New words, succinct bullet points, but what will the real difference be between Arne Duncan’s “new” interpretation of NCLB and the original? New staff,and “turnaround” tactics without whole new paradigm shift, gets us back to square one. Even Gates Fdn. admitted its short sightedness after millions of dollars spent on creating “small learning communities” without any real preparation or sustainable strategy.??????

I would like to know why Arne Duncan has put such a great emphasis on charter schools when there is little evidence to support this emphasis. First, researchers at Stanford University released a study of 2,403 charter schools in fifteen states and Washington, DC. The study found that only 17% of the charter schools showed any learning gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools, 37% were worse than their public school counterparts. This means that 83% of the charter schools performed either no better than or worse than traditional public schools. Second, a 2008 Rand Corporation study determined that learning gains in charter schools were statistically indistinguishable from gains made in traditional public schools. Third, in 2009 the well know Philadelphia experiment in privately public schools ended in failure.

The Dept. of Education has been a failure for years and it’s time to either kill it off or just downsize it to a few people.

Within our schools, we encourage support, positive reinforcement and encouragement for modifying and rewarding the performance of our schools; shouldn’t we use the same ideology for the schools themselves?

Within our schools, we provide support, positive reinforcement and encouragement for modifying and rewarding the performance of our students; shouldn’t we use the same ideology for the schools themselves?

* Here’s to proofreading

Which states lowered their standards as a result of no child left behind? I’m curious to know.

Thanks!

As the husband of an elementary school teacher, and someone who is currently pursuing a degree to join her in the teaching profession, it worries me that teachers today, in Connecticut at least, spend more time testing students and documenting progress than actual teaching. Actountability is all well and good, but when will we free up teachers to do thier job?

The call for “sticks” as a way of “punishing” under-performing schools is problematic. I currently teach in an affluent school district, to which I escaped after several years in an underperforming school. I was considered one of the better teachers in that school, but I was fatigued from constantly being told what we were doing wrong, and how terrible we were. President Obama in holding up the firings in Rhode Island as an important step that had to be taken, only piled on to the difficulties those teachers were already dealing with. (and this from a strong Obama supporter).

Are there bad teachers? Yes. Do unions protect shamelessly? Yes. However, belittling the hard work of teachers by painting with too broad a brush is unfair.

As a parent of 2 children 8 years apart, I’ve seen education change drastically in the time that my two kids have been in public school. My first child had creative teachers who fostered a love of learning; my younger child now has the same people as teachers, but they are now battered down by all the requirements of testing, and my child is bored by all the worksheets and testing. These focus JUST on math and reading, while she loves the tiny bit of time the teacher gets to spend on history or science. There’s no time for innovative programs the school used to bring in from local universities, because they don’t match up exactly to the curriculum standards.

Instead of focusing on testing, I wish there would be a focus on teacher training: make it more rigorous in the subject areas, and raise compensation accordingly. Allow teachers to be creative in their approach to curriculum, instead of subjecting them to the superintendents’ and principals’ focus on test scores.

Could it be that the competitive nature of our society is not reflected in the teaching profession? A student who succeeds is more often credited for that than the teacher, it seems to me. Teachers would obviously focus on the problems, so… A career in teaching is now considered sort of self-sacrificial, so “ought” to be secure, a sinecure — to wit, the teachers’ unions.
How does that outlook help students to approach a competitive world?
Are there better ways to reward teachers?

The Dept. of Education has been a failure for years and it’s time to either kill it off or just downsize it to a few people.

Gee, so many Depts.of are like that after Republicans run them for 8 years. It’s a good thing there’s no relation twixt the two.

I teach in a so called “failing school”. It is an inner city school.

Two points: 1. The majority of teachers are dedicated and are trying very hard to teach and improve the quality of education.

2. The behavior of many students needs to be addressed. A significant number of students in each class are acting out or don’t care about school since they plan to
pursue careers in the underground economy. There is no place to put these kids who disrupt classes and hold the others back. There are not enough alternative schools to handle this growing problem. The parents of these kids never show up for open house. This is a huge problem that never seems to be discussed.

