Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education

The great mystery of education policy today is why the Obama administration is embracing the Bush program. I recently wrote in Education Week (June 10) that it is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. The overwhelming majority of teachers agree with me. Those who educate our kids know that NCLB is a failed program that is not improving our schools but rather turning them into test-prep factories and dumbing down our kids. Bush's main advisor Sandy Kress reacted with outrage on the website of Education Week, and Tom Vander Ark on Huffington Post called me an "edu-curmudgeon" for speaking plain truth.

Let me say it again: It is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. This is a program in which the federal government requires every state to test every student from grade 3-8 in reading and math every year. If states do not make "adequate yearly progress" towards 100% proficiency by 2014, then the schools face a series of increasingly onerous sanctions, ending with their being closed down. Vander Ark thinks that this punitive approach to school improvement is swell. I don't.

If judged solely by test scores, the only coin that the NCLB crowd understands, the law has been a dud. Kids today are making less progress on national and international tests than they did during the Clinton administration years.

While our kids focus endlessly on preparing to take their state tests in reading and math, they are not learning science, history, geography, foreign language, the arts, or anything else but how to find the right bubble on a standardized test.

A California study in Science magazine predicted that by 2014, nearly 100% of all elementary schools would be deemed failures because of NCLB. This would unleash a flood of sanctions: closed schools, fired staffs, public schools handed over to private management (a remedy that has recently been proved ineffective in Philadelphia, among other places), and public schools handed over to state control (another ineffective remedy).

Now Secretary Arne Duncan promises to close 5,000 low-performing schools. The thought of closing 5,000 schools thrills today's so-called "reformers," although none of them has any idea how to make them better. Where will Duncan find 5,000 new principals? Is there an army of great teachers waiting to staff those 5,000 schools?

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965--which is the original law onto which No Child Left Behind was grafted--had none of these punitive features. It was premised on the belief that the federal government could help schools by sending more money. In fact, the federal government never sent much money, never more than 10% of overall spending, and often much less than that. No one today could visit a typical inner-city school and complain that its biggest problem was that it got too much federal money.

But with this leverage, the new mandarins of education want to control all of American education. For some reason, first the Bush people and now the Obama people believe they know exactly how to fix American education. (Chicago, their model, is one of the lowest-performing cities in the nation on national tests, and Texas was never a national model for academic excellence.) Their answer starts with testing and ends with data and more testing. If children were widgets, they might be right; but children are not widgets, they are individuals. If reading and math were all that mattered in school, they might be right, but basic skills are not the be-all and end-all of being educated.

A recent study by Common Core (Why We're Behind: What Top-Performing Nations Teach Their Students But We Don't) shows that the top-ranking nations do not spend endless hours preparing for tests of basic skills. Instead, in nations such as Finland and Japan, there is a balanced curriculum of science, history, geography, the arts, foreign languages, civics, and other studies. Meanwhile our children are learning to guess the right answer on a multiple-choice test!

The amazing thing about American education today is that the Obama people--who promised revolutionary change--have no ideas other than to tighten the grip of President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind program on the teachers and children of the United States.

Comments

[BumpyKnight]

The ultimate targets of NCLB's sanctions are American children.
Many policy components of NCLB are recommended in 'The Bell Curve', a bunch of Social Darwinist nonsense.

[LABC]

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Obama_Child_Left_Behind/

This is what I look at, as a parent - it is a far more balanced assessment and obviously sees this issue as more serious than a "get rid of this right now!" three year old screeching that is becoming the only response I see lately on this site.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you for pointing these dismal facts out about Obama's retrograde education policies coming from Arne Duncan -- it's terrible and contradictory: Duncan says he wants to reward "innovation" in the classroom by "creative" and "excellent" teachers -- but to get there he wants to ram standardized tests down our throats which chokes off any "innovation" by "excellent" teachers and instead we all race to the bottom teaching to some standardized test that the FOR PROFIT private testing companies come up with and all the other lucrative materials for guide books and "how to" books they produce that students must buy -- so, Bush Wins Again!

[fdrrules]

As a former teacher I read our teaching journals and the one big complaint I see is we are teaching our children to be robots,memorize facts and don't do any thinking.Schools go over and over the facts that will be on the test so they don't loss funding and education and learning has become secondary..Is it any wonder we are no longer producing top scientist like the rest of the world.

[pachecol]

I've been teaching for the past 17 years. I've also seen so many changes; however, teaching the test has become the norm. Teachers are basically treated like robots with scripted lesson plans. No time for connecting with our students. No time to feel as if we are making a difference. Very sad situation.

[jmpurser]

Perfect corporate drones. We can plug them in interchangeably into any cubical and they'll have the math to do the job, the English to report it, and no grasp of history, logic, or a larger sense of society.

[KillTheMessenger]

Corporations do not like to hire people who failed science in school. That's why they keep hiring H-1Bs from all over the world, to make up for the missing engineers and scientists they need to make new products...

[jmpurser]

I've got a sister who's both a college professor and the parent of a teenage child. Her stories from both ends of the educational spectrum have made me thing that "No child left behind" needs to be either rethought or tossed out entirely.

