Re: column

[aburke5054@aol.com]

When I read a commentary about federal education policy that begins by 
invoking Iraq, the credit economy, and international food shortages, I 
brace myself for a blast fom LaLa land. Such is here.

Neoliberalism explains everything. NCLB threatens democracy. And if 
"more and faster, with less autonomy" describes the lot of teachers, it 
has to be because of NCLB.  So much for your "broad and deep" look at 
NCLB.  If you want to take everything critical about NCLB at face value 
more power to you.  But if somebody writes in an AERA journal that NCLB 
is threatening democracy don't expect the rest of us to immediately 
jump up and muster the Minute Men.  A mother of a child with special 
needs said that because of NCLB the school was teaching her child at a 
higher level than before. She captured a lot more of the truth and the 
promise of NCLB than you ever have.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Sun, 11 May 2008 12:28 pm
Subject: [arn-l] column


Sorry, forgot to open it.

---------------------
DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
DO NOT CITE OR QUOTE BEFORE JUNE 1
WITHOUT  PERMISSION OF
PHI DELTA KAPPAN


NCLB’s Collateral Damage


As this is written in April, 2008, those who are trying to stoke the 
candidates’
interest in education in general and NCLB in particular aren’t having 
much luck.
Even the Broad/Gates $60 million Edin08 campaign hasn’t lit many fires. 
The
reasons are not hard to find.  Iraq seems in descent again, the 
reassurances of
Bush, Crocker and Petraeus notwithstanding.  Daily headlines bring 
worse news
about the mortgage debacle and the credit crunch (the Fed pumped a lot 
of money
into the economy, but lenders are insecure so rates actually went up 
for a bit).
The corn-ethanol program has backfired, but the food shortage crisis in
countries that depend on various grains for most of their foods hasn’t 
yet fully
registered its tsunami character on Americans.

But…statements about NCLB and what to do about its reauthorization are 
bound to
increase as the election nears.  Senator Clinton has said it should be
“scrapped” at least three times, something I’m sure she doesn’t mean 
since NCLB
is only the current guise of Title I, her party’s flagship legislation 
n the war
on poverty.  Obama, at least as expressed on his web site 
(www.barackobama.com/issues/education),
seems to feel that low funding along with some unspecified 
“shortcomings in the
design of the law” constitute the principle problems.  While 
de-emphasizing
tests, his site rather grandiosely states he will “improve the 
assessments” and
hints at an accountability process that supports rather than punishes 
teachers
(a fairly detailed analysis of the Clinton-Obama positions appeared 
from Eleanor
Chute in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette April 9, 
www.post-gazette.com/pg/08100/871524-298.stm).


McCain favors choice, vouchers and accountability.  He has supported 
both NCLB
and voucher bills and former Arizona state superintendent Lisa Keegan, 
an
advocate of both charters and vouchers, has come on board as an 
education
advisor.

A broad, deep look at NCLB occurs in a five-article special section of 
the
September, 2007 issue of the American Education Research Journal.  
David Hursh
of the University of Rochester puts NCLB within the context of 
Neoliberal
policies generally.  Neoliberalism dominates discourse and frames the 
discussion
of virtually everything.  Framing, as described by George Lakoff in 
Don’t Think
of an Elephant, sets the terms how a topic shall be discussed.  As 
journalist
Ted Koppel succinctly put it, “He who names it and frames it, claims 
it.  The
frame of NCLB makes it hard to oppose: What, you favor leaving some 
kids behind?
It’s phony, of course, but far too many people have accepted that 
frame.

A small digression to describe Neoliberalism.  Hursh quotes William 
Tabb that
Neoliberalism emphasizes “the deregulation of the economy, trade 
liberalization,
the dismantling of the public sector and the predominance of the 
financial
sector of the economy over production and commerce….[it stresses] the
privatization of the public provision of goods and services—moving 
their
provision from the public sector to the private—along with deregulating 
how
private producers can behave, giving greater scope to the single-minded 
pursuit
of profit and showing significantly less regard for the need to limit 
social
costs or for redistribution based on nonmarket criteria.  The aim of
neoliberalism is to put into question all collective structures of 
capably of
obstructing the logic of the pure market.”  Bear Stearns and Washington 
Mutual
love it.

This pure market operates globally and the administration presents NCLB 
as an
important way to make sure America remains competitive in the 21st 
century in
that market.  “We’re living in a global world.  See, the education 
system must
compete with education systems in China and India.  If we fail to give 
our
students the skills necessary to compete in the world of the 21st 
century, the
jobs will go elsewhere.”  Thus spake George W. Bush in October, 2006.

Hursh then reviews the available data to determine if NCLB is imbuing 
American
students with the skills necessary to compete in the world of the 21st 
century.
What he finds instead is a variety of ways of gaming the system 
(reported on
these pages, e.g., May 2008.  Data from New York, Texas, and NAEP 
results offer
little or no evidence for success.  Indeed, the data suggest increases 
in
dropouts and increases in achievement gaps.  He documents with several 
examples
that schools tend to focus their energies on the “bubble kids”—those 
perceived
to be close enough the needed test score that they might have a good 
chance of
passing with some extra attention.

