No Child Left Behind. Sounds like a noble cause, doesn't it? I mean, no one should ever be left behind, whether it's education, disaster relief, the homeless. But when it comes to education, don't be fooled into thinking the federal government really cares about your kids. If you're in public education, you know NCLB is a bold-faced lie.
For example, the notion that all kids will be on the same level by a certain time frame is ridiculous. Only a bunch of pencil-pushing, Washington elitists with zero knowledge of child development could make such an uninformed claim. These stuffed-suits completely disregard one critical component in the educational growth of a child--parent involvement. Or should I say, LACK of parent involvement.
When you have kids moving in and out of schools because the rent is due or their parents could care less about education and are more concerned with personal survival or their parents are too busy chasing that brass ring and just don't have "time" to be involved in their child's education, you can see what our educational system is up against.
Then you bring in the element of more rigid standardized assessments to guarantee we leave even more children behind. A reasonable person would naturally assume assessing the growth of students in order to better serve that student would be a good thing. It would be if states didn't have to punt on the essentials like spelling and punctuation and development of creative thinkers instead of making a collection of robotic, Stepford kids that are great test-takers, but lousy problem solvers.
In my opinion, and of course, it's only my opinion, the feds in their infinite wisdom has someone or cluster of someone's (cluster being the first of two operative words) that are enemies of public education and would love nothing more, like the insurance industry, to see it fail so the government can take over and privatize it. What other excuse could those mindless weasels in Washington have for authoring such a God-awful plan as No Child Left Behind. Those four words themselves are an oxymoron and perhaps the greatest travesty ever perpetrated by our government against the future of our nation.
By dumbing down curriculum, placing such rigid standards no state can ever hope to fully be in compliance, and by guaranteeing the mass exodus of teachers and administrators around the country (check the stats and you'll be alarmed), the federal government will eventually have in place all the reasons they need to take over education and remove power from the state level and shift it to Washington, D.C.
Your school administration building someday will be the U.S. Capitol with a whole bunch of overpaid, unenlightened, pompous superintendents at the helm. Then where will we be? You can see what happens any time Washington puts its filthy hands on anything, can't you?
I encourage you to check out the real facts behind No Child Left Behind. Find out what's really going on and don't just take the politicians' word on it.
Here's my ten-cent solution. 1) States must exercise their sovereign right to decline government monies and refuse to follow the rules of NCLB. Big problem: our states are so deep in bed with Washington they HAVE to follow the rules. 2) States must create their own set of standards that rigorously provide for appropriate measurements of student growth. 3) Grant more power to local school districts to set standards appropriate for the culture(s) of their specific region. For example, it's unreasonable to expect a school to comply with NCLB if that school has a high number of Spanish-speaking students or a large population of African refugees placed within that's school's zone. Right now, NCLB has limited-to-few provisions for such incidences. We've got kids being dumped on schools with no knowledge of the English language or American culture and we're supposed to "bring them up to speed." Further evidence the government could care less about the problems facing schools. 4) Release monies to help lower socio-economic parents, that may have limited education themselves, to obtain a G.E.D. and/or attend college. Show parents why education is important by empowering parents to be learners.
I know, what do I know about making laws and coming up with solutions to a problem that keeps on growing? I've been in public education for 16 years and have watched as it continues to decline, not because we have bad teachers that don't care. On the contrary, I believe public education is failing your kids because Washington has failed all of us. Teachers and staff care deeply about kids. We want them to succeed. We know what's at stake if they don't. Our country can't afford for public education to implode and the government to take the reins.
"Failure is not an option" is a phrase you hear often in our business. Too bad it's not one Congress operates by.
TFR
