Category Archives: Gimme Some Truth

by | November 22, 2007 · 8:33 pm

Hope For the Future of our Schools

by John Smart

Two things happened recently that raised my hopes for the future:

The first was an assembly held at the Menasha High School on November 14th dedicated to learning about the ongoing genocide in Darfur, that region of Sudan where nomadic Arab militias covertly sponsored by the Sudanese dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, are ravaging the countryside, murdering, raping, burning villages and driving the indigenous people from their land.

Students in teacher Dean Boyer’s social studies classes were asked to select an international issue to study, and they chose the situation in Darfur. They researched the story thoroughly, and in the process became involved with the Darfur Action Coalition of Wisconsin, an organization working to support efforts to help the victims of this bloody conflict — and to end it. The students are selling tee-shirts and raising funds to send to the Coalition.

They also asked the Coalition for someone to come and speak to a student assembly at their high school about the Darfur crisis, and I volunteered to do so. They weren’t sure how many students would choose to attend, and we were all surprised when the handsome Menasha High School Auditorium filled almost to capacity – over 700 students!

The conversation — for that is what it was — lasted for an hour, and the students were attentive and involved, they asked informed questions and related serious concerns. They exhibited genuine empathy for the unfortunate people in that far-off, African land.

I was so exhilarated from spending time with those wonderful kids that I felt airborne to my next destination! If they are representative of the youth of our state and nation, and I hope and believe they are, the future of the state and nation is indeed in capable, caring hands.

I then went from Menasha to Madison, where, the next morning, I was one of sixty plus citizens who testified at a hearing of the State Senate Committee on Education.

The November 15th public hearing had to be moved to a larger room in the Capitol to accommodate the ever-increasing crowd, and they still had to have an overflow room with a television monitor so that attendees could follow the proceedings. The turnout clearly demonstrated growing public interest in doing something constructive to support our schools.

The purpose of the hearing was to examine Senate Joint Resolution 27, co-sponsored by Assembly Representative Sondy Pope-Roberts, of Middleton, Senator Roger Breske, of Eland, 14 other senators and 43 other assembly representatives. All but one of the people testifying were in support of the resolution.

The resolution calls for the legislature to recognize that the system we’re using to pay for our schools is not fair and equitable, and simply does not work — that it underfunds our schools while throwing too much of the burden on the backs of property taxpayers, who are understandably rebelling. The resolution refers to a number of new funding formulas that all deserve consideration, and it sets a deadline for the legislature to examine these, and any others, and pass a new compromise plan for school funding reform by a deadline date of July 1, 2009.

Several members of the committee, notably Senators Glen Grothman, of West Bend, and Mary Lazich, of New Berlin, insisted on attempting to debate the merits of one or another of the plans, asking how much they would cost and where the money was going to come from. They had to be reminded repeatedly that this resolution only sets a deadline and doesn’t endorse any specific plan.

What lifted my spirits was the enthusiasm of the people attending and the seriousness with which the senators responded. Many of us have struggled for a long time to get the legislature to recognize the problems that the current funding system is causing for our schools, and finally, it is beginning to look like that light at the end of the tunnel may not be an oncoming train!

The fight isn’t over though, not at all. It is probable that the resolution will pass the committee and the senate, but it is still a question as to whether or not the Speaker of the Assembly, Mike Huebsch, will allow this resolution to even come to the floor of that body for debate.

As usual, it is important for citizens to voice their opinions. Letters and phone calls to our legislators actually do have an effect. It is the voice of their constituents that has brought legislators back to this issue again, and more are needed. Please be a part of that “squeeky wheel!”

The students of Wisconsin, like those remarkable young people at the Menasha High School, deserve the best education that we can provide for them. It’s a question of priorities, and to my mind, they are on top of the list.

John Smart serves on the Park Falls School Board, is a member of the Wisconsin Governor’s Commission on the United Nations, the UN Association of the USA and Citizens for Global Solutions. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan from 1995 through 1998 and chairs the Democratic Party of Price County.

Leave a comment

Filed under Accountability, AMPS, Gimme Some Truth, Pope-Roberts/Breske Resolution, School Finance, Take Action, We Are Not Alone

by | November 21, 2007 · 9:27 pm

Reactions to the Madison Test Protest

A few weeks ago I posted some links and information about David Wasserman’s protest against standardized testing to the Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency list maintained by Gerald Bracey. There some problems with the list and I only got responses yesterday. Although not as timely, I think they are still worth sharing.