[Ubikwity]

I have two children in elementary school. They've had great teachers and they've had rotten ones. There is NO other way to get rid of the rotten ones besides evaluating how good they are as teachers, and what better way tban to see if their students are making progress in reading and math?

The author states the teachers are against this law. OF COURSE they are!!! Why would they want a light focused on their teaching skills? BTW my kids best teachers are not worried or concerned about the tests, neither are their students. The rotten teachers have a different response. My kids are tested weekly in spelling, history, math, etc., the standards of learning tests are just one more.

Obviously, throwing money at the problem, which is what the teachers want, has not worked (see the D.C. schools). I support NCLB, and will be very angry if Obama or the Congress eliminates it.

[Wendy Johnson]

"There is NO other way to get rid of the rotten ones besides evaluating how good they are as teachers, and what better way tban to see if their students are making progress in reading and math?"

I have a cool idea: Why not assess their teaching of a well-rounded curriculum, instead of focusing so narrowly?

[Mikeatle]

I don't think you are getting the real picture. NCLB doesn't highlight anything except your children's ability to fill in a little circle or square with a #2 pencil. It doesn't highlight their teachers' ability to teach. In the most extreme situation, it might highlight their teachers' ability to teach children how to take a multiple choice exam. That's about it.

I teach at the university level. Believe me when I say that professors do not give one whit whether your children can fill in a test sheet. That "skill" has no bearing on whether they can "perform" at the college level.

[booksnmoreforyou]

All things being equal, a high stakes test of students does help assess their skills.

The problem is, all things are not equal.

For proof, place a crappy instructor in a nice white suburban middle-class school and a fabulous one in an inner-city school where 95% of the kids are on free lunch, and watch what happens.

[Vinkaye]

Ubikwity, NCLB is forcing our best teachers out of teaching!! I have seen this in my own childrens' school. The greatest teachers do not want to simply become test prompters, and they are fed up with the ridiculous nature of being forced to teach test taking strategies, rather than subjects.
NCLB is a joke. It is hurting our children. Anyone who thinks that NCLB has been a success, needs to spend some time looking over data with their school's principal. I have seen a school forced to cut programs for 1200 students because 7 children failed to go up a point or two, on a state standardized test. 7 children out of 1200!!! I'm not saying we write those kids off, but common sense may tell us, that perhaps we could look at their progress, in a different manner.
Education is another area where President Obama has yet to deliver the change we voted for!

[KillTheMessenger]

Just because you get rid of rotten teachers does not mean you can find great ones to hire. Good teachers do not grow on trees and they are also not to be found abundantly among the unemployed.

[booksnmoreforyou]

Nor among those straddled with student loans.

[fouroclock]

I will admit that NCLB has provided some degree of business-like accountability in our schools. However, a company that is wanting to build the highest quality product will use the highest quality raw materials and discard any flaws. Of course, public schools cannot do this. They do not turn away anyone. So how do we get higher quality students with fewer "flaws"? The "last mile" of attaining 100% by 2014 is straight uphill. The children in this group are merely survivors of desperate home situations. This group starts the race standing barefoot in the dust while the privileged children have lost sight of them in their rear view mirrors as they speed away. The school bus comes along, shakes off the dust, takes these kids to school and proceeds to teach them the best they can. Amazingly, many do catch up in spite of the odds. But, odds being what they are, many end up as cast offs because they didn't fit the mold. Ownership of this problem is too easily left at the doorstep of public schools and if they don't perform then we'll shut them down. Great. Now where do the kids go? Its unfair to expect public schools to cure results of material, spiritual, and moral poverty. At some point we must set aside our way too comfortable "it's not my problem" type of thinking. Our accomplishments today are built upon the past. It takes all Americans, in every way, to ensure the future.

[1088]

Right now we are doing Health Care! Education reform will be next!!

[jmpurser]

If it turns into as big a disaster as Health Care has become then this is nothing to look forward to.

[LABC]

Oh, wow...I must have fell asleep and miss the passing and signing into law of the failed health care act....

You must be very exciting to go out with - "well, I know that we just got into the car, but it is going to turn out to be a disasterous date later...just because...."

[booksnmoreforyou]

If you really want to both understand NCLB as well as why it has always been doomed from the outset and always will be, read _Seeing Like a State_ by James C. Scott and apply his case studies and overarching theory.

[Lisbeth35]

I recommend "Tested: One American School struggles to make the grade" by Linda Perlstein to see the very real impact NCLB has on schools that are "celebrated" through standardized and the impact it has on the children and "education" they are experiencing daily inside classrooms.

[oncesung]

Amen to this article.
Parents have no choice but to supplement public "education" with REAL education ever since this NCLB nonsense started. Pre-schoolers are taught how to fill in test sheet bubbles with #2 pencils ! I feel so sorry for my kids who come home drained and unhappy after weeks and weeks of learning trivia in preparation for standardized tests. Youth has become a factory job.

