REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

No Child Left Behind Act

POSTED BY: SASSALICIOUS
UPDATED: Thursday, April 20, 2006 16:54
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 4172
PAGE 1 of 1

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:17 AM

SASSALICIOUS


Quote:

States Omitting Minorities' Test Scores

By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON, BEN FELLER and FRANK BASS, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 36 minutes ago

Laquanya Agnew and Victoria Duncan share a desk, a love of reading and a passion for learning. But because of a loophole in the No Child Left Behind Act, one second-grader's score in Tennessee counts more than the other's. That is because Laquanya is black, and Victoria is white.
ADVERTISEMENT

An Associated Press computer analysis has found Laquanya is among nearly 2 million children whose scores aren't counted when it comes to meeting the law's requirement that schools track how students of different races perform on standardized tests.

The AP found that states are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting that requirement. And minorities — who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing — make up the vast majority of students whose scores are excluded.

The Education Department said that while it is pleased that nearly 25 million students nationwide are now being tested regularly under the law, it is concerned that the AP found so many students aren't being counted by schools in the required racial categories.

"Is it too many? You bet," Education Secretary
Margaret Spellings said in an interview. "Are there things we need to do to look at that, batten down the hatches, make sure those kids are part of the system? You bet."

The plight of the two second-graders shows how a loophole in the law is allowing schools to count fewer minorities in required racial categories.

There are about 220 students at West View Elementary School in Knoxville, Tenn., where
President Bush marked the second anniversary of the law's enactment in 2004. Tennessee schools have federal permission to exclude students' scores in required racial categories if there are fewer than 45 students in a group.

There are more than 45 white students. Victoria counts.

There are fewer than 45 black students. Laquanya does not.

One of the consequences is that educators are creating a false picture of academic progress.

"We're forcing districts and states to play games because the system is so broken, and that's not going to help at all," said Kathy Escamilla, a University of Colorado education professor. "Those are little games to prevent showing what's going on."

Under the law signed by Bush in 2002, all public school students must be proficient in reading and math by 2014, although only children above second grade are required to be tested.

Schools receiving federal poverty aid also must demonstrate annually that students in all racial categories are progressing or risk penalties that include extending the school year, changing curriculum or firing administrators and teachers.

The law requires public schools to test more than 25 million students periodically in reading and math. No scores can be excluded from a school's overall measure.

But the schools also must report scores by categories, such as race, poverty, migrant status, English proficiency and special education. Failure in any category means the whole school fails.

States are helping schools get around that second requirement by using a loophole in the law that allows them to ignore scores of racial groups that are too small to be statistically significant.

Suppose, for example, that a school has 2,000 white students and nine Hispanics. In nearly every state, the Hispanic scores wouldn't be counted because there aren't enough to provide meaningful information and because officials want to protect students' privacy.

State educators decide when a group is too small to count. And they've been asking the government for exemptions to exclude larger numbers of students in racial categories. Nearly two dozen states have successfully petitioned the government for such changes in the past two years. As a result, schools can now ignore racial breakdowns even when they have 30, 40 or even 50 students of a given race in the testing population.

Students must be tested annually in grades 3 through 8 and at least once in high school, usually in 10th grade. This is the first school year that students in all those grades must be tested, though schools have been reporting scores by race for the tests they have been administering since the law was approved.

To calculate a nationwide estimate, the AP analyzed the 2003-04 enrollment figures the government collected — the latest on record — and applied the current racial category exemptions the states use.

Overall, the AP found that about 1.9 million students — or about 1 in every 14 test scores — aren't being counted under the law's racial categories. Minorities are seven times as likely to have their scores excluded as whites, the analysis showed.

Less than 2 percent of white children's scores aren't being counted as a separate category. In contrast, Hispanics and blacks have roughly 10 percent of their scores excluded. More than one-third of Asian scores and nearly half of American Indian scores aren't broken out, AP found.

Bush's home state of Texas — once cited as a model for the federal law — excludes scores for two entire groups. No test scores from Texas' 65,000 Asian students or from several thousand American Indian students are broken out by race. The same is true in Arkansas.

Students whose tests aren't being counted in required categories also include Hispanics in California who don't speak English well, blacks in the Chicago suburbs, American Indians in the Northwest and special education students in Virginia.

State educators defend the exemptions, saying minority students' performance is still being included in their schools' overall statistics even when they aren't being counted in racial categories. Excluded minority students' scores may be counted at the district or state level.

Spellings said she believes educators are making a good-faith effort. "Are there people out there who will find ways to game the system?" she asked. "Of course. But on the whole ... I fully believe in my heart, mind and soul that educators are people of good will who care about kids and want them to find opportunity in schools."

Bush has hailed the separate accounting of minority students as a vital feature of the law. "It's really essential we do that. It's really important," Bush said in a May 2004 speech. "If you don't do that, you're likely to leave people behind. And that's not right."

Nonetheless, Bush's Education Department continues to give widely varying exemptions to states:

_Oklahoma lets schools exclude the test scores from any racial category with 52 or fewer members in the testing population, one of the largest across-the-board exemptions. That means 1 in 5 children in the state don't have scores broken out by race.

_Maryland, which tests about 150,000 students more than Oklahoma, has an exempt group size of just five. That means fewer than 1 in 100 don't have scores counted.

_Washington state has made 18 changes to its testing plan, according to a February report by the Harvard Civil Rights Project. Vermont has made none. On average, states have made eight changes at either the state or federal level to their plans in the past five years, usually changing the size or accountability of subgroups whose scores were supposed to be counted.

Toia Jones, a black teacher whose daughters attend school in a mostly white Chicago suburb, said the loophole is enabling states and schools to avoid taking concrete measures to eliminate an "achievement gap" between white and minority students.

"With this loophole, it's almost like giving someone a trick bag to get out of a hole," she said. "Now people, instead of figuring out how do we really solve it, some districts, in order to save face or in order to not be faced with the sanctions, they're doing what they can to manipulate the data."

Some students feel left behind, too.