Here are the initial links:

Teacher gives in, gives test (Capital Times)
Teacher’s test protest leads to reprimand (Wisconsin State Journal)
Protesting teacher faces reprimand (Capital Times/AP)

I also sent this from George Lightbourn of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (for more on Mr. Lightbourn on AMPS, see here). More local coverage and reaction here and here and on AMPS.

Steven C. Lozeau, School District Administrator, Potosi (WI) Public Schools weighed in with a letter directed to Mr. Lightbourn:

Dear Sir:

I agree wholeheartedly with accountability, testing and with finding ways to use the information to improve student performance.

Knowing that this is only one part of the picture we must also integrate other measures that account for some of the areas you describe such as creativity and other non-standardize tested criteria.

But I disagree with shoring up your position using already overused and questionable data such as the position of US students compared to the world.

We can spend hours on such comparisons and their failings.

Please do not use non comparables to prove your point as most of what you said can stand alone. Comparing apples and oranges, which most country to country testing does only disclaims your point, propagates bad information, and damages higher education’s relationship with public schools.

Sincerely,

Dr. Steven C. Lozeau
Potosi School District Administrator

I’m not sure if this was a response to my post, but Michael Paul Goldenberg of the Rational Mathematics Education blog posted AN OPEN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF DAVID WASSERMAN . Here are some excerpts:

I am writing to support David Wasserman’s decision to refuse to administer a test in which he did not believe and to decry the way in which he was subsequently dealt with by his superiors. I am a mathematics teacher educator, teacher, and expert on standardized test preparation with more than 30 years’ experience working with students on various instruments (e.g., SAT, GRE, ACT, LSAT, and GMAT) as well as with grading state tests from Michigan, New York, and Connecticut. With that experience and expertise in mind, I am deeply troubled by the manner in which this nation has been pushed further and further towards accepting an ill-founded religious belief in the power of (for the most part) multiple-choice, multiple-guess tests to measure not only student achievement, a concept which is at best open to question, but teacher, administrator, school, district, and state competency (not to mention national status when viewing similar international tests such as the TIMSS), in total violation of one of the basic principles of psychometrics: never use a test to measure something it has not been specifically designed and normed to measure. This country has long been enamored with numbers and rankings, going back to the early decades of the 20th century, when we shamefully abused IQ scores to restrict immigration in ways that can only be viewed as unscientific and utterly racist. I urge everyone to read Stephen Jay Gould’s definitive work on the abuse of “intelligence” testing, THE MISMEASURE OF MAN, for a shocking and sobering account of how standardized tests have been misused and abused in the United States, generally out of racist and chauvinistic ignorance and bias.

It takes a brave person to risk his job and his livelihood, to put himself and his family in jeopardy, in the face of blind obedience on the part of so many of his fellow teachers and education professionals to what is nothing more than an outlandish political ploy to destroy public education, undermine teacher authority and autonomy, punish students, parents, teachers, administrators, schools, and districts MOST in need of support, and to shamelessly promote vouchers and privatization to help those most advantaged and least in need already. Sadly, there is not a single member of the US Congress (and, I suspect, of any state legislature) who has a balanced view of educational politics, who actually has K-12 teaching experience, who has a background in either education or psychometrics, and who understands that measuring something is not the way to improve it….

David Wasserman had the guts to stand up for his students and for meaningful assessment over shallow, cheaply processed “data”-gathering and number worship. His colleagues, principal, and superintendent should have applauded him. I suspect many of his students were grateful for even a moment’s thought for their plight. Instead, we saw no acts of courage from those with a little more power than a mere classroom teacher. It was business as usual, full speed ahead, and testing uber alles. How utterly sad, and how utterly tragic for real kids and real learning.

I too support Mr. Wasserman and hope that MMSD’s “reprimand” does not come to pass.

Thomas J. Mertz

Leave a comment

Filed under Accountability, AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, Local News, National News, nclb, No Child Left Behind

by | November 21, 2007 · 3:04 pm

Alfie Kohn Settles Suit

From Teacher Magazine (via the A.P):

Alfie Kohn Settles Suit
By The Associated Press

BOSTON
The state Department of Education acknowledged Monday it violated the free speech rights of a standardized test critic and agreed to pay him $187,000 to settle his lawsuit over being dumped as a speaker at a state-run conference.

