|
All but the absolutely most disabled do count in the special education numbers. I think the maximum percentage that can be exempted is 2%, so even the vast majority of special education students count in your NCLB test score data. (Although it might seem weird to those of use who are kind of old, at a lot of schools maybe 10% of so of kids might be receiving special eduction services of one kind or another.)
I think that ESOL, ESL student do need to count in the data because otherwise ESL might become an academic dumping ground with no expectation of ESL students really learning, which would be worse in the long run for the kids than failing the tests. I agree that it would make more sense to measure the results of students who haven't yet learned English differently than kids who grew up speaking it. It is a shame that the present testing system expects the same results from kids who don't know English as from those who do. But let's keep in mind that in many states, and the states all came up with their own plans for testing and in many cases their own tests, the level of performance for passing is pretty darn low.
I think that parents do matter a lot, but mainly in terms of what attitudes they show their kids about school and school success and the influence always seem to be greater when what they show is negative. One of the biggest problems when people talk about lack of support is not total apathy; it's that parents actually work at subverting the standards for their kids at the last minute, even at schools where it might be impossible to get a parent on the phone for 95% of the year. Come the last few weeks and their kids being in danger of not passing or not graduating, suddenly, not only are parents involved, they are actively fighting the system. And you see this same dynamic with behavior and discipline problems. People aren't interested in helping back teachers up by dealing with the kids at home in any kind of proactive way, but if the kid is going to gets in really serious trouble with the administration, and suddenly, mom is in everybody's face.
Now, I agree with the above poster that if the school administrators could be counted on to back teachers up academically or in terms of discipline, then the parents wouldn't matter much at school at all. But most administrators seem to get ground down by the parents pretty quick and learn that addressing problems as the teacher's fault is easier, since after all, the teacher works for the administrator.
So if you are a teacher, unless you are a really good school, and/or you have an exceptional strength of character and morality, you too get ground down pretty fast. You, like the kids, learn that the kids pretty much run the place and in some ways certainly the easiest way to think of having a long career is to have ridiculously low expectations and a willingness not to make waves.
I think that's why so many people leave, especially at the bad schools, and then you really do get into a position where things get worse because the school would rather keep someone sincerely bad, as opposed to having no one to teach at all.
|
Hybrid Mode