"It's terrible," said Michael Oshinaya, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City who was among a group of black students whose scores weren't broken out as a racial category. "We're part of America. We make up America, too. We should be counted as part of America."

Spellings' department is caught between two forces. Schools and states are eager to avoid the stigma of failure under the law, especially as the 2014 deadline draws closer. But Congress has shown little political will to modify the law to address their concerns. That leaves the racial category exemptions as a stopgap solution.

"She's inherited a disaster," said David Shreve, an education policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "The 'Let's Make a Deal' policy is to save the law from fundamental changes, with Margaret Spellings as Monty Hall."

The solution may be to set a single federal standard for when minority students' scores don't have to be counted separately, said Ross Wiener, policy director for the Washington-based Education Trust.

While the exemptions were created for good reasons, there's little doubt now that group sizes have become political, said Wiener, whose group supports the law.

"They're asking the question, not how do we generate statistically reliable results, but how do we generate politically palatable results," he said.



from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060418/ap_on_go_ot/no_child_loophole

I'll be honest. I've always thought that the "No Child Left Behind Act" was lame. It's nice in theory, but highly impractical when put into the real world. Teachers and schools can only do so much because something has to come from home. I went to public school all my life so I know how it is. Some people just don't want to learn, they don't want to do the work, and their parents aren't making them. In this sort of situation there isn't a whole lot the school can do except for wait until the kid is 18 and then watch he or she drop out (speaking of which, 30% of U.S. schoolchildren will drop out before graduation). Teachers aren't miracle workers and they need funding to have access to resources such as up to date textbooks, computers, laboratory stuff, etc. However, in spite of what common sense tells me, officials have been touting this act as a success, but apparently it's only a success because the government is eliminating the scores of minority groups (i.e. groups that would demonstrate it's failure). Perhaps there exists a cultural bias that allows white kids to do better than others on the standardized tests, but perhaps most American public schools are FAILING in their duty to educate the children!

However, it seems that Nebraska has found a solution to this problem:

Quote:

Omaha Schools Split Along Race Lines

By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 13, 10:44 PM ET

LINCOLN, Neb. - In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the Legislature voted Thursday to divide the Omaha school system into three districts — one mostly black, one predominantly white and one largely Hispanic.
ADVERTISEMENT
click here

Supporters said the plan would give minorities control over their own school board and ensure that their children are not shortchanged in favor of white youngsters.

Republican Gov. Dave Heineman signed the measure into law.

Omaha Sen. Pat Bourne decried the bill, saying, "We will go down in history as one of the first states in 20 years to set race relations back."

"History will not, and should not, judge us kindly," said Sen. Gwen Howard of Omaha.

Attorney General Jon Bruning sent a letter to one of the measure's opponents saying that the bill could be in violation of the Constitution's equal-protection clause and that lawsuits almost certainly will be filed.

But its backers said that at the very least, its passage will force policymakers to negotiate seriously about the future of schools in the Omaha area.

The breakup would not occur until July 2008, leaving time for lawmakers to come up with another idea.

"There is no intent to create segregation," said Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, the Legislature's only black senator and a longtime critic of the school system.

He argued that the district is already segregated, because it no longer buses students for integration and instead requires them to attend their neighborhood school.

Chambers said the schools attended largely by minorities lack the resources and quality teachers provided others in the district. He said the black students he represents in north Omaha would receive a better education if they had more control over their district.

Coming from Chambers, the argument was especially persuasive to the rest of the Legislature, which voted three times this week in favor of the bill before it won final passage on the last day of the session.

Omaha Public Schools Superintendent John Mackiel said the law is unconstitutional and will not stand.

"There simply has never been an anti-city school victory anywhere in this nation," Mackiel said. "This law will be no exception."

The 45,000-student Omaha school system is 46 percent white, 31 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian or American Indian.

Boundaries for the newly created districts would be drawn using current high school attendance areas. That would result in four possible scenarios; in every scenario, two districts would end up with a majority of students who are racial minorities.



So . . .thoughts from anyone? The answer seems obvious to me, but it's also probably too easy/too hard depending on who you talk to.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:25 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Supporters said the plan would give minorities control over their own school board and ensure that their children are not shortchanged in favor of white youngsters.

Republican Gov. Dave Heineman signed the measure into law.


It figures it would come from a republicrony. There are multiple issues with public education but one serious factor is different levels of resources between predominantly white/suburban schools, and inner city black or brown schools.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:36 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I don't even know where to start. "No child left behind" is basically what is called (in govt circles) an "unfunded mandate". You gotta do this extra and, oh, by the way, don't expect any dollars.




---------------------------------
Free as in freedom, not beer.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:37 AM

JOSSISAGOD


From the bit of an article I read in one of the new TIME magazines, it seems that the "No Child Left Behind" act is actually causing more kids to DROP OUT! So, in a sence, leaving them BEHIND! Like you mention in your post, teachers do all they can with what they are given, to allow their students to learn but, some students just don't want to! It's like that old saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink." I believe the "no child left behind" act is actually putting pressure on students to learn faster than some are capable of, from my experience, if you pressure the students that are behind, they just shut down. So, in my opinion, the "no child left behind" act is just one more thing for students to worry about, and when you have that amount of pressure it can be detrimental to the learning process.

JOSSIS(Most Definitely)AGOD

I'm not a teacher, just a student who would not benefit from the "No child left behind" act.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 10:30 AM

SAINTANDEOL


I visited my old high school a few years after i graduated, and the teachers i talked to didn't have any nice things to say about NCLB. Essentially they described it as a program designed to output results that made the progress seem better than it actually was.

It seems they were only interested in being able to use the misleading statistics to create good press. Shame on the government! Misleading the general public to make yourselves look good. I expected more from you . . . oh wait . . .

"I'd be totally hacked if Stimutacs wasn't so . . ."
"Outrageously chill?"
"Word."

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 11:07 AM

SEVENPERCENT


Quote:

Originally posted by SaintAndeol:
and the teachers i talked to didn't have any nice things to say about NCLB. Essentially they described it as a program designed to output results that made the progress seem better than it actually was.