Alfie Kohn, a former teacher who lectures widely, was asked to discuss his views on standardized tests, including the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Systems test, at a 2001 conference on public schooling in the state’s western region.

Kohn said state education officials, after learning he planned to focus on his opposition to the MCAS, forced local organizers to cancel his speech after threatening to withdraw $28,000 in state funding. His lawsuit alleged that state officials violated his rights and kept others from hearing his views.

In a statement Monday, the education department acknowledged it had violated Kohn’s First Amendment rights. In a letter written as part of the settlement, the department said its position “is that vigorous debate about education issues is healthy and welcome.”

The suit was filed by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Kohn, a school principal, a counselor and a parent. In the settlement, Kohn will receive $7,500 and his attorneys will get $179,500, the ACLU said.

In May, a Superior Court judge ordered the department to pay $155,000 to Kohn’s lawyers, ruling that officials violated his constitutional rights when they kept him from speaking at the conference. Mediators, however, persuaded the department to increase the amount, education department spokeswoman Heidi Guarino said.

“Our feeling is that this is a good resolution, we are glad to have this behind us and we are perfectly content with where things stand now,” Guarino said.

Kohn said in statement he, too, was happy to resolve the suit and is “hopeful that DOE’s newfound commitment to open discussion of education policies means that it will never again attempt to silence those who disagree with its policies — and that it will be open to considering the substantial evidence that indicates the MCAS testing program is doing more harm than good.”

In addition to lecturing, Kohn has written 11 books on education and parenting.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press.

Thomas J. Mertz

Leave a comment

Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, National News, nclb, No Child Left Behind

by | November 18, 2007 · 7:48 pm

Senate Hearing Video — Laura L. Vernon

Laura L. Vernon

Since the first video I posted was from a rural district, I thought it would be appropriate to make the second post from Milwaukee (video from Wisconsin Eye — the full November 15 hearing can be accessed here — , excerpts posted via YouTube, playlist of all hearing videos posted thus far, here).

Laura L. Vernon (click here for the video) from the Milwaukee Educational Assistants Association seemed like a good choice (it was hard to choose, check back to hear other important voices from Milwaukee and around the state).

Defenders of our current system will say that it works for most districts or children (only those who have a weak grasp on reality would say it works for all districts and children). I don’t agree with that statement, but even if it is true our children deserve a system that works for all.

At one point Senator Grothman speculated that the gap between high spending district and low spending districts has been shrinking (Senator Grothman did a lot of speculating and quoting questionable “facts”, apparently he’s too busy to railing against taxes to look at any actual research). There are many possible ways to assess this (data can be found here), based on a quick calculation it looks to me that since 2000 the standard deviation in per member spending has remained about 15% of the average, but shrunk slightly.

All of this is interesting in an analytical way, but as the MMSD Equity Task Force (and many others) have concluded, equity does not mean equal. The diverse and very real needs of districts and children require different resources based on these needs that dollar for dollar comparisons do not capture.

We hear about the uniformity in taxation clause of the Wisconsin Constitution as an impediment to school finance reform (although the current system is far from uniform and falls under one of the exemptions in Art. XIII, sec. 1), but we don’t hear so much about the uniformity of education clause in Art. X, sec. 3. Seven years ago in Vincent v. Voight the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the current system (barely) met this requirement, yet it is increasingly clear that when diverse circumstances are considered, each year the differences in educational opportunities based on residence continue to grow.

My point is two-fold; the current system exacerbates the inequalities that public education is supposed to overcome and that a system that fails to provide the necessary resources to any district or child is unacceptable.

Be it urban Milwaukee or rural Phillips, our current school finance system is failing many. It is past time to fix it!

Thomas J. Mertz

Leave a comment

Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Budget, Equity, Gimme Some Truth, Local News, Pope-Roberts/Breske Resolution, School Finance, We Are Not Alone

by | November 16, 2007 · 7:48 pm

Half Full Glasses

aa-50535

A new study on math and science testing would appear to offer high praise for America’s public education system. From the NYT‘s report:

American students even in low-performing states like Alabama do better on math and science tests than students in most foreign countries, including Italy and Norway, according to a new study released yesterday.