As a teacher educator, I am shocked at the naive approach by most of the guests. There are so many factors involved in student achievement, such as parents, nutrition, neighborhood influences, school facilities, availability of libraries. These are in addition to teacher quality. For Jeanne Allen and others to expect teachers to magically overcome all of the other challenges in students’ lives is really unfair and without significant scientific merit.

Continued emphasis on “teacher performance” and “teacher responsibility” and “pay for performance” and “firing poor teachers” completely overlooks the responsibility of parents. We expect teachers to address and overcome problems that we as parents are responsible for: too much television, too many video games, more Blackberry time than focused child time, inadequate nutrition … we cannot expect our schools to fix everything !

To Paula Muller’s points. Here, here.
As I understand it, in my state there is/are programs that address what I’ll call emotional education. Call it selfhood 101. What am I feeling? Name it. Now what? I believe some group, maybe those educated in arbitration and mediation, have devised a curriculum, a specific approach.
A teacher dealing with nonstop disruption has a Sisyphean task (spelling?)

As a researcher on state intervention on failing schools: I add: The significant of current proposal is that it offered incentives (in the form of a competition for money) for states to change their laws to enable more state intervention in persistently failing schools. Up to last year, most states had no or inadequate legal ability to intervene in persistently failing schools and no model of intervention that would turn around a school — their education laws hadn’t addressed this topic.

I agree that this was a good idea — however, some of the changes that the DoE required are not supported by research on what turns school around. For example, both the charter school and pay for performance data are very sketchy about their effects – yet DoE and Duncan push these innovations.

Second — your guests are making some factually inaccurate statements — Central Falls High School students did make progress on accountability tests from year to year — however the students started at a very low level when they entered the school (with one exception) — (follow their progress over the course of their schooling, you can see how low their achievement had been through grade 9).

RE: evaluation — the practice of evaluation is not as much hampered by teachers’ unions as it is a consequence of principals’ failure to do this work — either because they are unable to do it (time or skill) or because they don’t want to face the conflict of contentious evaluations (you can verify this by examining surveys of principals.)

Last — the issue rank and file teachers have about evaluations and the reason why they support their unions (even younger, highly educated teachers want a union) is that they don’t trust management to evaluate on merit rather than on loyalty, friendships, etc. This is the reason why objective standards such as seniority have been the alternative to bid on jobs and assignments.

Each school’s situation requires INDIVIDUAL “care.”
Education is being treated as if it were a BASKETBALL GAME. Win or lose. And if you are a LOSER you will be HELD ACCOUNTABLE by politicians who abhor being held accountable. PUNISHING THE “POOR” SCHOOLS BY REWARDING THE “GOOD” SCHOOLS MAKES NO SENSE. Public education is too complicated to be “fixed” by racing, by more testing
and by one size fits all.

Student success is evaluated only by test scores. These alone are not valid, as education specialists know. Is the administration addressing this?

[...] After 'No Child Left Behind' | WBUR and NPR – On Point with Tom … [...]

Abolish public education now. Abolish public education now. Abolish public education now.
Why? Because every “political solution” to the challenges of education (and employment training) is hostage to innumerable political machinations.
Witness the Obama Administration in action: because of the hoopla attached to its status as a “failed school”, J. V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon, SC, is to be rebuilt using over $24 million in Federal “economic stimulus” funds as administered by the USDA (for “rural development”). In the 2009 South Carolina PASS test (testing writing, lanugage arts, math, science, and social studies achievement for grades 3 through 8), JVM students failed to meet the SC student average in 28 out of 30 categories; no more than half of 8th graders could meet the state standard in writing. A failed school with failing students enrolled in a failing educational program is being rewarded–with a new building (which no one has demonstrated will in itself boost student achievement)! What could $24 million have bought in terms of teacher recruitment, teacher training, curriculum enhancement? Instead, our local schools are (mis-)”managed” by a County Board which boasts not ONE single solitary elected board member; we have no local accountability, and the Feds provide us with no local accountability.
Again: abolish public education. Abolish public education. Abolish public education. Whatever results cannot accomplish less.