As one of FFF.net's actual teachers (and an Eng. teacher to boot), let me just say that NCLB is horrid. You'd be hard pressed to find a teacher that I work with that doesn't think it's a waste of time and money. The parts of NCLB that are worth supporting are, as someone posted above, underfunded.

They actually believe - and I'm not making this up, either - that a reachable target goal is 100% proficiency for all students, in some cases including ESL and Spec-Ed. Oh, and to hit this mark by 2013, to add insult to stupidity. They are putting the weight of the changes down on the backs of Eng and Math teachers, most of whom are unqualified to teach the changes they want (ie, I'm an Eng teacher. I teach Lit. I am not a reading specialist, but they need me to teach to the test, so I have to become one).

"Is our children learning?" - Actual quote from the man who underfunded his own mandate.

------------------------------------------
"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 11:37 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


But once set up by bushbaby (oh wait, that's an insult to bushbabies) it has a positive (in this case bad but more extreme) feedback cycle.

The states HAVE to raise scores in some way to get ANY federal $. And the federales then claim it's working. Which means NCLB deadlines move forward, and the states have to fudge even more, and the scores rise and ...


It works for me. Doesn't it work for you?

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 1:38 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Well, I see I killed another thread. My job here is done, then.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:40 PM

REAVERMAN


Another nice little clause of the act makes it illegal for a school to keep military recruiters off campus. If any school denies access to these recruiters, they suffer harsh fines and the possibility of losing federal funding.

Harvard Law school was threatened with losing all federal funding (tens of millions of dollars) because they did so. Not only is this a failed attempt at improving the school system, it's a thinly veiled attempt to bolster the already bloated Military-Industrial Complex.

You're welcome on my boat. God ain't.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 3:42 PM

SEVENPERCENT


Quote:

Originally posted by rue:
Well, I see I killed another thread. My job here is done, then.




Threadkiller. Keep it up and we'll send you to FF jail (where you get PN as a cellmate, and learn how to make tinfoil hats out of metal shaved off the prison bars).

------------------------------------------
"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 3:55 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


When it comes to threads, I seem to be some kind of homicidal maniac.


Please stop me before I kill again!

Oh yeah. And lights still turn off when I come near.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 4:35 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
So . . .thoughts from anyone? The answer seems obvious to me, but it's also probably too easy/too hard depending on who you talk to.

I don’t see anything egregiously wrong with NCLB. It seems like a step in the right direction to me. I think the problem that many educators have with NCLB may have more to do with the accountability that is being forced upon them then any real issue. NCLB is not an unfunded mandate. According to a CBO report and a GAO review, NCLB is neither unfunded nor a mandate. It is voluntary and it is very funded. In fact, a 40% increase in education funding came with NCLB, but it ties education funding, at least in part, to results, which means that educators must now produce some kind of result if they are to get full funding. And not to put too fine a point on it, but this sounds like something that will piss people off, if they are used to getting money with no particular requirement attacked to it. I think that is absolutely what the public education system in the US has been lacking, and I feel more comfortable about putting my tax dollars into education knowing that there is some kind of accountability to how it is being used, and it is not just being sucked up by a huge education bureaucracy with no particular benefit to education. If there are problems with the system, and I have no doubt that there are, then this needs to be addressed, but NCLB is, in general, a much needed improvement, and the only way I would have supported another increase in education funding.



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 5:31 PM

SEVENPERCENT


Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I think the problem that many educators have with NCLB may have more to do with the accountability that is being forced upon them then any real issue.


You also have no clue as to what you're talking about. Explain to me, a teacher, how it's about accountability. Actually, don't. I'll give you the same choice NCLB gives us, and you can take your pick. You can hold teachers 'accountable' for teaching things they aren't trained to do (math teachers teaching reading skills and lit teachers teaching how to deconstruct historical documents), or, you can retrain all the teachers to teach only to the tests, thereby dumbing down an already ignorant generation. Take your pick. Frankly, both choices suck, but hey, it's all about accountability.

Quote:

NCLB is not an unfunded mandate. According to a CBO report and a GAO review, NCLB is neither unfunded nor a mandate. It is voluntary and it is very funded. In fact, a 40% increase in education funding came with NCLB,

If an object costs 50 dollars, and I put down 20 bucks on the counter, I don't get to walk out with it calling it my own property. Sorry, even with the increase in ed spending, NCLB was underfunded according to what it would cost by 50% or more. Just because money is spent doesn't mean anything; it must be spent as it is budgeted.

Quote:

but it ties education funding, at least in part, to results, which means that educators must now produce some kind of result if they are to get full funding. And not to put too fine a point on it, but this sounds like something that will piss people off, if they are used to getting money with no particular requirement attacked to it.

Educators, contrary to your bashing, try to get the best results they can every day out of their kids. What this does is make them teach to the tests and get desperate, due to unreachable goals. They want 100% (by 2013, I think it's 55% this year, maybe higher) of the students reaching testable standards with all the weight of failure falling on the school and the educator. 100% is unreachable, period - even the best kids taking these tests sometimes get bored and start pencilling in bubbles at random, or ignore the math portion. Kids get the flu and come take the tests anyway, leaving halfway through. Some kids just don't give a shit due to bad parenting. Maybe, maybe, 70% is reachable, but above that is a pipe dream. Then, because of that, you threaten a school's funding and a teacher's job. Bravo, Finn.

Quote:

I think that is absolutely what the public education system in the US has been lacking, and I feel more comfortable about putting my tax dollars into education knowing that there is some kind of accountability to how it is being used, and it is not just being sucked up by a huge education bureaucracy with no particular benefit to education.

Then you need to take this up with your local school boards and your government, none of which seem to ever have been teachers. I find it amazing that people who have never taught a single class tell the people who do how to run a school. I find it just as amusing that people who never taught talk about how accountable the teachers are.

I spend hours upon hours in meetings every month with people trying to figure out how to make the school system operate better. NCLB made it worse, since now the admin is paranoid that we're going to lose funding (and I'm in a great school district).