That, in case you missed it was the glass being classified as half full. If you thought success was high praise, you will learn that Wisconsin ranks in pretty good company, being at or above the league tables of most European countries.

But, according to the study’s author, “the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science.” The Times reporter accents this framing further by quoting Thomas Toch, a co-director of Education Sector, a group with it’s own half full/half empty conflicts, who says this study “shows we’re not doing as badly as some say. We’re in the top half of the table, and a number of states are outperforming the majority of the nations in the study. But our performance in math and science lags behind that of the front-running Asian nations.”

I get the Tom Friedman mantra to some extent, but doesn’t his global flattening thesis of digital communication look somewhat contrived in a doom and gloom sort of way, if it only compares a handful of education systems to the majority of other countries?

Leaving aside his sunny optimism regarding the war and the emergence of “the Friedman,” a tongue-in-cheek neologism coined to express his and others call for a continuing need for just six more months before success will begin to take hold, perhaps the answer to the above metaphor is to suggest that progress in math and science is truly a glass half full story. Pad ourselves on the back for once. There is a good story to be told about America’s public education system. Do we need to strive to do better, obviously. Approaching the future, not from a position of dysfunctionality but from an outlook of building upon our strengths, would seem to be wholly in line with America’s “can do” spirit, a strength we have always shown and should continue to exercise.

Robert Godfrey

Leave a comment

Filed under AMPS, Gimme Some Truth, National News

by | November 14, 2007 · 3:51 am

Rank Ranking — The Pangloss Index

Get ready for “news” reports and blog posts (and here) from those eager to find fault with public education harping on the latest “report” from the Education Sector (more on the Education Sector on AMPS, here). In the recently released The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act Wisonsin is ranked at #1 (along with Iowa) as the state that is most guilty of “gaming NCLB’s accountability system.” Don’t believe them.

Among the many faults of No Child Left Behind — recognized even by those who have faith in the utility of compilations of data to capture the essence of educational quality and believe that high stakes testing is the best way to create educational progress (I’m not one of them) — is that the accountability structures of NCLB in these areas are deeply flawed.

The purpose of the Pangloss Index (named after Doctor Pangloss from Voltaire’s Candide, who embodies baseless optimism) is to point out that many states avoid “accountability” (read the punishments doled out to schools that don’t meet the adequate yearly progress measures of the law) in their implementation and generally paint a rosy picture of the state of education. All well and good. If you believe in this stuff (as the Education Sector does) then you want it to be designed in a way that at least has a chance of being useful and documenting the flaws would be a good first step.

If you take the press releases (and here; I can’t resist highlighting this phrase from Kevin Carey: “even tightly constructed laws like NCLB,” “tightly constructed,” what planet is he living on?) at face value, that’s what the Pangloss Index is supposed to do. If you peek behind the curtain you will see that it is in fact a lazy and useless piece of garbage intended only to fan the flames of panic among those inclined to believe the worst about public education and “educrats.”

The whole thing is based on the absurd assumption that all positive data is wrong and all negative data is correct. Therefore, states that report good things get a high (bad) rating for “gaming” the system and states that report bad things get a low (good) rating for being honest and accountable. No effort (none at all) is made to assess the accuracy of any of the reported data or to correlate it with other measures. Don’t believe me? Here is what the report says:

This report is based on data submitted by state departments of education to the U.S. Department of Education through reports called Consolidated State Performance Reports (CSPRs)…The “Pangloss Index” found in Table 1 of this report is calculated by aggregating state rankings on 11 measures derived from the CSPRs….For each measure, states were ranked so that the states reporting the most positive results were ranked highest. For example, while states were ranked highest if they reported the highest high school graduation rates and highest percent of schools making adequate yearly progress, they were also ranked highest if they reported the lowest number of persistently dangerous schools and the lowest high school dropout rates.

This is just a stupid way to look at education policy and practice. The Education Sector has lots of money and a respectable reputation and should refrain from these kind of games if they want to keep the reputation (the money would no doubt continue to flow, money in education policy cares little about standards of honesty or scholarship).