[We-Are-The-Ones]

Here are more academics demanding that the President change the full course of a huge problem after only being in office 5 months. Never mind studying the problem. ignore talking to people. Ignore success rates. Ignore pockets of failure. Ignore trends. Just start dismantling thing.

People are impatient. The McEducation generation. Education reform as fast as you can order a Big Mac.

Pleeze

[Mikeatle]

You aren't a teacher obviously.

Obama has had plenty of time to at least consider the program and prepare some sort of preliminary response to NCLB.

[TopProf]

It's not a question of short time. He appointed the wrong people in no time at all. Arne Duncan is a big supporter of NCLB and high-stakes accountability. It is unlikely that the President will undercut his Harvard, basketball buddy to do the right thing on education policy.
And I'm not in the McAnything generation.
Ravitch speaks the truth.

[Vinkaye]

The President had one big opportunity to set a new course in education, immediately upon taking office, and that would be his selection for Education Secretary. Unfortunately, he failed to choose a true reformer.

[WritusMaximus]

Oops! Unintended self-defeating statement coming America's way:

"If judged solely by test scores, the only coin that the NCLB crowd understands, the law has been a dud. Kids today are making less progress on national and international tests than they did during the Clinton administration years."

So on both national AND international tests, our kids are doing worse! Our system of public education has indeed gotten worse!

[pm247]

Oh, the public schools were doing such a magnificent job before NCLB came along and ruined everything! It is outrageous that teachers are now expected to actually teach something. How could any human being cope with such unreasonable demands?

NCLB is the only good thing to come out of the Bush administration, and teachers are the LAST people Obama should look to for advice on education policy.

[oncesung]

Are you kidding?? Ask any teacher - not just the effective ones - what he or she thinks about NCLB. Every one of them will tell you it wastes time and limited resources, AND IT DOESN'T WORK

[1differentdrummer]

Clearly you have never taught. What education did the Bush Sec. Ed., charged with implementing NCLB, have? She was a Political Science major with a BA. That tells you a lot about NCLB.
This test prep stuff does not educate, it drills. You seem to assume teachers didn't teach before, kids didn't take standardized tests before and kids didn't learn before. All false assumptions. I live in a school district where a new teacher is paid substantially less than a new sheriff deputy. The teacher must have a four year degree and some other requirements, the deputy has no educational requirement. How do you think that influences the quality of the teaching outcomes? Rich districts compete for the top 1/3 of each year's grads and the rest take what they can get. The US does not seem to want superior education while other countries demand it.

[booksnmoreforyou]

Following your analogy, doctors are the last group one should look to for advise on health care.

[Wendy Johnson]

Have you looked at what it is that teachers are expected actually to teach, since NCLB came along? I spent my first year of teaching last year, at a school that was 6 years behind in meeting its NCLB goals. We were mandated to teach "test-taking skills", hour after hour of instruction such as "get a good breakfast before you come to school on test-days", and "go with your first instinct, don't over-think the question", but my kids (most of them) were getting NO INSTRUCTION AT ALL in History or Science. I am serious! My 8th graders opened the state test, took a look at the attached periodic table and asked me, "what's this?"

NCLB is just one more bad policy to come out of a bad administration. It should be scrapped, and before any more "education reforms" are put into place, a few actual educators should be consulted about them for a change.

[jhamm1]

More accurately, what a relief that lazy parents, administrators, and procrastinating students can finally avail themselves of any responsibility whatsoever by scapegoating teachers for their own lack of repsonsibility.

And what a surprise the likes of you will incur the minute even the most rigid standards in teaching performance still won't produce the miraculous results you hoped for, thus actually prompting teachers and students to take a long, hard look in the mirror and realize that even the best teachers in the world won't produce sensational result unless parents and students get their heads out of their collective a#,% long enough to provide some contribution themselves.

[Highwind]

It's only been 4 months. What do you expect to happen with only that amount of time? This title is sensationalist.

[earthborg]

Um... the point of the article that it has been verbalized by the Obama administration that they will continue Bushes policies. He vowed change during the election and now has vowed not to change by continuing the same policy and already has by actually using the law to close schools. And it has been 6 months, unless it's still 4/20 somewhere else on this earth. Of course nothing would happen when it has been stated to the contrary. Yeah what's sensationalist is your appeal to BS rhetoric instead of analyzing an article written at the 8th grade level. Probably 5th grade by European standards. Ron Paul 2012!

[We-Are-The-Ones]

It has been 5 months. Starting January 20th.

But even still there hasn't been enough time to overhaul the entire education system.

[masher]

OMG, how many times do we have to go over this. Obama isn't Bush. Obama is much smarter and gives great speeches. Obama is also much more empathetic.

Bush could have never gotten away with a bank bailout AND a GM AND a Chrysler bailout. No, Obama is much better than Bush at sticking it to the rich. And by stick it I mean sticking billions at them.

Education is a huge expense and if done right would probably cost twice as much as what we have now. Fixing the education system would mean less corporate welfare. So Obama will have to tinker around the edges and give some great speeches to get us to ignore that he isn't really changing anything.

[earthborg]

Thank you. Thank you very much. You took the words right out of my mouth.

[oncesung]

This is scary thinking.