Just two weeks ago I actually gave my kids an assignment, and I used these exact words, thanks to NCLB:
"Do this assignment like this, because it will be like that on the standardized test. When you get to college, they'll teach you the right way to do it, I hope."
Yeah. NCLB's working out real well for the dumbing down of Americans.

------------------------------------------
"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 5:53 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by SevenPercent:
I spend hours upon hours in meetings every month with people trying to figure out how to make the school system operate better. NCLB made it worse, since now the admin is paranoid that we're going to lose funding (and I'm in a great school district).

Welcome to the real world. I spend much of my time fretting over funding or fretting over what people above me are fretting over funding. I supposed I could throw a fit because people aren’t just giving me money for my job independent of results, or I could work hard to make sure that my projects stays on top and produces good results so that people will be inclined to keep me funded. I tend towards the latter, which may be why my project was rated highest of all projects in its category at the last review panel, and as a result the Army promised us no more funding cuts. See how that works?



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 6:09 PM

SEVENPERCENT


Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Welcome to the real world.


Yes, because as an educator, I have no idea what the real world is like. Spare me.


Quote:

I spend much of my time fretting over funding or fretting over what people above me are fretting over funding. I supposed I could throw a fit because people aren’t just giving me money for my job independent of results, or I could work hard to make sure that my projects stays on top and produces good results so that people will be inclined to keep me funded.

No one's throwing a fit because we're not getting money we didn't earn. It's not like teachers are asking for the money for themselves, independent of results, you ass. New textbooks? $24,000 dollars. You heard right, 24 thousand dollars. Teachers aide? 20 thousand a year. New faculty so that the classroom size doesn't get beyond 30? Whatever the going rate is.

Quote:

I tend towards the latter, which may be why my project was rated highest of all projects in its category at the last review panel, and as a result the Army promised us no more funding cuts. See how that works?

If they don't hire a new teacher this year, my class sizes are going up to 30+ kids next year. I can't give 30 kids enough specialized instruction to insure they all pass the tests with that many kids in a classroom. If they don't hire a teacher, they will fail to reach the NCLB goals because kids will fall through the cracks. But the locals won't increase taxes to hire another teacher, and in fact, they may have to let an aide go to make any semblance of budget (which hurts even more). The teachers in my department all were rated highly on their reviews, which has no bearing on why the kids won't pass the tests.

See how that works in the real world?


------------------------------------------
"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 6:17 PM

SASSALICIOUS


Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:

Originally posted by SevenPercent:
I spend hours upon hours in meetings every month with people trying to figure out how to make the school system operate better. NCLB made it worse, since now the admin is paranoid that we're going to lose funding (and I'm in a great school district).

Welcome to the real world. I spend much of my time fretting over funding or fretting over what people above me are fretting over funding. I supposed I could throw a fit because people aren’t just giving me money for my job independent of results, or I could work hard to make sure that my projects stays on top and produces good results so that people will be inclined to keep me funded. I tend towards the latter, which may be why my project was rated highest of all projects in its category at the last review panel, and as a result the Army promised us no more funding cuts. See how that works?



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero



It's not completely the fault of the educator. Sure, some don't try that hard, but most do. A large percentage of the problem is kids that don't want to learn and kids that have parents that don't care. NCLB doesn't address either of these issues. Additionally, many high schools now require a test at the end to determine if one is fit to graduate. This is equally lame because everyone just gets taught the material for the test, without actually *learning* anything.

Furthermore, I think school as a whole is getting dumbed down. Probably to make it easier for people who want everything handed to them on a platter. I took the hardest classes I could and still managed to get through 4 years of high school with all As and 1 B. I can promise you I didn't work too incredibly hard for it either. Thankfully, college is mildly challenging.

I think money getting put into the educational system should go toward getting updated books for all students. A number of inner city/rural schools get used and outdated books from other districts, which is hardly conducive to learning.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 7:19 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by SevenPercent:
No one's throwing a fit because we're not getting money we didn't earn. It's not like teachers are asking for the money for themselves, independent of results, you ass.

Given your angry attitude and boorish language, I have little confidence in that. I don’t think that American taxpayers, of which I’m one, should fork over a sizeable chunk of their income to a public education system that has failed to produced, on average, well educated people without concern for how that money is being spent. And buying books and hiring new teachers is all well and good, but the truth is that none of that matters if our students aren’t learning, and it doesn’t seem like they are, in spite of the money that is being spent. Your response is to throw fit and call me an ass, which affirms my position. Is it really worth continuing this discussion with you?
Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
It's not completely the fault of the educator. Sure, some don't try that hard, but most do. A large percentage of the problem is kids that don't want to learn and kids that have parents that don't care.

And I don’t expect that every child can be taught or that educators aren’t doing their best. In fact, all of the teachers that I know are all excellent teachers, as far as I can tell. I’m not interested in punishing teachers for not being good educators and I’m not interested in righting off students for not being good learners, but I do think that a system that rewards educators for being good educators and good students for being good students is precisely what we need. Quality education will probably be a natural result, at least that’s my belief. I don’t know if NCLB fulfills that entirely, but it appears to be at least a step in the right direction.

As I said, I don’t doubt that there are problems with the system; things probably need to be ironed out or some states maybe need to opt out and take their own approach, but nonetheless, the old approach of throwing money at education didn’t seem to be producing internationally competitive students. NCLB might not work either, I don’t know, but I think it is worth a try. And based on what I’ve read, public education in the US does seem to be getting better. As for whether that is due to NCLB or if it’s necessarily true at all, I’m unsure. We probably need longer studies to say.

And while I do agree that updated and newer books are always better, I have a hard time believing that books in most disciples are likely to be that far out of date. At the High School level, information doesn’t change that fast. A High School math book, for instance that is 20 or even 30 years old, isn’t going to have appreciably different content then a newer book. It’s just hard to believe that the books are the bottleneck here.



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:43 PM

RHYIANAN


Finn, being a student, I can tell you no child left behind is horrible. The students that don't care are being catered to, because they are the ones that can't pass the tests. This means that the students that want to learn can't because the teachers have to try to force the students that don't want to learn to learn the material.

