NCLB
 

I did a search for a thread strictly on NCLB but I couldn't find anything.

Anyways, I got this via my work email and I know that other people have found other things regarding NCLB (putting it in layman's terms). I just wanted to share.


I know there is a football analogy for NCLB but I'm not sure where to find it.








This is an interesting take on "No Child Left Behind." Teachers will enjoy it, parents will be informed and politicians should consider it.



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
is practicing 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 end up 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.

awesome

i think NCLB is just a precussor to getting rid of public education.

What are other people's thoughts?

Assuming you mean 'precursor', and assuming the government still provides a form of 'social welfare' in educational stipends for the underprivileged, this might be one of the best things that could ever happen to education in this nation.

Privatization and competition could go a LONG way toward creating an environmental shift in schools, and self-selecting out the horrendous administration that holds a lot of schools back.

No Child Left Behind: The Football Version
Author Unknown, additions by Carolyn K., director, Hoagies' Gifted Education Page

1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.
3. When players arrive at any game with remedial skills in football for any reason, their coaches will be penalized for their performance, regardless of how long the players have been on the team. cjk
4. If remedial players do not achieve proficiency by the next statistically recorded game, their coaches and athletic directors will be put on probation. After several games of probation, coaches and athletic directors may be released. Coach and athletic director probation and release will not be conditional on the size of gains in the remedial players football skills; players must reach proficiency. cjk
5. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. Coaches will use all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.
6. All coaches will be proficient in all aspects of football, or they will be released.
7. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.
8. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

If no football player gets ahead, then no football player will be left behind.

Here in OKC, NCLB has been great. My wife, a teacher hates it. My mother, a teacher, hates it... I just have to point out to them that despite the fact that they have to put up with this annoying testing, the benefits realized by the students have been great.

Here in Oklahoma City, our public schools have year after year been complete failures. NCLB finally held them accountable. The result? Charter schools moved in -- a lot of charter schools. Now, those same kids who were dropping out are going to college.

It seems that most of the opponents of NCLB are laser-focused on the success of our schools. Unfortunately, they seem to be so focused on that aspect of things that they forget all about the success of the students.

This may be why the program was not called "No Teacher Left Behind" - it appears quite a few have been . . . although I must admit, teachers make the best half-assed analogies to distribute via email.

http://www.saout.de/assets/jasper2.gif

Talkin' out of turn - that's a paddlin'.

Starin' at my sandles - that's a paddlin'.

Paddlin' the school canoe? Oh you better BELIEVE that's a paddlin'.

I can't believe I'm going to get into this...

In theory, NCLB is great. In practice, unless you are from a wealthy, upperclass neighborhood where mommy and daddy give a damn, it doesn't work and it never will work. NCLB will only work IF the STUDENTS want to work. I have 5 students who flat out will not do work, and because I push them to do work and fail them, they told me they will fail their standardized test so that I get in trouble for it. Why am I going to get in trouble for it? Because despite the fact they had different science teachers for the last 10 years or so, I am the teacher on record. I am their science teacher for the year they took the exam. So the results fall back on me. When they fail the test, it becomes my fault.

I also believe the reliance on standardized testing has lead our children to not be able to think. They are so accustomed to have a question, and be able to pick out the answer from the few in front of them, that they are unable to complete the simplest task that invovled a small amount of thinking. Five times this year, I asked for an opnion paper about something we researched, ie- stem cell research, genetic engineering, evolution, etc. Each time, I recived a research paper in return, not the required paper. Hell, last time I had 60 movie review of the movie GATTCA, when all they needed to write was a one page reaction on how they would feel living in a world like the one in the film.

NCLB is one of the reasons I will be leaving the education world in June. I will not be held accountable if the students and families are not held accountable. I will not stress myself out daily when they will not take a book home and do homework, and I will not exhaust myself when the parents won't care enough to make sure they do work either.

When society has come back to the point where responsibility comes back to students and parents, then I will come back to teaching.

But I'm not holding my breath.

It's very interesting that you say that -- in OKC, NCLB has been very unkind to our public school system. The result has been a huge surge in charter schools. These charter schools primarily serve the poorest parts of town. My wife works at one of those schools. The school is well over half minority and vast majority are on assisted lunch plans. They have a fraction of the funding that the local public schools get (who just got a several million dollar infusion of money from the city in a sales tax we passed)... despite many of those factors which should be weighing against them, they expect a lot out of their kids and they get a lot. They had one of the top NCLB scores in the entire state last year and this year will be again looking at the top spot -- that's in comparison to the rich suburban schools with college educated parents, that's in comparison to the magnet schools which skim off the best and brightest from the public system, that's compared to a lot of things -- and they're at the top.

There's also the KIP Academy (a middle school)... it's over 95% black and is in what would probably be considered the 'worst' part of town. They have school from early in the morning 'til around 5:30 in the evening. They top that off with about 3 hours of homework. Consequently, about 85% of their graduates end up in college.

