"Reality Left Behind" -- Another Excellent Editorial

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

> From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
>
>
> REALITY LEFT BEHIND: "NO CHILD" PROGRAM NEEDS REFORM
>
> Bradenton (FL) Herald Editorial
> January 12, 2006
>
> Democrats who now control Congress have taken steps to strengthen 
> ethics rules and to cut runaway spending that has thrown the federal 
> budget horribly out of balance during the last six years. They're 
> working on raising the minimum wage. And they must wrestle with 
> President Bush's bid to send more troops to Iraq in a "surge" aimed 
> at suppressing insurgents long enough for Iraqi troops to take 
> control of Baghdad and other hotspots.
>
> But one important domestic item that has made few headlines is the 
> No Child Left Behind Act. This misguided bit of political meddling 
> into the education process is up for renewal, and Congress should 
> either drastically reform it or kill it off before it does more damage.
>
> Bush's NCLB Act is based on the flawed premise that a school's 
> performance and success in educating our youth can be measured 
> solely through a test that basically assumes one size fits all. But 
> any educator knows that this is contrary to the real world, where 
> children come to education from vastly different places and learn in 
> vastly different ways.
>
> Yet NCLB expects educators to push all children through at 
> pre-determined levels at the same time and penalizes with sanctions 
> those who are unable to do so. The failure label that attaches to 
> both students and teachers as a result of NCLB can be more harmful 
> to future academic success than the factors that caused failure in 
> the first place. It doesn't take many messages about failure to 
> cause a student to simply give up.
>
> Certainly, it is a noble goal to commit to leaving no child behind, 
> academically. But it is almost criminal to set up a system that 
> expects students to perform at the same levels regardless of their 
> differences and then condemns those schools not meeting that level 
> without exception.
>
> Like the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test, NCLB is treated as 
> a pass-fail system instead of a diagnostic tool to track student 
> progress. That's because it was designed by bureaucrats for 
> political purposes rather than by professional educators who 
> understand how to teach.
>
> NCLB also is flawed as an accountability gauge because it ignores 
> the single most important factor in a child's life: the home and 
> family environment. How can a child be expected to concentrate in 
> class when he or she may have little or no adult supervision at 
> home, or faces domestic violence on a regular basis, or even has no 
> home to go to? Their primary focus is survival, not NCLB or FCAT.
>
> A whole-family approach such as that being tried at Samoset 
> Elementary, where parents are encouraged to attend night classes for 
> English competency or GED advancement, will bring better results in 
> the long run. Most kids will watch their parents and key adult role 
> models for clues about behavior. If they see them reading books and 
> taking classes, they are more likely to model that behavior.
>
> All members of Congress should spend a week in a classroom back home 
> that would likely "fail" the NCLB regime before they decide the 
> program's future. Talk with that teacher. Meet each student and see 
> how much many of them care. And then think about what will encourage 
> them to stay in school and learn: an "F," or a program that invests 
> in finding the best education plan for their future.