NCLB might actually threaten Democracy, at least Democracy as 
envisioned by
those who are not Neoliberals.  Hursh writes, “Under NCLB, the 
important
educational decisions are made by the federal and state governments.
Individuals are cast as consumers who can choose among the choices 
provided by
an educational marketplace.  But for [Iris] Young and others, a strong 
civil
society is necessary so that state power can be limited and government 
held
accountable to the public.  Under NCLB, civil society is weakened and 
is held
accountable by government rather than the other way around.”  What we 
should aim
for is an education system that serves human growth, not the economy.

Linda Valli of the University of Maryland and Daria Buese of McDaniel 
College
have a more narrow focus but an important one also: How high-stakes
accountability affects teachers’ roles.  This is hardly the first study 
of that
topic, but it has a unique and important feature, that being that it 
lasted over
a four-year period during the implementation of NCLB.  Using interviews 
and
focus-groups of teachers and principals, the researchers watched the 
evolution
of changes in a district from 2001-2002 through 2004-2005.

The changes in teachers’ lives can be summarized in two words and a 
phrase: more
and faster, with less autonomy.  The researchers summarize the changes 
in five
categories.

1. Curriculum pacing.  Before the program began, teachers had 
substantial
control over the pacing through the curriculum.  With the new 
curriculum
introduced by the district, though, pacing had to be carefully 
controlled
because district unit tests had to be given within a certain period.

2. Curriculum alignment.  With the unit tests taking on increased 
importance,
teachers started aligning their instruction with what would likely be 
on the
state test (all the while worrying about how well the district’s 
curricula were
aligned with those tests).  “Alignment of the district curriculum with 
the state
test was such a concern in some schools that administrators included it 
as an
agenda item for staff meetings, had teachers match textbook content 
with state
learning expectations, and purchased test preparation materials from 
commercial
publishers.”

3. Data-related tasks.  “By the end of the 2003-2004 school year, many 
teachers
were struggling to manage multiple data sets for each student while 
district
expectations for teachers as data producers and users became more 
formalized.
One principal told us that he held seven to nine meetings with each 
grade-level
team that year simply to help them learn how to collect, analyze and 
use the
data that were available on their students.”  Some teachers objected to 
the ever
increasing reliance on test scores as guides to instruction because the 
time
spent in analyzing tests decreased the time available for interacting 
with
students—a source of information teachers contended was at least as 
good as test
scores.

4. ESOL instruction.  Many of the students in the district were not 
proficient
in English.  Before NCLB, English Language Learners (ELLs) were the 
province of
ESOL teachers.  But…”Ensuring English proficiency for all students 
became an
urgent aspect of teachers’ work, one that required teachers to develop 
new
knowledge and skills.  Because they were the teachers of record, 
classroom
teachers did not leave the teaching of English solely to the designated 
ESOL
teachers.”

5. Tutoring.  Although the district had always used informal tutoring 
as part of
its program, “these efforts became more institutionalized, targeted to 
bringing
students up to the proficiency level on the state tests.  One teacher 
said that
“to try and fill in the gap or do what’s necessary for that student…I 
tutor in
the mornings.  I tutor after school.  I tutor at lunchtime.  Whatever 
it takes.”


The researchers spend considerable time discussing how one other aspect 
of the
district program, differentiated instruction, increased massively, 
sometimes
with negative effects.  Kids got pulled out of classes too often, the 
teachers
felt, for them to experience continuity, especially those who spoke so 
little
English they did not understand what was going on.  “Everything I do is
differentiated a million different ways,” said one teacher explaining 
how she
created word problems and pictures for the same skill because she had
non-readers in her class.”

The authors write, “If previous research is a guide, school personnel 
might
still be underestimating the task requirements of differentiated 
instruction for
an inclusive classroom and the toll it can take on teachers.”

The schools with the highest poverty levels had the greatest difficulty 
making
AYP.  At one of these, the principal lamented that she had not hired a 
tenured
teacher in 5 years and that she lost her teachers to lower poverty 
schools once
they attained tenure.  “The stress was so palpable that one of us felt 
compelled
to step out of her researcher role to reassure a first-year teacher 
who, leaving
a planning meeting in tears, said she did not know if she could keep 
doing this
for another year.  Linked as they are to accountability policies, these
increased levels of stress and anxiety are clearly the result of 
workplace
cultures, not psychological characteristics of teachers.”

Valli and Buese submitted there submitted before Sharon Nichols and 
David
Berliner’s book appeared, but they describe similar outcomes: 
Collateral Damage.

Three other articles discuss the appropriateness of NCLB’s techniques 
for
dealing with low performing high schools, accountability and teacher 
motivation,
and the impact of NCLB on deaf and hard of hearing children.