NCLB reductio ad absurdum

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

No, Art, it's the tools that aren't working.  I have been pointing out for years that while NCLB demands schools use programs supported by scientifically based research, there is no SBR or even crummy evidence for the provisions of the law itself.

And some of the tools are demonstrably goofy:  As Diane said, choice isn't working because in cities there are no seats and in rural areas there are no other schools.  She didn't mention it, but although less often invoked in suburbs, it isn't working there either.  Who chooses in suburbs?  The parents of high performing kids so the schools not making AYP lose some high scorers.  If you think having high scoring kids around as models...Perhaps more important, the school not making AYP loses some of their most involved parents (even though the high performers might not be from groups not making AYP.  When I mentioned from the floor that calling a whole school failing because one of 37 subgroups failed is absurd, there was general agreement).  NONE of these perverse outcomes has anything to do with lack of motivation of the schools to do the right thing.  They are inherent in the goofiness of the law. 

SES isn't working because, again as Diane asked, what evidence do we have that these private firms can do the job better?  The answer here is, virtually none.  Mike Casserly of the Council of the Great City Schools noted that in some cases, SES provided by private firms had harmed students.  Of course, SES isn't even supposed to be in the law.  It was put in to assuage conservative Republicans once the law had been stripped of vouchers--think about the illogic of SES. After two years of failing to make AYP, the kids can go to another school; after three years of failure...well the politics would dictate letting them go to private schools with vouchers and that was what was planned, but when vouchers died, SES arrived.  So, after two years the kids can leave, but after three years THEN NCLB steps in with extra help (supposedly) for the school.  That sequence is about as stupid as you can get.

Ditto conversion to charter status--no evidence.  

And, as Kati Haycock noted, NCLB just tells teachers and administrators to DO SOMETHING.  It provides no help in deciding what they might do and offers only punitive sanctions if schools don't do something.  Would you raise your kids like that?

Casserly and Mike Smith, asst. sec for Clinton and even Checker noted that there is no theory in NCLB about what would make achievement go up. DO SOMETHING! That's all it says.  

JB