Re: Teacher Boycott Showed Follow of NCLB

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Teacher shows "follow" of NCLB?  How's that again?

NCLB gives important benefits to parents and children when children 
attend schools where significant numbers of children are not keeping up 
with their peers.  The most important is that NCLB requires states to 
improve such schools.  This particularly helps poor children, minority 
children, children with disabilities, and children learning English - 
which in my opinion puts NCLB in the first rank of America's civil 
rights laws.  This is why politicians like Ted Kennedy with long 
histories of support for civil rights and leading civil rights 
organizations support it in its widest outline.  The writer asks who 
doesn't want to make sure that no child is left behind.  No one may 
want that, but that does not mean that teachers and other school 
employees are going to support improving schools if it rocks their 
boats .  And who has more money and more organization to try to 
influence politicians - poor families and minority families or school 
employees, particularly unions of school employees?  Politics and 
self-interest 101 here.

Commending someone who cavalierly, if sincerely, attempts to throw a 
monkey wrench into the workings of NCLB because he doesn't like tests 
is a disservice to the public, and puts one in the bad company of those 
 who have worked against civil rights laws in the past. If teachers and 
principals are hiding kids on test day, or feeding them answers, or 
making bad choices about curriculum, and if states are playing games 
with passing scores, and introducing confidence intervals, high minimum 
group sizes, and other statistical dodges to make schools look better 
than they are,  we should all be telling them to stop. instead of 
applauding or blaming every dysfunction on NCLB.  The fact that these 
things are going on at all means that things are out of whack, not 
because of testing and accountability, but because parents and kids 
come in second.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.
To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>; ARN State 
<ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>; ""arn 2""@earthlink.net
Sent: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 9:35 am
Subject: [arn-l] Teacher Boycott Showed Follow of NCLB

TEACHER SHOWS FOLLOW OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND


(Madison, Wisconsin) Capital Times -- November 7, 2997

by Dave Zweifel


David Wasserman, the Sennett Middle School teacher who was threatened T
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.


Dave Zweifel is the editor of The Capital Times.


http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/255528






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