As a music teacher of 40 years, I felt, as I’m sure did the world language teacher, physical education teacher, social studies teacher and all others who were ignored by NCLB, “Left Out”.

I applaud the notion of actually measuring all the things students do in school to truly find out how the school is doing.

The LOVE of LEARNING cannot be mandated.

If you go to any 3rd grade classroom, you’ll see that kids really love to learn….but somehow that love is quashed by the time they get to high school.

The kids that do keep that innate love of learning in their hearts, are often oddly ridiculed by other kids and sometimes enen teachers as “nerds”, etc.

The love of learning cannot be mandated…it cannot be taught…it need simply be observed when a child is small and then allowed to flourish like the flower that it truly can be. If a child is sallowed to keep his TRUE love of learning, then ALL things are possible.

As a long-time educator, I wish the discussion on improving the education of students would address critical factors that are beyond school control that dramatically impact school performance, such as irregular attendance, leaving school for non-emergency medical appointments, student transiency, lessening parent concern and involvement, priority given by families to extracurricular activities over school performance, and economic disadvantage. The reality now is that most homes have two working parents and less emphasis and support is being provided by families to the schools. Schools are increasingly being asked to assume roles that were once those of the family.

I am a parent of a 4th grader in MA. Next week is the long composition part of our MCAS test. They have spent the whole year writing 5 paragraph essays. Even 3 days over the last 3 months where they did nothing else the whole day, but prepare for this test by writing one essay. His veteran teacher is doing her best to teach these 9 year olds in a creative fun day, but all the teachers in our school have a noticable change in their enthusiasm for their job. I’m all for accountability in any field, and I think it should be easier to fire bad teachers, but there must be a better way. Teaching to the test is rampant in this country. Teachers restnt it, parents resent it and children are miserable.

I grew up in the 50’s, and went to Catholic grammar school. Maybe the religion didn’t stick, but the education was top-notch. I can tell you that the expectations were high, and parents gave a damn. There was not much emphasis on “diversity” or “empowerment,” just learning.

Perhaps instead of firing teachers, we should be firing parents.

So if one blames the parents for making the school’s mission impossible, what can be done about that?
There exists parent education, with not a whole lot of debate and attention given to that. And anger management and so on. There is the approach of medicate everybody into a slower burn.
As a society, are we warehousing kids for certain hours so both parents can work? Are the not-at-school hours spent engaging in growing type activities, in tandem with parents who can teach collaboration etc?
Or are kids going home only to be warehoused in front of a flat-screen TV?

i wanted to call in a tell a lil story about how i was left behind. i grew up in south burlington vermont. were i spent the majority of my elementary career locked in a room by myself. it also actually had a one side mirror and the other side they would watch me. i would act out in class and be sent to this room. i acted out when i found that i couldnt learn and keep up with the other kids. i had a eye condition. called strabismus. which is always found in lil kids. in my case. i was just told i had a.d.d. and a.d.h.d. i was sent to do all these tests to see what my learning condition was. i couldnt read because my eye muscles where not lined up and i was basically seeing double and my brain was trying its best to use one eye at a time. being a lil kid i had no idea that i was not seeing correctly. they did not see that i had this strabismus. in my case i didnt find it till i was 28 years old. i had a eye surgery and my eyes now work about 85-90% of the time i will most likely need another eye surgery. so basically i lived 28 years of my life wondering what was wrong with me and why i was different from the others.

By high school children lose the love of learning? I have heard for years that by that time children are wired with melatonin for sleep kicking in later and lasting into the morning, and yet high schools start around 7:30, and somehow communities can’t shift so these individuals are alert for class an hour or so later.

I understand the rationale for accountability, for students and teachers. But what supports the premise that threats of student retention or teacher firings and merit pay result in improved achievement for both? My question is how students and teachers get better, especially what do we know about how students learn and how teachers grow as practitioners. Who is emphasizing this? If, for example, Duncan applaudes teacher firings, can a teacher believe he is interested in promoting teacher growth. What is he and Obama offering for teachers that ackowledge their professional identity and their desire for their students to succeed and they get better. How does he view the professional identity and knowledge of teachers? What has he done or said to indicate he sees teachers as being members of a craft or profession you can’t just threaten into improvement.