Post of interest on last year’s Pangloss Index:

Jay Bullock: Paging Dr. Pangloss

Thomas J. Mertz

Leave a comment

Filed under Accountability, AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, National News, nclb, No Child Left Behind

by | November 12, 2007 · 4:59 pm

The political landscape of NCLB may be changing

It is increasingly looking likely that there will not be any legislative movement to reauthorize No Child Left Behind (NCLB) before the next election. At the same time, it’s worth mentioning the results from the last Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll published in August (the grandaddy of polling American’s attitudes towards public schools for the past 39 years). In the conclusion sections you’ll see that the public is shifting quite significantly away from this public policy. One of the most encouraging results (see table 14 in the report) is the growing disenchantment with the increasing reliance on standardized testing. As the pollsters’ conclusions suggested, it is probably no coincidence that the criticism of standardized testing has developed since this form of appraisal became the principal strategy in implementing NCLB.

Robert Godfrey

Leave a comment

Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, National News, nclb, No Child Left Behind

by | November 12, 2007 · 4:12 am

Bucking the conventional wisdom: The Science Education Myth

Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support. A new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, tells a different story from the constant doom and gloom harangue from certain political leaders, tech executives, and academics who’ve claimed that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. We’ve heard much about poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They have urged us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China. The Urban Institute’s Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell have a different story to report. They show that math, science, and reading test scores at the primary and secondary level have actually increased over the past two decades, and U.S. students are now close to the top of international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising, the report finds that our education system actually produces more science and engineering graduates than the market demands.

An abstract from the study:

Recent policy reports claim the United States is falling behind other nations in science and math education and graduating insufficient numbers of scientists and engineers. Review of the evidence and analysis of actual graduation rates and workforce needs does not find support for these claims. U.S. student performance rankings are comparable to other leading nations and colleges graduate far more scientists and engineers than are hired each year. Instead, the evidence suggests targeted education improvements are needed for the lowest performers and demand-side factors may be insufficient to attract qualified college graduates.

Robert Godfrey

Leave a comment

Filed under AMPS, Gimme Some Truth, National News

by | November 10, 2007 · 6:57 pm

What George Fails To Mention Could Fill a Book

From Richard Russell, via the Progressive Dane email list (posted with permission).

The op. ed. referenced can be found here. More on this story on AMPS here.

What George Fails To Mention Could Fill a Book

I used to be one of the “educrats” whom George Lightbourn belittles in his essay “School choice is working and should be expanded”. Now retired, I spent my professional career as an analyst for the Department of Public Instruction. For part of that time, my opposite number at the Department of Administration was a bright, insightful, competent (and, as it turns out, ambitious) young guy named … George Lightbourn. Yes, George fails to mention that he himself got his start as an “educrat”.

But that’s only one of many things that George — now in the pay of the corporate-backed Wisconsin Policy Research Institute think tank — fails to mention.

For instance, he insists that parents should have the right to choose the school their children attend. And so they do. Guaranteed by law. What he fails to mention is that the general public is under absolutely no moral or legal obligation to pay for it.

Even though WPRI now recognizes that parents aren’t doing a particularly good job of choosing schools for their children, George contends that they alone should make the call. Another thing he fails to mention is that raising children is a responsibility shared between parents and society as a whole. It’s the entire culture that insists that kids be immunized, fed, clothed, and schooled (and, in societies more enlightened than ours, provided with health care), and gets downright intolerant of parents who abuse or neglect their kids, or try to use them as cheap labor.

George also fails to mention that public-school choice is a direct competitor against the darling of the neocon movement: PRIVATE-school choice. And, while WPRI was happy to do a study showing the shortcomings of PUBLIC-school choice, the right wing has resisted every effort to subject PRIVATE-school choice to comparable scrutiny.

The reason for this is simple. When Milwaukee’s program was first instituted as a limited experiment, it had an evaluation component. After 5 years, the study (headed by highly respected UW-Milwaukee Education Professor Alex Molnar) had piled up lots of data, the reports were filed, and the private-school kids had done no better than their public-school counterparts. This was a far cry from the glories that had been promised when the “experiment” was begun. The reaction of Gov. Tommy Thompson’s administration? Declare victory, remove the “experimental” tag, expand the program, and eliminate the evaluation! To this day, the private schools are exempt from the kind of accountability that the public schools face on a daily basis.

