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Fwd: [LiteracyForAll] Fwd: [Literacy_inquiry] Fw: [literacyinquiry] Re: NCLB: Ten Moral Concerns in Implementation
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- Subject: Fwd: [LiteracyForAll] Fwd: [Literacy_inquiry] Fw: [literacyinquiry] Re: NCLB: Ten Moral Concerns in Implementation
- From: Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>
- Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 21:04:05 -0700
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This terrific statement quotes Paul Wellstone. Of course, we all know
what they did to him...
Susan
Begin forwarded message:
Hi Folks,
Below is an interesting statement from the US National Council of
Churches on the NCLB in practice!
Jerry gave me permission to post this here.
Adrienne Huber
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Becker" <jbecker@SIU.EDU>
To: DIME-L@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Subject: NCLB: Ten Moral Concerns in Implementation
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 13:44:28 -0500
*************************
From the National Council of Churches Committee on Public
Education and Literacy.
See
http://www.ncccusa.org/nmu/mce/educaministr.html#anchorwgpel
*************************
Ten Moral Concerns in the Implementation of the No Child Left
Behind Act
A Statement of the National Council of Churches Committee on
Public Education and Literacy
Christian faith speaks to public morality and the ways our nation
should bring justice and compassion into its civic life. This call
to justice is central to needed reform in public education,
America's largest civic institution, where enormous achievement
gaps alert us that some children have access to excellent education
while other childrenare left behind. The No Child Left Behind Act*
is a federal law passed in 2001 that
purports to address educational inequity. Now several years into
No Child Left Behind's implementation, as its hundreds of
sequential regulations have begun to be triggered, it is becoming
clear that the law is leaving behind more children
than it is saving. The children being abandoned are our nation's
most vulnerable children-children of color and poor children in
America's big cities and remote rural areas-the very children the
law claims it will rescue. We examine ten moral concerns in the
law's implementation.
1. While it is a civic responsibility to insist that schools do a
better job of educating every child, we must also recognize that
undermining support for public schooling threatens our democracy.
The No Child Left Behind Act sets an impossibly
high bar-that every single student will be proficient in reading
and math by 2014. Wefear that this law will discredit public
education when it becomes clear that schools cannot possibly
realize such an ideal.
2. The No Child Left Behind Act has neither acknowledged where
children start the school year nor celebrated their individual
accomplishments. A school where the mean eighth grade math score
for any one subgroup grows from a third to
a sixth grade level has been labeled a "in need of improvement" (a
label of failure) even though the students have made significant
progress. The law has not acknowledged that everychild is unique
and that thresholds are merely benchmarks set by human beings. Now,
four
years into implementation, the Department of Education has stated
it will begin experimenting with permitting 10 states to measure
student growth. Too many children will continue to be labeled
failures even though they are making strides.
3. Because the No Child Left Behind Act ranks schools according to
test score thresholds of children in every demographic subgroup, a
"failing group of children" will know when they are the ones who
made their school a "failing"
school. They risk being shamed among their peers, by their teachers
and by their community. The No Child Left Behind Act has renamed
this group of children the school's "problem group." In some
schools educators have felt pressured to counsel students who lag
far behind into alternative programs so they won't be tested. This
has increased the dropout rate.
4. The No Child Left Behind Act requires children in special
education to pass tests designed for children without disabilities.
5. The No Child Left Behind Act requires English language learners
to take tests in English before they learn English. It calls their
school a failure because they have not yet mastered academic
English.
----------------------------
SIDEBAR: "Too often, criticism of the public schools fails to
reflect our present societal complexity. At a moment when childhood
poverty is shamefully wide- spread, when many families are under
constant stress, when schools are often limited by lack of funds or
resources, criticism of the public schools often ignores an
essential truth: we cannot believe that we can improve public
schools by concentrating on the schools alone. They alone can
neither cause nor cure the problems we face. In this context, we
must address with prayerful determination the issues of race and
class, which
threaten both public education and democracy in America." -The
Churches and the Public Schools at the Close of the Twentieth
Century, National Council of Churches Policy
Statement, November 11, 1999
-----------------------------
6. The No Child Left Behind Act blames schools and teachers for
many challenges that are neither of their making nor within their
capacity to change. The test score focus obscures the importance of
the quality of the relationship between the child and teacher.
