Q: The Bush administration has claimed that their No Child Left Behind initiative is a big success since national achievement test scores are rising. Is this an accurate standard indicating that students are actually learning more?
A: No. Testing – even the standardized testing politicians like to hang their hat on – has its place in the evaluation process. However, it shouldn’t be the only success indicator. In fact, in a 1999 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll indicated that 33% parents believed that the most accurate means of assessing the quality of their students education was their portfolio – examples of their work, while just 27% chose standardized testing as the most important evaluative tool. Administrators and politicians use test scores like a placebo, waving them in front of us with all the authority and mastery required to create the appearance that they have the situation well in hand and under control. In truth, reducing the education of our kids to a series of relatively meaningless test scores is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American public. Test scores don’t reflect how a student will do in the real world. After all, how many adults are measured by test scores when it comes to getting a job, starting a business, getting married, raising children, or handling the myriad challenges that life will throw at them? Simply put, a successful school is one where students emerge knowing the basic building blocks of the following:
How to analyze problems of all types, ranging from mathematics and science to life experiences and human relationships;
How to independently seek and find data related to any problem on any subject;
How to create and devise innovative solutions based on this data;
How to work alone and in teams; and,
How to successfully apply the solutions they create.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to quantify the results from these factors into a neat sound-byte…so test scores take center-stage. Besides being politically expedient, the standardized testing industry yields annual revenues in excess of $250 million annually. So, with politics and money setting the standard, it’s easy to see how the true indicators of student success are left behind. This probably won’t change anytime soon on a national basis. But, where the rubber meets the road is with individuals. With knowledge comes the power to affect change, and parents, armed with knowing the basic building blocks of assessing their child’s education, can make the changes in their own homes and in their children’s schools. That’s where parents can make sure that No Child is Left Behind.
2 comments:
Q: The President recently announced he wanted to expand the No Child Left Behind initiative. How will these changes affect charter school education if initiated?
A: First of all, the new initiatives that President Bush is proposing is, in part, a way of fixing the original premise of No Child Left Behind. The problem with NCLB is that K-8 public education is evaluated solely on test scores. Obviously, this approach flys in the face of the philosophy of lifelong learning and parent-driven schools. However, the new initiative comes part-way. If a public school is failing to live up to the standards set via NCLB, local school superintendents then have the option of actually replacing the failing school with a charter school. On one hand this is a healthy approach, to replace something that is failing with something that has proven to be beneficial. On the other hand, why set our schools and children up for failure in the first place? Why not move away from measuring schools strictly on test scores, and base our evaluation on a new set of criteria that measures whether the whole-child is learning? It’s common sense. But, of course, common sense never really meant much in the political area. In fact, the same people who oppose the President’s proposed changes are the same ones, like teachers unions, are who oppose charter schools. All of this points to the need for parents to become hands-on involved with their child’s education, both in the classroom and in the political arena.
Q: Why do so many teachers oppose the charter school concept?
A: It’s not teachers who oppose charter schools, per se, but the unions that represent teachers. Teacher’s unions have done a very good job with respect to increasing salaries, benefits, and the respectability of the profession. However, along with these good changes, have been changes that aren’t necessarily in the best interests of students and schools. For example, it’s very difficult to remove an ineffective teacher with tenure from the classroom because of the agreements teacher’s unions have been able to bargain for successfully. Most charter schools evaluate teachers based on the success of his/her students. An ineffective teacher, no matter how much tenure they have, can be removed and replaced with an effective teacher because the bottom-line for most charter schools is student success…not protecting the status quo. In the most successful schools one of the most prevalent practices is the forming of a partnership between parent and teacher. As professionals, most teachers want their students to succeed. They really are in it for the kids. And parents, of course, want the best for their children. Working together, the teacher and the parent can support one another in their common interest…successful education for the child.
No Child Left Behind has many flaws but I don't think it would be wise to throw the baby out with the bath water. The baby in this case is setting goals for students and teachers to strive towards. The old saying, "If you shoot at nothing, you will get what you shot at" No Child Left Behind gives teachers a target, a goal, a belief that all children can succeed.Rather than just saying NCLB doesn't work, can someone come up with a better plan?
Post a Comment