It would help if the nation had a clearer sense of what is needed. Every child needs to learn to learn, needs to shape the brain to read and use math, but there needs to be a real pull, of if I do this, I can help with the next Sputnik, or whatever goals we line up for ourselves.

Thank you, Paula Muller! Exactly what I’ve been trying to say all along to people who think flinging money blindly into the education system will somehow transform the students into better performers. Of course, money does help keep textbooks current, buildings intact, and teachers fairly (hopefully) compensated. But if the child just plain does not care to be learn, I honestly think the teachers or schools should not be held so heavily accountable as appears to be the trend.

No, I am not a teacher nor connected to the education system in any way.

I am wondering if the “threat of firing” couldn’t be shifted to a focus on enabling teachers to find their footing better. I can imagine that someone might be really really good at special education, dealing with various disabilities, and yet that teacher might have approached teaching thinking his/her skills would be best deployed as a first grade teacher, or as a school counselor in middle school. I can imagine a teacher who thought he/she had to be a classroom teacher, manage one group of children for an entire year, and yet burned out quick. Some teacher guides ought to be able to sort out that that teacher would be far more effective teaching music, where the whole school comes through across a week. Or maybe someone trains in science but finds that field moves too fast, leaves him/her feeling like a vestige of the past, not dynamically part of it, whereas teaching reading and rhetoric, logic — that field holds still in a way that feels right.
A certain commitment leads someone into teaching, but it sounds like teachers succeed or fail, sometimes fail in place for decades, where their needs and abilities need to be fostered and considered at least as much as those of the children they teach.

Dear Tom,

I do think that the educational system here is sick and is kept on a low standard on purpose. What I mean by that is that it is not really in the interest of many political and high level powered individuals to have a smart population. It is much easier to lead and manipulate people who are not well educated.
I come from a different country where Math and Reading is not even under question – it is a must! Our children learn science and gym, art, music and a very wide range of subjects in order to have strong basic culture and knowledge. The investment in Education will bring America forward, but it is a scary endeavor since future generation with increased knowledge will challenge the political and economical authority of this country.
However, I do think it is mandatory that education be improved and not just tided up to zip codes. I recently moved to a new town in Massachusetts with very good educational public school system and am barely making up my rent payments because the community of course is higher end. But I rather scarify everything else than have my son in one of the “down-town” schools or Boston schools for that matter.

I will appreciate your comment on this point.

Rumi

whoops, “learn” was supposed to be “taught.” thx

America’s public education will never improve unless/until the root of the problem is addressed. Americans have been incrementally “dumbed-down” for generations, by being saturated with the constant distraction of mass media glitz, pop culture, T.V., etc. Before students can be taught, they must first learn the value of having enough discipline to focus their minds and pay attention.

The American public education system has become the blind leading the blind. We now have several generations of dumbed-down teachers, who have passed through this same mediocre public education system, attempting to teach an even dumber generation of students.

Is it any wonder that education in America continues to decline, no matter how much money is thrown at it? You can’t buy what America’s students and teachers need to improve education. Americans lack the basic VALUES to learn anything much beyond how to read the T.V. Guide and spell in text-message shorthand.

Silk purse and a sow’s ear.

Oh, and to demonstrate just how “dumbed-down” America has become, here’s an example of an actual 8th final exam administered in a Salina, Kansas school in 1895:

http://withoutextremism.blogspot.com/

I’d dare to say that the intellectual prowess of the average 8th grader in 1895 would surpass most bachelor degree candidates in 2010.

And your idea of how to improve things, Todd?

“And your idea of how to improve things, Todd?”
Posted by Ellen Dibble

At this stage in America’s commercialized culture, I’m not sure a true and lasting improvement is even possible, Ellen Dibble. Constant distraction has permeated every facet of the American lifestyle—and it spills over into the classroom. But, this much I can say: the idea that does improve the situation will be the one that brings people to the realization that America’s corporate-media-induced-plastic-pop-culture society isn’t merely a distracting waste of time, it is a parasite that sucks the very raison d’être out of our lives.