I could name off many other success stories, but it's plain to see that these charter schools (which probably wouldn't exist but for NCLB) are doing great things for their students.

Sorry about your situation, but as RC pointed out, NCLB is not "No Teacher Left Behind." Someone has to be accountable for these students' success and failure and currently, the only people we can hold accountable are the ones we pay to teach them.

As far as your arguments on standardized testing go, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. If the American Bar Association thinks that standardized testing is okay for admitting people to the practice of law, then it's fine with me.

Of course, at my wife's school, that's not really an issue. Standardized tests are not allowed -- all tests are 100% essay.

Your 5 kids were going to flunk anyhow -- and they probably bring other kids down with them.

Why not allow those other kids to leave your school and go somewhere where they might have a better shot at success?

I agree, Charter schools can be great.

Keep in mind, though, a student in a charter school has opted to be there. Usually, parents must go with their children to sign up/enter the lottery for a charter school, thus the parent/family cares what is going on with that student.

That's not always the case though. There are kids at this school who have been dumped by their families and thrown out by age 14 or 15. A couple have even been taken in by teachers.

But let's go back to your classroom.. you say you have 5 kids who are doomed to fail.. that means you have what..25 kids who are possibly going to succeed? Would you say that just about every teacher in your district is going to have similar results due to the kids coming from fairly similar backgrounds?

Assuming your classroom is composed of a fair cross section of the community, you, personally shouldn't be in trouble. Maybe the school, but as I recall, there are allowances for lower expectations of schools in certain areas.

At some point, there has to be a choice made between what's best for our students and what's best for our schools. I'm completely convinced that NCLB is great for our students and can be devastating and even unfair to some schools. In my mind though, the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.

I think it's really great that a quality education is now available to basically anyone who wants one... or is that bad?

It's interesting that the charter schools are doing well in OK. In my area (metro Detroit), the charter schools have the lowest standardized test scores, especially the charter schools that specialize in automotive, health care, etc. Also, the charter school near me which touted open classrooms, laptops for every child, etc, are among the lowest scorers in the state! It turns out, most of the kids there have been expelled from other public schools and it's their last resort.

Detroit Public Schools have a handful of really amazing schools that have special programs like foreign language immersion, arts across the curriculum, etc. However, there are huge waiting lists, lotteries and parents have to transport the kids themselves. Those schools do VERY well on the standardized tests and other NCLB criteria. The thing is, to get into those schools, they have to have parents who care enough about their children's education to seek out better alternatives and make sacrifices (like transporting them 10-20 miles to school each day) or they wouldn't be there. It's very difficult to factor out the other variables.

Eventually, supply will meet the demand. To ensure this, our legislature just passed a measure into law (despite the protestations of our very union-loyal school boards) of allowing OKC and Tulsa to open 4 new charter schools in each city each year as well as allowing those schools to partner with universities.

To anyone who wouldn't have considered our city before because of our schools, they should really look into our excellent charter schools.

As for transportation, a lot of the kids at my wife's school rely on public transportation to get them to school and back.

Charters may be the way to go, and I certainly don't think the present system can go on like this forever.

I think the political rhetoric around NCLB is insulting to teachers and schools, but the bill itself is okay.
Probably for the first time, the DOE is actually insisting that schools at least admit that all the kids aren't really learning. Before NCLB, teachers probably knew that kids weren't really on grade level and they might know how bad the test score really were, but I doubt if parents and the community at large knew how bad it was. Now they know.

Sooner or later, if we stick with the law as written, all schools will probably be failing, even the suburban gems. When that happens, we'll be forced to look at ineffective methods we've been using and ridiculous and delusional policies that keep up from maximizing the performance of the kids who do want to learn. For too long, all our school policies and procedures have presented school as an entitlement the state was obligated to perform for individuals, whether they valued it or not, and perhaps more delusionally, it all was supposed to be entertaining, self-fulling, and fun all the time for the students, imparting essential high level academic content while demanding little work or self discipline.

If we get to the point where we know the whole system really fails the same kids or in the same way, no matter what teachers do, they we can quit paying for the crap that doesn't work and only pay for the stuff that does.

If we have charters, we can set the rules so that kids and parents who don't care don't get to dictate the policies of the place. We can work with the folks who want to succeed and pick the other ones up in jail and welfare later, which is probably what we're doing now, but we kid ourselves and them for 12 + years.

BUT, don't think of a minute that public schools today fail because of teachers are getting to do the things they believe will work and those things are failing. Or that most schools are failing because teachers don't work hard enough.

Schools are failing because some kids and parents don't value what's being offered and try to subvert the standards that do exist to maximize their personal convenience and entertainment. That won't go away with school choice. At first it will get worse with school choice. Be prepared for that and plan for it with any system that replaces what we've got now.

I'm so really for summer vacation. What limited hope and optimism I can muster will start flowing back in early July.