, shouldn't then the 2nd,1st and kinder teachers be blamed as well considering you get what is "brought" up to you? (Just an FYI of these students they did awful on their 4th grade tests and 5th grade tests).

So the problem isn't the teacher, it's the teacherS? I'm much happier with that analysis than the demonizing of a set of standards (with the subtext of complaining about being judged based on performance, as happens in every other professional field).

It just seems like we speak in absolutes and platitudes when discussing NCLB - if the family has such a big influence on kids that they become essentially unteachable, why even have schools? If the previous teachers sucked that badly, shouldn't that be borne out in the data? If SpEd and ESL students are such a drag on the numbers, why are they included and/or why aren't these individuals placed in a location that can be fairly judged against standards (i.e. another program/school)?

This seems so eminently fixable that it sucks to hear about how much it, well, sucks. I've long held that the problems in education (ranging from teacher pay to classroom size) are largely a function of bloated and ineffective administration - is that, combined with legislative inertia, enough to remove our ability to enact seemingly straightforward standards?

Because the government, per NCLB, want them included. They can't segregate the special needs kids (well the ones that can function on their own), it's what is called "inclusion." Once they get to certain grade, they are put into a 'normal' classroom, whether they are ready or not. It's why my legally deaf cousin, is part of a normal 3rd grade monolingual class. It's called "inclusion." So he'll be taking the same TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) that all the other 3rd graders take. It doesn't help that his teacher doesn't know how to teach him and because he's already been put into the "normal" class, he doesn't get his special ed classes anymore.

His test will be the same, except he won't have the field questions (i.e. the questions that are meant to be so difficult that the kids can't pass that question---but they aren't included in the final score).

Really unless you are a teacher, you won't really 'get' why there is so much hostility towards NCLB. It is a good system, in theory, but it hasn't been implemented properly.


ETA:That's actually not true. NCLB may not be directly responsible for it, but there are consequences if schools don't meet AYP. If a school doesn't meet AYP, they get put on a growth plan (like i mentioned earlier). If after the 5th year, a school doesn't meet AYP (in any area) then the school will be taken over by the "government." It will be up to them what would happen to the teachers..they could keep them, dismiss them all, or just dismiss some of them.

That has been something that has been in place since the beginning of NCLB. I never had to take the TAKS (the TAKS started the year after me) but even then I heard that if the students didn't pass the TAKS, then teachers could be fired.

Like I mentioned before, there is one school in this area that is on their 5th year not meeting AYP's graduation rate (and we've already talked about that). If they don't bring up their graduation rate, then the school will be taken over.

I'm not a teacher, but I know it depends on the circumstances of the individual school district. I grew up in a predominantly military area, and it was pretty rare for a 5th grade class to have even 1/6 of the students in a situation where they had the same 1st grade teacher.

But, the district I grew up in has the best test scores in the state of Florida. Maybe they're teaching to the test. Maybe the schools are just that good. But, I think it's a sign that maybe bad teachers, especially in the primary grades, aren't as big of an indicator of academic success?

Ah, OK - so it's the high-functioning children, who would still ordinarily qualify for Special Education classes?

Also, if he's legally deaf, does he get a sign interpreter? Does he read lips? What's his retention rate? It seems odd they'd throw a deaf kid into class to just sit there and watch.

All the examples mentioned about outcomes for individual teachers are things the district COULD do, but they aren't things required by NCLB. There's nothing that requires that teachers from reorganized schools will be terminated, and honestly, I don't expect them to, especially if they are performing in the average or above range for the particular kids they serve. And in my experience, principals and districts know who teaches classes with more kids less likely to do well since in practice most places, they aren't equally distributed. If the particular teacher is performing worse that other teachers with comparable kids year after year, then he or she probably should be evaluated accordingly.

Districts taking tests scores seriously may be a product of NCLB, but how they respond to those test results is pretty much still up to them and I think anyone would be hard pressed to find examples of teachers getting fired for their special education students' performance. Pressured? Sure. Compelled to attend ridiculous time consuming meetings that do nothing to increase student performance, sure. But actually formally evaluated in a way detrimental to their careers, not so much.

And the thing about any special ed issues is that you kind of have to ask if special education STUDENTS were actually receiving better academic instruction before they counted in the data this much. If we're honest with ourselves, I think it's pretty clear that they weren't. They were much more likely to be in programs that didn't really push them very much academically, especially if they had parents who the district wasn't worried would sue. The present system may judge schools for their performance in a kind of unfair way, but I think the cases where it harms the kid are outnumbered by the benefits to kids who receive much more targeted academic instruction.

