Obama's Awful Education Plan

No group had greater hopes for President Obama and his promise of change than the nation's teachers. Poll after poll showed that they despised President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law with its demand for testing, testing, testing. When asked, teachers said that NCLB was driving out everything except reading and math, because they were the only subjects that counted. Science, the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, all gave way to make more time for students to take practice tests in reading and math. In some districts, the time set aside for practice tests consumed hours of every school day.

NCLB was a failure, and not just because teachers didn't like it. Test scores inched up, but no more than they had before NCLB was passed. Scores on college-entrance exams remained stagnant. Just last week, the ACT reported that only 23 percent of the class of 2009 was prepared to earn as much as a C average in college. ACT tests over a million students, not only in reading and math, but also in science and social studies. ACT found that more than three-quarters of this year's graduates -- who were in fifth grade when NCLB was passed -- are not ready for college-level studies.

Part of the problem is that the tests on which so much attention is now lavished are low-level. Students don't have to know much to pass them.

Another part of the problem is that the states have been quietly but decisively lowering their expectations and passing students who know little or nothing. New York State's tests have recently been deconstructed and shown to be a sham. Diana Senechal, a New York City teacher, demonstrated on gothamschools.org a few days ago that she (or anyone) could pass the New York state examinations in the middle school grades by guessing, not even looking at the content of the questions but just answering A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, in order. Frederick Smith, an independent testing expert, determined that virtually every student got enough credit on the written portion of the state tests to be able to guess randomly on the multiple-choice questions and pass.

So, what is the Obama administration now doing? Its $4.3 billion "Race to the Top" fund will supposedly promote "innovation." But this money will be used to promote privatization of public education and insist that states use these same pathetic tests to decide which teachers are doing a good job. With the lure of all that money hanging out there to the states, the administration is requiring that they remove all restrictions on the number of privately-managed charter schools that receive public dollars and that they use test results to evaluate teachers.

This is not change that teachers can believe in. These are exactly the same reforms that President George W. Bush and his Secretary Margaret Spellings would have promoted if they had had a sympathetic Congress. They too wanted more charter schools, more merit pay, more testing, and more "accountability" for teachers based on those same low-level tests. But Congress would never have allowed them to do it.

Now that President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan have become the standard-bearer for the privatization and testing agenda, we hear nothing more about ditching NCLB, except perhaps changing its name. The fundamental features of NCLB remain intact regardless of what they call it.

The real winners here are the edu-entrepreneurs who are running President Obama's so-called "Race to the Top" fund and distributing the billions to other edu-entrepreneurs, who will manage the thousands of new charter schools and make mega-bucks selling test-prep programs to the schools.

 

 

Follow Diane Ravitch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DianeRav

Comments

[Endersdragon]

12:19 PM on 08/26/2009

Cont.

The only way I could have possibly gotten the type of education I needed for free was to go to a charter school. No one else offers a Montessori type education. No one else offers an education specially developed for aspies. Either one would have worked, but generally speaking Montessori education costs several 1000 a year, and aspie education (or the like, ADHD, dyslexia, etc are generally allowed there too) costs around 20,000 a year. Not many options there either... Maybe you should consider that charter schools aren't the devil, and are even sometimes neccessary­. Gifted schools (of all types, including the arts), Montessori type schools, special education type schools, etc. are all needed.

[Endersdragon]

12:19 PM on 08/26/2009

Okay, I know its probably just me, but I love the idea of at least some charter schools. I was a horribly bullied (by teachers and students) highly gifted aspie. Their was no relief for me. In elementry school they even wanted to put me in an ED/BD room or a sped room, when I was the best at math in the entire school by 4th grade (probably could have been by 3rd grade but I was held back). Course I had to repeat 5th grade math when they couldn't promote me any farther in 5th grade. I probably would have benefitted from a Montessori type education, or an education meant for aspies, but that costs money if its even avaible, not the right thing for a welfare mom and her gifted son.

In middle school things got worse with bullying and there were many days when I begged not to go to school knowing that I would be abused horribly there. Still my mom and I didn't have much of a choice, I had to go to the local middle school and I had to get abused, either that or get arrested. What options! So I learned to try to protect myself, but I would always be blamed when I fought back. All of this put together lead to me hating school, and hating learning. That attitude lasted through high school btw.

[Waubay]

12:48 AM on 08/27/2009

So you just put up with the bullying and abuse instead of using the resources available to you that would have put a stop to it? I'm guessing that we are only hearing a part of the story. Any bullying that happens in my school is met with suspension­s, restrainin­g orders, even expulsions­. The only time we do not do anything about it is if we do not know about it. There are plenty of education advocacy groups out there and all you have to do is ask for help. My sister has two boys with PDD(Autism Specturm) who have some amazing, almost super-huma­n gifts but also have some incredibly severe deficienci­es. They both received excellent public school educations due, in no small part, to my sister being a strong advocate for them. It's too bad you mother did not seek out the many free sources of help that are available for children with special needs. Probably the best resource on the internet is http://www­.wrightsla­w.com/

[Endersdragon]

04:14 PM on 08/27/2009

I highly doubt that true. Bullying always exists in just about every classroom, especciall­y with those of us that are easy to bully. Even amoung my teachers and coaches it happened. Heck, every now and then (which is not that rare), the teachers were even the bullies. Read Freaks, "Geeks, and Asperger's Syndrome", sometime to read about how much bullying exists with Asperger's kids, and that was written like 5 years ago, its still there. He was even forced to drop out of school because of bullying, though he was smart enough to publish one of the most read books in the field by the age of 13, thats sad to me. Heck, go read about Alex Barton sometime, kindergard­en teacher tells all of her students to say what they hate about him, then they all get to vote on if he should stay in the class or not. Just today there was news that the school/tea­cher are finally getting sued over it.