George advances the corporatist party line that the invisible hand of the market will inevitably cause top-quality schools to bubble up to the top. Quality, quality, quality. That’s all anybody ever looks for in a school, according to the propaganda. The George Lightbourn of a quarter century ago would not have been so naïve as to presume (nor so disingenuous as to pretend) that this is remotely close to reality. I could cite several dozen reasons OTHER than quality that parents use in choosing schools, but just consider a couple of parallel situations: entertainment (vigorous exercise vs. violent video games) and nutrition (a healthy, balanced diet vs. junk food). Those choices are just as free and unfettered as they are with respect to the schools. Do parents invariably choose quality, 100% of the time? The correct answer is another thing George fails to mention.

George also fails to mention that WPRI’s cover has long since been blown. It’s clearly a front for the twin pillars of neoconservatism: corporations and churches. Neither of these institutions is primarily concerned with children as human beings. The former wants their money; the latter wants their souls. They’d be thrilled to see what they derogate as “government schools” close up shop altogether. But they DO foresee a role for government in the final picture: as an endless source of funding.

For the rest of us, their hope is that we’ll end up like George Lightbourn: glossing over the whole truth to focus on the party line, ignoring the big picture for the big bucks.

I suppose it’s POSSIBLE that WPRI could be the source of an honest study on education. It’s also POSSIBLE that the tobacco industry could have done honest research into the health effects of smoking. Sometimes honesty really IS the best policy, if it furthers your agenda. But keen observers will always want to know: Even if what you DID show us is true, what is it you’re NOT telling us? What do you fail to mention?

Now, these folks will undoubtedly counter that we advocates for the public schools have an agenda of our own. And they’re right. We do. It was best stated about a century ago by John Dewey: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children.”

George fails to mention that, too.

Richard S. Russell

The 5 greatest bargains in America:
(1) sunshine
(2) fresh air
(3) clean water
(4) public libraries
(5) public schools

Thomas J. Mertz

Leave a comment

Filed under Accountability, AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, Local News

by | November 8, 2007 · 8:23 pm

Teacher shows folly of No Child Left Behind

Dave Zweifel on high stakes testing in Madison:

“David Wasserman, the Sennett Middle School teacher who was threatened with firing when he refused to administer one of those questionable No Child Left Behind tests, needs to be commended for having the courage to open a few eyes.

Wasserman eventually administered the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam when he learned his protest was a firable offense. He was prepared to accept a reprimand, but, like most of us, he needs his job and the family health insurance that goes with it.

His actions, though, served to get the NCLB issue on the table where it needs to be thoroughly examined not just by educators, but by everyone concerned about the direction of our schools. It’s one of those tough ones to oppose — who, after all, doesn’t want to make sure that no school child is left behind? — but it’s just another example of how this administration has succeeded in hoodwinking the country with empty and optimistic promises. A quick war in Iraq, but one example.

Rather than training young people to be well-rounded adult citizens, the act has forced teachers to teach only for tests that are focused on mathematics and reading, subjects held in high regard by corporate America.

Meanwhile, courses that make up the bedrock of good citizenship — history, social studies, arts, music, geography and science — get short shrift because if the kids don’t do well enough in those reading and math tests, their schools will be penalized.

Just last week the Chicago Tribune ran a story on Huntley High School in the city’s suburbs, a school that has doubled its student enrollment over five years and has had to hire 30 new teachers fresh out of college to take care of them.

But, because the NCLB act allows no consideration for any outside forces that may impact a school, Huntley High is given no slack as it works to get those 30 teachers up to par. Education experts say it takes teachers two or three years just to learn the school climate.

Another story detailed how the act requires that special education students meet the same test standards.

“It’s a great theory. Of course we want all students to do well, but it doesn’t always work that way,” one teacher lamented.

In Illinois, 297 schools failed to meet the NCLB standards this year. A third of them did so solely because their special ed kids couldn’t meet the requirements.

Problems like that have been reported throughout the country, but the administration and Congress act as though everything is going well. Just this week, a congressional committee that was working on improving the act signalled that it wouldn’t get to it this year.

Maybe — just maybe — teachers like David Wasserman can wake them up.”

Robert Godfrey

Leave a comment

Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, Local News, No Child Left Behind