As it has been said before, this is just dumbing down the population more, when we're already too ignorant as it is.

My high school was literally falling down around us. Sinks were falling off the walls in the bathrooms, termites were eating away at the band and choir room floors, and in some places, the snow was actually coming inside. However, because the community didn't want to pay for a new building, we didn't have enough money to do both the new program and the repairs that would make the learning environment better. And you're saying that since not 100% of the students can pass a test in that situation, that the school district should get even less money???

Do you want this country to be full of idiots?

Oh yeah....it's too late.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:49 PM

CITIZEN


I like it when things remind me that the British education system isn't that bad really.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 12:53 AM

SEVENPERCENT


Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Given your angry attitude and boorish language, I have little confidence in that.


Yes, because implying that the people in my profession are lazy and don't understand how the 'real world' works always makes me want to treat you with respect.

Quoting latin and pretending you know what you're talking about doesn't make you superior, just as degenerating into namecalling didn't win me any points.

Quote:

And buying books and hiring new teachers is all well and good, but the truth is that none of that matters if our students aren’t learning, and it doesn’t seem like they are, in spite of the money that is being spent.

Students aren't learning because we have no money, in spite of the massive amounts you seem to think we spend. I have 5 classes, 150 kids, and enough textbooks for 30 of them. Instead of being able to push through material quickly, they have to do all work in-class, which slows me down to a 1/3 of the pace I could work at if I had enough texts for all of them. Add to that the classroom problems of having 30 in a class and not 25, and you see the need for more teachers.

Admit it, you want to privatize the education system, as does the Bush administration, contrary to every warning that's been given to the contrary. It's a common statement made by neocons who have never taught and have no regard for the profession as a whole.

Quote:

Your response is to throw fit and call me an ass, which affirms my position. Is it really worth continuing this discussion with you?



Teacher or not, I call them like I see them. You've lost the argument, you're just mad now because I responded to name calling that you started. I don't mince words; you insulted me and my profession, I responded within the context of an argument that rebutted your point - as I did again this time.

------------------------------------------
"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 3:32 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by Rhyianan:
Finn, being a student, I can tell you no child left behind is horrible. The students that don't care are being catered to, because they are the ones that can't pass the tests. This means that the students that want to learn can't because the teachers have to try to force the students that don't want to learn to learn the material.

As it has been said before, this is just dumbing down the population more, when we're already too ignorant as it is.

My high school was literally falling down around us. Sinks were falling off the walls in the bathrooms, termites were eating away at the band and choir room floors, and in some places, the snow was actually coming inside. However, because the community didn't want to pay for a new building, we didn't have enough money to do both the new program and the repairs that would make the learning environment better. And you're saying that since not 100% of the students can pass a test in that situation, that the school district should get even less money???

Do you want this country to be full of idiots?

Oh yeah....it's too late.

According to Title I of the NCLB Act, if your school has failed to make yearly progress, as defined by your state, then your school must be categorized as “needing improvement,” in which case the state is required to provided assistance to improve your school and you have the option to go to another school in your school district that is not categorized as “needing improvement.” Actually, the way I’m understanding it, the NCLB act would offer more money to your school and offer you the option to go to a school where you can learn not to be an idiot. Doesn't that sound like a plan?



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 5:28 AM

JOSSISAGOD


Key Word: Would.

But, it doesn't! IF the government had the money to put into schools, WHERE IS IT? I haven't seen any of this so called money(by "money" I mean supplies teachers order)that the No Child left behind Act offers for schools, and what of those people who only have one school for all elementary, one school for middle school and one for High school students in our district, what do WE do, just lay down and die!

JOSSIS(Most Definitely)AGOD

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:07 AM

JMB9039


Right now NCLB takes money away from schools that fail to perform (a ridiculous idea) rather than give them resources to help them succeed -- punishment without assistance.

Also, education (as anyone in academia knows) is about discovery, learning, critical thinking, investment in knowledge. Standardized tests (and especially the weight put on them) are actually hurting schools. Students don't learn critical thinking skills or discovery or proactive learning - instead they learn to memorize and regurgitate information. It is very sad.

Education needs to be updated (books should be relevant to students - The Iliad isn't) and students should be challenged to discover things, learn ideas, and follow paths to show how the disciplines are linked.

Get the politicians out of schools.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:24 AM

STORYMARK


Finn--
We know you've always gotta stand up for the Admin, but your ignorance of the issue at hand is obvious. If NCLB was correctly funded, with reasonable goals (expecting a mentally handicapped 17 year-old student who operates at 4th grade level to score the same as a High School Senior is not reasonable) you would have some points. But that's not the case.

Yes, Teachers need to be accountable for what they teach, but they do not teach in a vacuum. If you worked in a school, you would understand the staggering level of students who have parents who do not care at all how their children perform in school. That attitude has a tendancy to rub off on the kids.

And all the testing that has been added as a requirement of NCLB is detrimental to education on almost every level. Because teachers are required to teach to the tests now, it's all about filling in the right bubble. Memorizing facts is now more important than actually thinking about the material. Higher-level cognitive thinking just doesn't matter with these tests. Add to that the fact that the tests themselves often take away weeks of instruction time over the course of the year, and you have a program that claims to improve education, while dumbing down the curriculum.

I don't know a single teacher who likes the way NCLB has been executed. And it's not just teachers who were used to one system, who don't like the new one. I started teaching after NCLB went into effect, and before I even finished my coursework, I was amazed at how poorly it serves schools and students. The idea might have merit, but it's been horribly botched.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:34 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by jmb9039:
Right now NCLB takes money away from schools that fail to perform (a ridiculous idea) rather than give them resources to help them succeed -- punishment without assistance.