I'm not saying NCLB is flawless certainly, but it isn't really the great ruin of public education the way some educators and parents would make it out to be.

We have pretty big schools where I am and most of the kids are on grade level, so I'm not seeing what you are seeing where you are. It's just not that high stakes.

We also have relatively easy state tests, so it's not that hard for an average learner to catch up to speed in a year, assuming that they aren't years behind, which does happen some places by high school.

We see our individual results but nothing ever seems to be said about them, which kind of stinks when you are really doing well, but I guess if we're going to look at it as cumulative learning, these results aren't solely the one teacher's good results either.

I think that a lot of teachers have really strong perfectionist streaks and even when there aren't any real job consequences for lackluster performance in a certain area, even calling it to their attention freaks them out. So, if the principal is giving out verbal gold stars for high scores, some teachers would try to pre-load their classes for success by trying to attract easier kids. It may not be the case that they have any realist fear for their jobs.

Long story short: because he can barely hear out of one ear--he's not "deaf enough" to need anything else but hearing aids which, after his big fall last year, don't work very well anymore. The teacher uses an FM trainer which is just a microphone she wears to amplify her voice. It works well at times, but this teacher has gotten into the habit of speaking too fast and moving through the material too quickly. My aunt has gone to talk to her numerous times, and the teacher supposedly is aware of what she is doing and always promises to fix it....but she never does. They've taken a few benchmark tests (they are like practice tests to gauge how the students are doing) and he's scored EXTREMELY low (but apparently not enough to be worried?)

If there is a substitute, well forget the FM trainer being used (some subs have refused to use it, some say they "prefer not to"). So whatever lesson is being taught for that day, pretty much is useless to him because unless the sub spends some time with him, my cousin isn't gonna learn crap from that day.

That sucks - it kind of ruins the entire point of having a legally-defined standard for "deaf" huh? Wow.

yep, but our family is kind of used to it. He wasn't diagnosed until he was almost 3, and they still want to give the family a run around as to what kind of "treatment" is available for him.

After he took a fall on the playground last year, he was eligible for the cochlear implant on his right ear. But once he was in the operating table, opened up, they realized he couldn't get the cochlear implant in that ear. So he went home with nothing.

Epchick,

I think your family needs to make some legal noise to advocate for his needs. If the district won't do what they are legally obligated to do in terms of providing an appropriate education and modification without your suing them, then you may need to sue. I'm pretty sure the district won't want to explain in court that because he isn't completely sucking at his benchmarks, that it's appropriate for him to go some days completely unable to experience instruction*. If your district is anything like 99% of the districts out there, they will become much more interested in doing what they can long before it looks like it will go to court.

Of course, suing might won't help you get a job in the district when you get certified.

* on the other hand, complaints about speed of speech and going over material might not be best way to approach it, unless you specifically make the case that it's hearing impairment that has created language delays. I say that because almost any kid who isn't doing so well is going to complain that the teacher goes over it too fast, and you all probably want to make the district feel accountable specifically to special education law.

I think it was super-nice of you all to try to resolve it by working with the classroom teacher first, and I even think that you're probably going to realistically expect some issues with substitutes not knowing what to do. But at some point, your aunt might need to start pushing the district as hard as she can and fear of lawsuits seems to drive most districts.

I completely agree, but at this point, I don't know how feasible that is. The help my cousin has gotten up to this point was because my aunt pushed for it. She pushed the doctors to diagnose him, and she pushed for him to get the help he needed while in school. But now it just seems likes she is content with the help he's getting. It doesn't matter if I, or any other teacher in the family (like my mom or my other aunt) think that the district/school should do much more, my aunt has to want it....and it doesn't seem like she's all that worried.

I hate to say it, but this aunt is not very focused on education. To her, as long as the kids are passing, it's fine. If her daughter just wants a "day off" from school, my aunt gives it to her because "sometimes you just need a break." Before I left to Phoenix this weekend I was at her house. I asked my cousin to tell me what 6x4 was (he had a multiplication poster board in view) but he couldn't. My aunt had to count it out for him. But what was he doing before and after I talked to him? Looking at music videos on youtube. He can't tell me what exactly PLORE is, but he can tell me what kind of antics he pulled in class. But like I said, he's not failing--yet--so to my aunt, all is fine right now. If my cousin ever fails, then of course she'll start throwing fits, but until then all I can do is try my best to help my cousin understand the material he's learning, whenever I see him.