Re: NCLB Leaves Gifted Students Behind

[Csubstance@aol.com]

August 28, 2007

Having taught my 28 years in Chicago's public schools in the "inner city" in 
"non-gifted" schools, I have some observations about the biases in the 
Washington Post article.

No child should be subjected to the kinds of drill and kill packages that are 
now becoming central to "No Child Left Behind" padagogy and school 
management. I taught 10th graders who couldn't read, and drill and kill was no better 
for them than it was for 10th graders who were already scoring above 1400 on the 
old SAT or above 30 on the ACT (I had those, too, in the inner city). 

During the years my son Dan was in Chicago public schools, I worked very hard 
to innoculate him from the nasty impacts of the narrowing of curriculum. It 
became more and more difficult as time went on because even many of the "best" 
teachers were being forced into a Procrustian Bed by standards and 
accountability. Remember: Chicago began this madness (and was praised for it by Bill 
Clinton in two State of the Union addresses) after the 1995 Mayoral takeover of 
our public schools. This stuff didn't begin in Texas under George W. Bush and 
Rod Paige, but in several locations, including Chicago, under the "bipartisan" 
idiocies of the 1990s.

During all of those years, my son was attending Chicago's public schools.

By late elementary school, it became clear that some "gifted" students were 
learning what I called "Multiple Choice Math." It became more and more 
difficult -- but never impossible -- to humor him into actually doing math (as opposed 
to psychiing out the "correct" answer from a matrix on a multiple choice 
test). 

As time went on, it became clear to me that some of the "best" math students 
in Chicago's elementary grades were going to crash and burn if they were ever 
challenged to actually do math when they reached high school. They had become 
so conditioned to doing "well" by psyching out the correct answer from the 
matric that they were crippled when they faced a problem that didn't already have 
the answers facing them.

Sure enough, this is precisely what happened when my son Dan entered 9th 
grade at Chicago's Whitney Young High School. He told me that there were some high 
scoring students in his early math class (9th grade) who were literally 
crushed when they were asked to actually do math. They sat dumbly waiting for 
someone to give them Multiple Choice Math. Despite relatively high scores, it was 
over for them. They had been "top" students in 7th and 8th grade and were 
finished by the end of 9th. 

I have narrated this before here on ARN, and we need to repeat it now. The 
damage is across the Board.

This week is particularly poignant for me because of how much work it was to 
avoid the damage being done by all the aspects of "standards and 
accountability" under both the Democrats (prior to 2001) and under the bipartisans (since 
No Child Left Behind in 2002). My dislike of the Clinton machine (which is 
roughly the same this time around as it was when Bill was riding high) stems from 
having to listen to that hypocrisy in praise of Chicago Mayor Richard M. 
Daley's "school reform" during the late 1990s.

By 10th grade, my son was taking statistics (at one of the handful of Chicago 
public high schools that offered it). He scored a "5" on the AP statistics 
exam.

In 11th grade he was able to handle "AB" calculus (and scored a "5" on that).

In 12th grade, he was ready for "BC" calculus (and scored a "4" on that AP 
exam).

And yesterday he called after his "Calculus II" class at the University of 
California at Berkeley and said he was very very happy there. He was between 
classes, and by dinner had had his first Computer Science class. None of this 
would have happened had we allowed "multiple choice math" to convince that child 
(now a young man) how "smart" he was. But the damned thing was that every day 
and every month and every year we had to push back against these idiocies in 
order to save what little we could for th elong run. 

Had we allowed "standards and accountability" to ruin Dan, yesterday (first 
day of classes for undergraduates in engineering and math at Berkeley) would 
not have happened. At some point, the child would have had the connection for 
math broken, forever.  

What has pissed me off for the past decade is that at both "ends" (low 
scoring and "gifted") of the standardized test spectrum, this approach to education 
is destroying children's love of learning, ability to learn, and futures. 
Central to what I've done and what we continue to do is the demand that we end all 
of these forms of child abuse.

"Standards and Accountability" as it has been unveiled and practiced in the 
USA in public schools for the past 15 years is the problem, not the solution. 
The current iteration of that is No Child Left Behind, but it is not the source 
of the infection. Were NCLB ended tomorrow and the infection not rooted out, 
children a decade from now would still be facing these cynical monstrosities. 

And the University of Chicago, my alma mater, through the Consortium, is one 
of the main reasons why they have gotten away with these frauds for so long.  
Every one of their studies, form their initial one praising Retention in 
Chicago, has been a piece of sophisticated propaganda for the Standardistas, as 
Susan Ohanian has called them.

And my family and I are still facing it because of our commitment to public 
schools (and our limited resources).

Next Monday, our six year old son Sam begins first grade in Chicago. DIBELS 
is a local fascination. So here we go again.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance
www.substancenews.net

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