Perhaps then, people would begin to live and shape their OWN lives, instead of settling for the vicarious existence that’s created for them on their 52″ HD-TV. For anyone that thinks the premise of this argument is mere hyperbole, I can recommend a book which provides an excellent exposé on the topic: Remotely Controlled, by Dr. Aric Sigman.

So, I guess my idea to improve education would start with educating people about how, by increments, they’ve allowed themselves to become brainwashed and controlled by all the “noise” of the world—and how they’ve forgotten the goldeness of silence, so essential to any real learning.

There’s no legislative bill or executive order that will ever be passed/signed to accomplish a substantial improvement to our system of education. Improvement must come from WITHIN people themselves before improvement will ever be apparent from without.

Thanks, Todd. I have made a note of the book by Sigman. I wholeheartedly agree with your impression. I think that people may be changing within themselves right about now, with a lot of disenchantment with what we’ve been fed, both literally in food and figuratively in world view.
I was afraid you were going to say that people should spend ALL their disposable income in sending children to Catholic schools or other private educational institutions, there being no other alternative, and that though this will further polarize the nation — not Red/Blue but haves/have-nots — no other option exists.
In terms of brainwashing, I am curious because when I was in public schools, in the 1950s, we were all indoctrinated with the belief that Communism was practically defined by its practice of brainwashing its citizens. One brainwashed was supposedly a zombie, a non-person. One didn’t fraternize with such people; they didn’t have minds and hearts integrated in some rudimentary way or whatever.
Along the way, it became clear that the ones being indoctrinated/brainwashed were the Americans, and that to some extent the dictatorship of the USSR liberated people by creating free space; there was the government-fed pablum, and one knew it to be such. In private, one learned to address things independently.
That’s a vast overgeneralization, but anyway. I didn’t view my teachers as more than the puppets for what they were supposed to convey.
However, classes had the kind of quiet that you think is needed. We were all so bored. But if you let a class ferment — we were about 50 per class — Pandora’s box would be open. So I think they have opened the box, and there may be less boredom, but instead of learning there is distraction, disruption.
Anyone who stepped out of line was sent to the male teacher down the hall to be spanked, I believe. Maybe just the idea sufficed. (That teacher’s class must have been interesting to be in, with all the visiting problem children coming for discipline.)

Wow, Ms. Allen is rude. Interrupting, yelling. She simply didn’t address or acknowledge any failures of NCLB. Nice to have an open mind.

Is our children learning?

It is lunacy to expect these underperforming schools to turn themselves around under Federal mandate when most of them are surviving on half of the funding that the “better” schools in higher socio-economic areas get. You can’t run school systems like you do the Army which is to provide one mold for all students and schools to fit into, it is unrealistic.

@ Ellen Dibble:

A few thoughts on your above comment:

“…a lot of disenchantment with what we’ve been fed, both literally in food and figuratively in world view.”

Whoa, you’ve stated a mouthful there! I couldn’t agree more with the need of proper food for both the body and mind. Poison for the mind is poison for the body, and vice-versa.

“…sending children to Catholic schools or other private educational institutions…”

I would certainly NOT exclude the public system adopting more closely the approach used (or at least the approach that used to be used!) by Catholic/private institutions. Again, education isn’t always—or even usually—a matter of economics. The key is to capture the attention of students, whether rich or poor, long enough to impress upon them that there are things worth learning that take effort. Most of the brightest thinking minds in history were born of ignoble lineage. There are resources available for the willing mind to learn even in the most “underfunded” schools. Don’t forget, the mind is a resource in itself. We’ve been duped into believing that essentials tools of learning aren’t possible unless every child has a internet-connected computer with the latest software sitting in front of him/her in the classroom. Students who are the product of such “modern” classrooms are, more often than not, the ones who can’t count back correct change at a cash register. The foundational basics of a good education do NOT require such tools.

