Teacher to Congress: Listen Up

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Posted at Teacher Magazine


Teacher to Congress: Listen Up

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/webwatch/2007/09/teacher_to_congress_listen_up.html


As the discussion over 
<http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opclo255388686sep25,0,2466182.story>the 
reauthorization of NCLB heats up, one New York 
educator wants to be heard. Nancy Close, a health 
teacher from East Islip, Long Island, writes in a 
Newsday commentary this week, ?It?s important 
that Congress listen to teachers and, make sure 
that, this time, it gets the law right.? Without 
deeper consideration, Close fears, ??Congress 
could make a problematic law even worse.?

The unrelenting focus on test scores, she writes, 
is draining the creativity from teaching and 
learning. ?Children and their schools are so much 
more than test scores?Yet, it appears the House 
Education and Labor Committee remains to be 
convinced.? According to Close, NCLB is ?failing 
children and local schools, stigmatizing both 
with unfair sanctions driven by unscientific 
methods of adequate yearly progress.? She 
suggests a refocus on class size, teacher 
training and retention, access to early childhood 
programs, and funding for school facilities and materials.

?Teachers­and children­need the law to work. But 
it can?t work if it excludes the wisdom of 
teachers.? Close, a union teacher, is president 
of the East Islip Teachers Association. She 
visited the House Education and Labor Committee earlier this month.