I thought that was the case as well, but I’ve been reading the NCLB Act and I can find no such indication that funding is taken away from schools that don’t perform well. The actual funding allotted to individual schools is a state responsibility, all NCLB does is require that certain poorly performing schools receive extra attention to correct the problem that is causing their lack of preformance. If schools in your state are being punished for not performing, then you should look at the way your state is structuring its funding, not NCLB. And if, in fact, your state is doing that, then it would not seem to be following the NCLB requirements, on the surface.
Quote:

Originally posted by jmb9039:
Also, education (as anyone in academia knows) is about discovery, learning, critical thinking, investment in knowledge. Standardized tests (and especially the weight put on them) are actually hurting schools. Students don't learn critical thinking skills or discovery or proactive learning - instead they learn to memorize and regurgitate information. It is very sad.

On the whole, I don’t think standardized tests are the best way to learn or to assess education, but this is nonsense argument, because prior to NCLB standardized test requirements public schools in the US weren’t performing very well to begin with. So like the “new books” argument, this doesn’t seem to be the bottleneck either. It seems to me that public schools had their opportunity to enact the unrestricted discovery method and it didn’t work; now I think we need to try something else.

And why isn’t the Iliad relevant to High School students? What exactly is meant by “books should be relevant to students?”



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:26 AM

SASSALICIOUS


Quote:

Originally posted by Rhyianan:
Finn, being a student, I can tell you no child left behind is horrible. The students that don't care are being catered to, because they are the ones that can't pass the tests. This means that the students that want to learn can't because the teachers have to try to force the students that don't want to learn to learn the material.

As it has been said before, this is just dumbing down the population more, when we're already too ignorant as it is.

My high school was literally falling down around us. Sinks were falling off the walls in the bathrooms, termites were eating away at the band and choir room floors, and in some places, the snow was actually coming inside. However, because the community didn't want to pay for a new building, we didn't have enough money to do both the new program and the repairs that would make the learning environment better. And you're saying that since not 100% of the students can pass a test in that situation, that the school district should get even less money???

Do you want this country to be full of idiots?

Oh yeah....it's too late.




You can't forget asbestos, bathroom stalls without doors, very few windows, a pool that likes to flood, unreliable building heat, and mildly broken locker room showers. And of course getting away from the structural integrity you have the bomb threats, building evacuations, gangs, drug deals, the occasional strip search, more frequent arrests, lock-down, school police officers, etc.

Wow, that really sounds like an environment entirely conducive to learning. And to think I went to the "yuppy" high school.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:36 AM

SASSALICIOUS


Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
you have the option to go to another school in your school district that is not categorized as “needing improvement"



The kids in Omaha will no longer have this option if the legislation isn't challenged because each school has been turned into its own school district instead of remaining part of the Omaha school district.

As for the state giving money to the schools, state governments don't like to give very much because the residents don't want to give money. However, in our society that is obsessed with athletes and celebrities, people are willing to raise sales tax to pay for a new football stadium. But when asked if they wanted excess money to go to social programs (from the tax increase they just voted Yes for), everyone said no. So the Green Bay Packers got a new stadium at the expense of shoppers/taxpayers and the mentally ill homeless in Green Bay have to rely on free samples from pharmaceutical companies for their medication.

Maybe people will change their minds once they realize that 30% of students are going to drop out without graduating, males are falling way behind females in class, and the U.S. is falling behind in the worldwide arena.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:41 AM

SAINTANDEOL


I'll tell you what the problem really is . . . it's this damn hip hop rap these kids are listening to nowadays. You may say, "Very funny, Andeol," but hear me out.

Teenagers are in the thrall of popular culture. It's been like that for a while. The problem is, pop "culture" is becoming a vacuum of any actual culture, instead degrading itself to blatant egoism and materialism. Worship of vacuous celebrities is at an all time high. It's getting to where if I see a hot girl in public, wearing some insanely short shorts and a tight shirt, I can't tell if she's 14 or 20. And if these kids don't idolize some stupid girl dressing like a whore, they idolize some amoral gangsta who only cares about making as much money as he can.

And, as mentioned previously, many parents just don't care. Or they care about being a cool parent, being friends with their kids. After all, if you're always bothering your kid about his schoolwork, he won't think you're cool, and then he'll shut you out and you'll never know your child.

The NCLB Act is a reaction to this growing malaise about the school system. But it's after the wrong target. Yes, school systems could be better funded, but it won't matter until we acknowledge that the real damage to a child's education is being done by the attitude they bring into the school, not the methods of the teachers.

If kids don't wanna learn, they 'aint gonna learn. That's what I see as the big problem with NCLB. It's creating this false sense of security, showing people these numbers and saying, "See? We're fixing the schools! Pretty soon everything will be all right." Because there are a lot of people out there who will swallow those numbers gladly and thank the government for a lovely meal. -insert clever metaphore about indigestion-

"I'd be totally hacked if Stimutacs wasn't so . . ."
"Outrageously chill?"
"Word."

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 9:13 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by SaintAndeol:
The problem is, pop "culture" is becoming a vacuum of any actual culture, instead degrading itself to blatant egoism and materialism. Worship of vacuous celebrities is at an all time high. It's getting to where if I see a hot girl in public, wearing some insanely short shorts and a tight shirt, I can't tell if she's 14 or 20. And if these kids don't idolize some stupid girl dressing like a whore, they idolize some amoral gangsta who only cares about making as much money as he can.


All praise be capitalism and it's god profit, halleluiah and Amen.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 10:44 AM

JYA


Quote:

On the whole, I don’t think standardized tests are the best way to learn or to assess education, but this is nonsense argument, because prior to NCLB standardized test requirements public schools in the US weren’t performing very well to begin with. So like the “new books” argument, this doesn’t seem to be the bottleneck either. It seems to me that public schools had their opportunity to enact the unrestricted discovery method and it didn’t work; now I think we need to try something else.


