Re: George Miller speaks, maybe in tongues

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Leaving aside WP policies on letters, or whether an author of NCLB 
really understands it, or what the course of the reauthorization will 
be, I am struck by Jerry's claim the NCLB is "all stick and no carrot." 
 That claim doesn't surprise me, since Jerry has argued from day 1 that 
NCLB is a ploy by the Business Roundtable to make public schools look 
bad so that the taxpayers will then fork over the tuition for the 
private schools attended by BR progeny.  That argument has been, to put 
it mildly, a non-starter, except for the types who buy into really 
far-out stuff.

NCLB requires states to improve their schools.  It stops short of 
telling states to spare no expense in doing that and it does not 
provide all the money it might take, but it does provide a considerable 
amount of money.  There are some carrots there, at least.  In improving 
schools, hard choices have to be made and some people who work in 
schools won't like some of them.  But that's OK because teachers and 
principals and parents and kids are not the same kinds of rabbits.  
Some teachers and principals are going to claim that they are being 
clubbed if they think schools are going to be changed in ways that give 
parents and kids more clout.  That's what much of the criticism of NCLB 
is really about, under the cover of concern about tests, or curriculum, 
or whatever.  Don't kid yourselves about that.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org; LiteracyForAll@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 7:13 am
Subject: [arn-l] George Miller speaks, maybe in tongues


What follows is a commentary on George Miller's July 30 speech at the 
National
Press Club on how he plans to revise for its reauthorization NCLB when 
Congress
resumes this fall.  I don't think he fully understands the implications 
of some
of the things he says concerning growth models, "better" tests, and 
keeping the
curriculum from narrowing.   Yesterday he added that "21st century 
skills" can't
be measured by multiple-choice tests.  (And yet, his planned changes 
don't seem
to be as radical as those Nancy Pelosi mentioned to the National 
Conference of
State Legislatures yesterday.)

But two sentences in the July 30 speech give the current game away:

"I have always said that I am proud to be one of the original coauthors 
of the
No Child Left Behind Act.  But what I really want is to be the proud 
coauthor of
a law that works."

The whole speech can be viewed at http://edlabor.house.gov.  A 
formatted version
of my comments is at www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey along with a 
few
interesting comments from readers.

By the way, my first response to Miller's speech was actually a letter 
to the
editor in response to a supportive editorial in the Washington Post.  
The Post's
automated response to acknowledge receipt of my letter contains this 
little
zinger:  "The letter may not have been submitted to or published by any 
other
media or Internet outlet.  This includes comments or feedack posted to 
Web
sites.  If you have posted similar comments to a Web site, your letter 
will not
be considered."

This sets up a sorta Catch-22 because an earlier par. says, "Because of 
the
volume of letters we receive, we cannot respond to the authors of 
letters we are
unable to use."

So how long are you supposed to wait before posting "similar comments" 
somewhere
else?  I waited two days.  I have queried the Post's ombudsman about 
these
policies, but so far, no response.

Jerry

-------------------------


An August 7 Washington Post editorial called a speech  by California 
Rep. George
Miller “refreshing:”  “So it was refreshing to hear a leading liberal 
Democrat
speak passionately about his commitment to this landmark law.”  The law 
is the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, known in its current 
incarnation
as “No Child Left Behind.”  It is up for re-authorization this year.

Mr. Miller, realizing he couldn’t get the reauthorization before 
everyone
skedaddled home for summer recess, spoke July 30 at the National Press 
Club,
outlining what he wants to see in the bill he will bring forth in 
September.

I’m not sure the Post understood what Mr. Miller said and I’m not sure 
Mr.
Miller understood what Mr. Miller said.  Mr. Miller said that the law 
“is not
fair.  It is not flexible and it is not funded.  I can tell you that 
there are
no votes in the U. S. House of Representatives for continuing the No 
Child Left
Behind Act without making serious changes to it.”  That’s clear.  So 
far, so
good.

But then he dropped a pair of doozies:  “I have always said that I am 
proud to
be one of the original coauthors of the No Child Left Behind Act.  But 
what I
really want is to be the proud coauthor of a law that works.”  Well I 
reckon
that gives the game away.

Miller proposed that under the new law “states will be allowed to 
develop better
tests that more accurately measure what all students have learned.”  
Read: not
all kids will take the same tests.  Read: states will be permitted to 
use
performance tests and other alternatives to multiple-choice tests.  
Tacked onto
this, Miller acknowledged the criticism that NCLB’s emphasis only on 
math and
science has inappropriately narrowed the curriculum (and, if he gets 
completely
honest about this, he’ll acknowledge that the narrowing has afflicted 
kids who
can least afford to let it happen to them).  Read: We’ll test in more 
curriculum
areas.

More tests! Underlying this rhetoric is a complexity of both 
psychometrics and
information technology that I don’t think Mr. Miller grasps.  As Tom 
Toch of the
Education Sector recently pointed out, the testing industry 
infrastructure has
imploded already under weight of the existing law.  States added 11 
million
tests in 2005-2006 and will add another 11 million next year when the 
NCLB
science requirement kicks in.  The errors made by the testing companies 
have
soared and even when they get it right they often don’t get it right in 
time for
schools to use the results properly under the law.

And yet, in a follow-up that came across the wire services August 8, 
Miller
added even more tests: the tests must test “21st century skills:” 
“These
measures (tests) can no longer reflect just basic skills and 
memorization.
Rather, they must reflect critical-thinking skills and the ability to 
apply
knowledge to new and challenging contexts.  These are the skills that 
today’s
students need to meet the complex demands of the American economy and 
society in
a globalized world.”  This last, of course, is rather dubious but it is 
today’s
mantra.


Finally, “The legislation I will introduce will contain a growth model 
that
gives credit to states and schools for the progress that their students 
make
over time.”  Everybody loves growth models these days.  Me included.  
Schools
whose students make good progress ought not to be punished if they 
started from
such a low level that they didn’t make the magical “proficient” level.  
Right
now, “growth” is measured by looking at how this year’s third graders 
compare to
last year’s.  Of course, these are two different groups of children and 
they
could differ for reasons other than those having to do with the quality 
of
instruction they are receiving.  But I don’t think most states are in a 
position
to use growth models.

I also don’t think Mr. Miller has a good grasp on the state of 
student-tracking
technology.  And what about the 20% of those students who change 
schools every
year—50-60% in many urban areas?  Who’s going to be held accountable 
for the
performance of these kids (the kids who move usually suffer, sometimes 
so do
those in the receiving school when teachers backtrack to re-cover 
material to
accommodate the newcomers)?

Predicting what will happen to NCLB in the next few months is iffy, 
very iffy,
but here goes:  Nothing will happen.  Congress will pass a one-year 
automatic
extension.  And that means that it will be 2009 before we get a 
full-fledged
revision because ain’t nobody gonna touch it during a presidential 
election
year.

So we’ll be stuck with a law that’s all stick and no carrot for another 
two
years.

What a tragedy.


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