“this will further polarize the nation — not Red/Blue but haves/have-nots”

Sadly, I think that the polarization of our nation is by design, not chance. It is a divide and conquer strategy that has led BOTH “sides” of these kinds of issues down a primrose path with a wall in the middle. Just like education, people need to get back to basics when it comes to self-governance. Demanding and asserting the people’s right to govern themselves on a more local level would be a good start. Much more I could say here, but I would never shut up if I said all I thought!

“…in the 1950s, we were all indoctrinated with the belief that Communism was practically defined by its practice of brainwashing its citizens….it became clear that the ones being indoctrinated/brainwashed were the Americans…”

I followed close behind you in the ’60s. You’re indeed right! Both sides of the Cold War were brainwashed. “Duck & cover” wasn’t going to protect Russian children anymore than it would their American counterparts. The Cold War served its purpose for the power-mongers: it provided a post-WWII “enemy”; a contrived threat against which America could use as an excuse to continue to build up its military might, and promote a jingoistic post-war environment that would advance the society of commercialism that we’ve come to know as “The American Dream.” But, the Cold War game was up and the Iron Curtain had to fall (by design, of course) when the time for globalizing all nations of the world finally came. For America, the Cold War had to be replaced with the War on Drugs in the ’80s/’90s. And, finally, we now have the War on Terror for the 21st Century; which is the most perfect of all such contrived wars, because it is one that can be perpetuated without end. Distraction ad infinitum…

“…classes had the kind of quiet that you think is needed. We were all so bored.”

It’s said that Einstein had some of his most profound thoughts sitting quietly in a chair with nothing more than pencil and pad; seemingly bored to death from the perspective of the casual observer. It’s OK for children to learn to deal with boredom—and not to always expect someone or something else to entertain their attention. Some of the lessons that best stretch the mind are often boring in nature. Where, along the way, do kids get the idea that the sole purpose of life is merely to have as much fun as one can all the time; and that the more sensory over-stimulated you can get, the more fun one has attained?

“Anyone who stepped out of line was sent to the male teacher down the hall to be spanked.”

Ah, I remember it all too well! Some of my best lessons took place at the business end of a teacher’s paddle—and I am grateful for it! “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is a most underrated Proverb.

I enjoyed your comment, as well as an opportunity to respond. Thank you Ellen Dibble. Again, I HIGHLY recommend that book I mentioned to you previously. Please give it a try—it’s an enjoyable book to read as well! Let me know your thoughts on it if you get a chance.

Be well!

When are we going to look at general intelligence as a variable in the educational debate?…we sound like Lake Wobegon when we assume that all children will be above average.

http://withoutextremism.blogspot.com/

Awesome post! I wish someone in government would take note, but I doubt they could pass.

I’m home schooling my kids. I’m going to give them this test one day.

“I wish someone in government would take note, but I doubt they could pass.”

I just caught my horrible English, which I’ll blame on my lack of a good 8th-grade education and the fluoride in the water:

I wish someone in government would take note, but I doubt HE could pass.

[...] [...]

Ever teacher i knew hated No child left behind, in collage and when i was going though my military training i would go in and out working the before and after care and saw the fallacy in the program, many schools with migrate kids suffer from not understanding english,as well as poor schools who were under funded, in which case would ended up doing worst and further becoming underfunded, as one of the schools i worked at who had money sent the children having problems to special rooms to study what would be on the test, or having after school programs to study what will be on the test. Science was cut down, as well as recess, all the kids would just be crammed with information to pass the MCAS, than forgetting it after,Parents hold no responsibility on there kids education and 100% is pushed on the teachers, yet very little leverage to do so.

The Push to make schools like a corporation like Jeanne Allen, seems to want will further dumb down are children, is being used to Union bust teachers, and place in unskilled people to teach our children, in the end trying to force all public schools to fail or convert to for profit, I bet if she had her way in the near future we can invest in schools and make bets on wall street.

Ever “Every”

I was very interested in the subject and wanted to listen to the entire podcast, because I’m an educator. But the extremely rude guest on the phone (Ms Allen?) made that impossible. Please, never have her on the podcast again.

I’m a seventh grader who almost got held back. but the no child left behind program kept me from getting held back.