I live in Texas and graduated the very first year they started using standardized tests as a requirement for graduation. (1989) The school I went to was considered the best public school in the area and of the over 300 kids in my class, only 2 did not pass the standardized test on the first try. This was because before NCLB tied all accountability for school performance to the tests, we were actually taught critical thinking, making the tests a breeze. Since that time, schools have been forced to teach only how to pass the tests. The same school I went to has now dropped to only about 70% passing, and this is still the highest in our area! Why the decline? Because NCLB does not work! Finn, I can only assume you have no children currently in public school. I have 2 children, one in the 6th grade, and 1 in the 1st grade. When my oldest daughter was still in 2nd and 3rd grade, I asked the school if she could get extra help on her reading. I noticed that when she read, she had a tendency to rush through it and guess the word based on the first few letters or skip over words altogether in her rush to read. The school's response was that she was reading fine, all her test scores showed that she was above average. Well, now I have learned what caused the problem. My youngest daughter is an excellent reader. Although only in the first grade, she is reading difficult words, some with 4 or more syllables. She takes her time, sounds out every letter, and learns the meaning of these new words through their context in the sentence. Yet I am constantly being told her reading needs to improve. Why, because the only thing the test measures is how many words she can read per minute. My extremely intelligent daughter is so stressed out because she is being told that if she doesn't start reading faster, she will not pass the test and therefore can't go to second grade! Now tell me again Finn, how NCLB is working. How can you say that when my daughter, who has been independently evaluated be her pediatrician, a psychologist, and her school, and been found to have way above average intellect, is being told she is in danger of being "left behind"?

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 10:46 AM

JYA


P.S. My grandmother taught school for over 30 years. When asked how she feels about NCLB, she always explains why it is a bad idea. Her answer, "Not every one can be taught. Some people are just stupid."

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 1:43 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Finn has no response.

BTW Finn, the withdrawal of FEDERAL funding based on NCLB is right there in the law. I hope you can find it on your own.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:36 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
The kids in Omaha will no longer have this option if the legislation isn't challenged because each school has been turned into its own school district instead of remaining part of the Omaha school district.

Alrighty. I can only assume that Omaha has a good reason for doing this.
Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
As for the state giving money to the schools, state governments don't like to give very much because the residents don't want to give money. However, in our society that is obsessed with athletes and celebrities, people are willing to raise sales tax to pay for a new football stadium. But when asked if they wanted excess money to go to social programs (from the tax increase they just voted Yes for), everyone said no. So the Green Bay Packers got a new stadium at the expense of shoppers/taxpayers and the mentally ill homeless in Green Bay have to rely on free samples from pharmaceutical companies for their medication.

Nonetheless, it is the purview of the states, not the federal government, to educate children. If the states won’t do it, that doesn’t make the federal government the bad guy, but obviously someone has to do it. One of the problems seems to have been that the states point a finger at the feds while the feds point a finger at the states, and in the meantime, public education goes no where. NCLB clarifies who responsibility is whose. I’ve read through a lot of the law and most of it seems to be just common sense. Any school for which the states are unwilling or unable to improve, under Title I will be restructured, thereby hopefully solving the problem.
Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
Maybe people will change their minds once they realize that 30% of students are going to drop out without graduating, males are falling way behind females in class, and the U.S. is falling behind in the worldwide arena.

Maybe. But people have been saying that for years; at least as long as I’ve been alive.
Quote:

Originally posted by jya:
Now tell me again Finn, how NCLB is working. How can you say that when my daughter, who has been independently evaluated be her pediatrician, a psychologist, and her school, and been found to have way above average intellect, is being told she is in danger of being "left behind"?

I don’t know. Maybe your grandmother could shed some light on that. As critics of NCLB have been pointing out over and over, include you, no single system is going to work for everyone. The truth will be in an aggregate assessment. Does NCLB improve, in general, the quality of education in public schools over time? I don’t know if that is true, and I think it is too early to tell, but according to the Department of Education NCLB is working. That’s all I can tell you.



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:59 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Can't find it yet?


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, April 20, 2006 1:51 AM

JMB9039


Books, or anything students learn needs to be relevant to their lives. In other words, if they are interested in it, if they can find some way to be attached to it, then they will be more apt to involve themselves in learning about it. This idea in Ed has been around for decades (it goes as far back as Dewey).

You are right that the NCLB act doesn't include the "take money away" language - of course it also talks about assistance but that isn't there. Affirmative Action (which I agree with on the whole) doesn't explicitly mention quotas, but those are used to help push it forward. The removal of funding is a part of it (even if indirectly) just as manipulating student numbers (they cut down on the number of dropouts by counting them absent instead now)is also.

Standardized tests were around before NCLB - but NCLB has helped to make tests a foundation of assessment. It furthers the problem in acedemics.

In the 60s and 70s this country saw literacy rates at their highest (reading and writing). Then in the 80s (good old reagan)the conservative movement decided that children need to do things like "read the classics" instead of modern books that were relevant to them. Guess what, literacy rates and school performance dropped dramatically.

There is no easy fix to the problem, but the first steps are to get rid of these tests and get politicians out of the mix.

Teachers and Academics study education so let them decide how to do it. Its like if the president tried to make decisions on science - oh wait! Yeah, and that's worked out well...

Look, I don't give a rat's behind about your political leanings and I"m glad you are willing to step into the debate with intelligent ideas to share. Do some research on educational practices and I think you'll see my point.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, April 20, 2006 5:09 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


You are right that the NCLB act doesn't include the "take money away" language.

It does, but in the negative sense.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, April 20, 2006 7:08 AM

JYA



Quote:

I don’t know. Maybe your grandmother could shed some light on that. As critics of NCLB have been pointing out over and over, include you, no single system is going to work for everyone. The truth will be in an aggregate assessment. Does NCLB improve, in general, the quality of education in public schools over time? I don’t know if that is true, and I think it is too early to tell, but according to the Department of Education NCLB is working. That’s all I can tell you.


How amusing of you to imply my 7-year old daughter is stupid. You must have been so proud when you thought that up. Now I know what the problem is, you must be a product of NCLB yourself, seeing as how you have serious problems with reading comprehension. Obviously you missed the part where I said my daughter has above average intelligence, as well as the part where I said her reading is not the problem, only how fasts she reads.

It's obvious to me you have no children of your own, so I really don't know why you are so defensive about NCLB. It's not as if you have any vested interest or experience with the actual results of this law. Maybe you should open your mind a little bit to the people who actually deal with this issue on a daily basis.