Sincere, often heroic efforts of teachers are made invisible. While
the goals of the law are important-to
proclaim that every child can learn, to challenge every child to
dream of a bright future, and to prepare all children to contribute
to society-educators also need financial and community support to
accomplish these goals.
7. The relentless focus on testing basic skills in the No Child
Left Behind Act obscures the role of the humanities, the arts, and
child and adolescent development. While education should cover
basic skills in reading and math, the educational
process should aspire to far more. We believe education should help
all children develop their gifts and realize their
promise-intellectually physically, socially, and ethically.The No
Child Left Behind Act treats children as products to be tested,
measured and made more uniform.
----------------------------
SIDEBAR: "Our nation's teachers are asked to change lives and
solve problems with resources nowhere near commensurate with the
task while facing constant criticism by
politicians, the public and the press for their alleged failures
and inadequacies..."
-National Council of Churches Resolution: The Churches and Public
Schools, adopted November 5, 2003
----------------------------
8. Because the No Child Left Behind Act operates through
sanctions, it takes federal Title I funding away from educational
programing in already overstressed schools and
uses these funds to bus students to other schools or to pay for
private tutoring firms. A "failing" school district may not be
permitted to create its own public tutoring program, but it is
expected to create the capacity to regulate private firms that
provide tutoring for its students. One of the sanctions provided
is to close or reconstitute the "failing" school or to make it into
a charter school, but in many
places charter schools are unregulated.
9. The No Child Left Behind Act exacerbates racial and economic
segregation in metropolitan areas by rating homogeneous, wealthier
school districts as excellent, while labeling urban districts with
far more subgroups and more
complex demands made by the law as "in need of improvement." Such
labeling of schools and districts
encourages families with means to move to wealthy, homogeneous
school districts.
10. The late Senator Paul Wellstone wrote, "It is simply negligent
to force children to pass a test and expect that the poorest
children, who face every disadvantage, will be able to do as well
as those who have every advantage. When we do
this, we hold children responsible for our own inaction and
unwillingness to live up to our own promises and our own
obligations." The No Child Left Behind Act makes demands on
states and school districts without fully funding reforms that
would build capacity to close achievement gaps. To enable schools
to comply with the law's regulations and to create
conditions that will raise achievement, society will need to
increase federal funding for the schools that serve our nation's
most vulnerable children and to keep Title I funds focused on
instruction rather than on transportation and school choice.
-----------------------------
SIDEBAR: "Most tellingly, the schools that offer the least to
their students are often schools serving poor children, among whom
children of color figure disproportionately, as they do in all the
shortfalls of our common life. Indeed, the coexistence of neglect
of schools and neglect of other aspects of the life of people who
are poor makes it clear that no effort to improve education in the
United States can ignore the realities of racial and class
discrimination in our society as a whole." -The
Churches and the Public Schools at the Close of the Twentieth
Century, National Council of Churches Policy Statement, November
11, 1999
------------------------------
Christian faith demands, as a matter of justice and compassion,
that we be concerned about public schools. The No Child Left Behind
Act approaches the education of America's children through an
inside-the-school management strategy of increased productivity
rather than providing resources and support for the individuals
who will shape children's lives. As people of faith we do not view
our children as products to be tested and managed but instead as
unique human beings to be nurtured and educated. We call on our
political leaders to invest in developing the capacity of all
schools. Our nation should be judged by the way we care for our
children.
-------------------------
National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and
Literacy
http://www.ncccusa.org/nmu/mce educaministr.html#anchorwgpel
For more information, contact: Rev. David Brown (staff)
<dbrown7086@aoi.com> ; Jan
Resseger (chair) <ressegerj@ucc.org>
--------------------------
* For an explanation of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind
Act, consult:
Using NCLB to Improve Student Achievement: An Action Guide for
Community and Parent Leaders,
Public Education Network,
nttp://www.publiceducation.org/pdf/nclb/nclbbook.pdf.
********************************************
-- Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
Southern Illinois University
625 Wham Drive
Mail Code 4610
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: jbecker@siu.edu
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