As for it being too early to tell, I believe it was said in an earlier post that Texas is where NCLB got its start. In my original post, I stated how my high school has dramatically dropped in the 17 years since testing began. How much more time do we need?

As for it working, look at your own signature.

Quote:

but according to the Department of Education NCLB is working.
Quote:

...nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:51 AM

SASSALICIOUS


Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal
Alrighty. I can only assume that Omaha has a good reason for doing this.



When is segregation ever a good thing? Regardless of the reason, it's a bad idea. Thankfully, I'm fairly certain the Omaha district split won't hold up in a court of law. However, other schools (including private ones and suburban public schools) are refusing to admit students that might drag the test scores down.

Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal
according to the Department of Education NCLB is working



According to the U.S. Department of Education website "All children are counted under NCLB, and schools are responsible for making sure every child is learning." They say ALL children are counted, but with the loophole mentioned in the original post, minorities aren't counted. Minorities are the people who often don't do well on the tests for whatever reason. So in reality, all children are counted, except those that fail. And as someone previously mentioned dropouts aren't really counted either. Therefore, assuming that the statistics for claiming that NCLB is working are based off of incomplete data (incomplete because not all scores are used), the conclusion that it's working is likely false. Outliers can be dropped when doing statistical analysis, but that's typically only a few points, not large quantities of data points. Therefore, I find the Department of Educations conclusions to be highly questionable and mostly invalid. But then again politicians have a tendency to alter the scientific method and skew results to fit their respective agendas. Sex education comes to mind.

Quote:

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal
Maybe. But people have been saying that for years; at least as long as I’ve been alive



How long have you been alive? Out of curiousity, how long have you been away from the public school system? As for a timeline, males only fallen behind in the last 25 years or so, the same goes for math and science in the U.S. (though the NSF says that by 2010 90% of engineers will be from Asia), and you can be as blase as you want about it, but a 30% dropout rate is unacceptably high.

Furthermore, "In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success" from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965522/site/newsweek/print/1/displaymode
/1098
/. It's this very narrowness that dooms NCLB. For some basic math is a big deal whereas for others it's grammar. I've known people who had terrible grades in school, but scored in the 95% on standardized tests; on the flip side I also know people who do well in class, but terribly on tests. And since NCLB seems to be based on a test, it seems inherently wrong. There are better ways to judge a school's success and a person's educational development.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, April 20, 2006 2:14 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL


Quote:

Originally posted by jya:
How amusing of you to imply my 7-year old daughter is stupid. You must have been so proud when you thought that up. Now I know what the problem is, you must be a product of NCLB yourself, seeing as how you have serious problems with reading comprehension. Obviously you missed the part where I said my daughter has above average intelligence, as well as the part where I said her reading is not the problem, only how fasts she reads.

It’s always someone else’s kid that is stupid. People seem to be happy to define an education system in which “stupid” kids get left behind, until their kid has trouble in school and then suddenly the education system is failing.

For the record, I don’t think your daughter is stupid, nor do I think we need to design our education system based on the assumption that some kids are stupid. Clearly no single system, especially a large bureaucracy, will work for everyone, and it is inevitable that some kids might be left behind, but this shouldn’t be made into a policy, for your kid or anyone else.

Also for the record, I didn’t support NCLB. It’s not my kind of politics. Nonetheless, however it is the current system and it is a system that at least tries to offer a comprehensive solution, instead of the typical bitching, that normally seems to accompany the issue of US public schools. Whether it will work or is working is another matter that I’ve not fully resolved, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with giving it the benefit of the doubt and honestly examining it. It’s not like NCLB replaced a system that was working to perfection.

And you’ve misinterpreted what my signature is saying. Cicero was not talking about the US Department of Education. He was talking about the fanatical and unpredictable way that mobs influence the republican politics of Rome. In effect, a closer analogy to what Cicero was talking about would better be characterized by the way you and many others are reacting to NCLB. The way individuals with individual grips get compiled into a cacophony that seems to take on a single-minded effort all its own.
Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
How long have you been alive? Out of curiousity, how long have you been away from the public school system?

I’ve been out of the Public school system for a good while. Not 25 years.
Quote:

Originally posted by Sassalicious:
And since NCLB seems to be based on a test, it seems inherently wrong. There are better ways to judge a school's success and a person's educational development.

Then why weren’t those other ways used? NCLB is 5 years old? So it can’t account for the failings of the US public school system in general for the last 25 years.
Quote:

Originally posted by jmb9039:
There is no easy fix to the problem, but the first steps are to get rid of these tests and get politicians out of the mix.

I sympathize. I don’t like the federal government being involved with education at all, much less defining it in some centralized bureaucracy, which can only add to the complexity of the system and increase the number of disaffected students.



Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, April 20, 2006 4:54 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


So, Finn, did you find it yet? I even gave you a clue - though you certainly don't act like you have one.


Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Thu, March 28, 2024 14:12 - 3411 posts
Well... He was no longer useful to the DNC or the Ukraine Money Laundering Scheme... So justice was served
Thu, March 28, 2024 12:44 - 1 posts
Elections; 2024
Thu, March 28, 2024 11:18 - 2071 posts
BUILD BACK BETTER!
Thu, March 28, 2024 11:16 - 6 posts
Salon: NBC's Ronna blunder: A failed attempt to appeal to MAGA voters — except they hate her too
Thu, March 28, 2024 07:04 - 1 posts
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Thu, March 28, 2024 05:27 - 6154 posts
Russian losses in Ukraine
Wed, March 27, 2024 23:21 - 987 posts
human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
Wed, March 27, 2024 15:03 - 824 posts
NBC News: Behind the scenes, Biden has grown angry and anxious about re-election effort
Wed, March 27, 2024 14:58 - 2 posts
RFK Jr. Destroys His Candidacy With VP Pick?
Wed, March 27, 2024 11:59 - 16 posts
Russia says 60 dead, 145 injured in concert hall raid; Islamic State group claims responsibility
Wed, March 27, 2024 10:57 - 49 posts
Ha. Haha! HAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!!
Tue, March 26, 2024 21:26 - 1 posts

FFF.NET SOCIAL