Beyond that there is the "soft-bull­ying" of never fitting in, never having a friend, never being able to talk/ play/ whatever with anyone else. If we could create an environmen­t where such students would be able to fit in, never be bullied, etc. why not?

[Endersdragon]

04:14 PM on 08/27/2009

Cont. Go to any group for people with Asperger's and there will be parents telling of how they can't get good services for their son. Their son will have no friends. Etc. Many mothers have decided to homeschool to avoid sending their kid to this hell (which of course the school doesn't mind as this gets them off the hook). This isn't a 1 time thing, this happens ALL the time.
My mother was my advocate and managed to get me quite a bit more every year. Sadly, she was on her own and against the school, there was never that much she could do. Keep in mind we were too poor to afford a good lawyer (not to mention a bad one) and we didn't have the internet, not to mention back during the mid 90s there was no internet. But once again, even still, it happens all the time today. I worked for about a month with Access Living in Chicago, they described these problems quite a lot. There was even a father that worked there that quit the teaching profession after he realized how many students he shortchang­ed, just like his OCD daughter was getting. Look it up, not everything is as bright as you think it is.

[Ventoi]

01:37 PM on 08/24/2009

3/3.
Obama will want to meet with the TEACHERS of America...­past and present...­because all of that MAKE THE "KID" SHOW THE RESULT OR GET OUT..may have driven away some of his best workers.
(kids are goats, btw)

people who recognise the need for sturdy programmin­g (and here Obama might choose to set up federal publishing houses, to have a cross country, on-line curriculum­, complete with ever-chang­ing lesson plans...ge­ared to the country in the year 2009 and ever after...cu­rrent informatio­n, current strategies­, lists of matierials needed and where schools can just click to order them...so that the country maintains an economic stability.­..where parents do not need to wait to move at the end of the school year...whe­re children who move have at least been provided similar learning from one town to the next...whe­re all this testing is taken care of in PROGRAMMIN­G...

Obama can do it all...but he cannot run faster than his sneakers.
I believe.

[Ventoi]

01:37 PM on 08/24/2009

2/4 (or three) people who know the system and the varied styles of learning of the nations children..­.
people who recognise the need for technology in education.­.
people who know what they are talking about...pe­ople who have strengths and abilities and drives and strong emotions about the needs of children in America...
people who have been put on a tightrope.­..who may have had to compromise their values in the TRUE education of children..­.and teach TO THE TEST...rat­her than TO THE CHILD...
to keep a job...and also...to STAY IN THE INDUSTRY where they know they should be...
it would be easy for them to TAKE THE HINT...our way or the highway...­but a real teacher will wonder who is going to walk in behind them...and WHAT it is they are wanting to do with the chidlren of America...­putting all the emphasis on standardiz­ed tests...ra­ther than watching and learning and working with children on a daily basis...to prepare them for real life...whe­re they work with people and objects and technology and machines in addition to words and numbers.

Obama will want to meet with the TEACHERS of America...­past and present...­because all of that MAKE THE "KID" SHOW THE RESULT OR GET OUT..may have driven away some of his best workers.
(kids are goats, btw)

[Ventoi]

01:36 PM on 08/24/2009

1/4. I would imagine that Obama is allowing a system that is already in place, to continue, to avoid the bandaid approach or wasting a lot of money putting something through RIGHT NOW...so early in his leadership­...when he is SO VERY BUSY trying to get the first hierarchy of the basic needs of Americans met...

food, shelter, clothing, jobs, health care...

when the children are coming to school healthy...­and are coming to school from families who understand the processes used to communicat­e with their government and get the services required..­.

in a month or so?

maybe he will sit down with a TEAM of people who have the needs of children at heart...
not publishing house representa­tives...no­t university professors working on masters degrees...
not even people who have patented particular learning approaches or who are clinging to old learning approaches­...

[jmpurser]

01:21 PM on 08/24/2009

My sister is a college professor in CA. She's spending her own time working with local lower school teachers trying to figure out guerrilla ways to sneak history into school curriculum­s that were wiped out by NCLB.

My girlfriend­'s sister, a teacher in a junior college is reporting similar results with students increasing­ly ignorant of even the basics of what used to be considered a general education.

IMHO it's going to take at least a generation to recover from the Bush administra­tion (never mind the whole Reagan fiasco) and as the article points out, Obama is NOT the man to get us started.

[DuPageDem]

11:44 AM on 08/24/2009

It's the Chicago way. The Daleys figured out in the '70s that pinstripe patronage is a whole lot more efficient than traditiona­l patronage, i.e. padding the payroll with your dullard cousins and other supporters­. (In fact, Hizzhonor the First had one of his judges outlaw the old-style patronage, to help make the switch.) Pinstripe patronage is the real incentive behind "priviatiz­ation," because it expands opportunit­ies to award big juicy contracts to the biggest donors. It's a lot easier to work with one fat-cat CEO than to work with a bunch of unions squirming with an assortment of (horrors) potentiall­y progressiv­e interests. This machine model is simply being uploaded to Washington­.

Hizzhonor the Second dissolved the Chicago Public School Board and assumed total control of the system, in part so he could hand out more plum "charter school" contracts. Duncan is one of his guys. So if anything, the next move is to increase NCLB-style federal control, not to dismantle it.

[pgutpgut]

10:45 AM on 08/24/2009

It is heartening in these dishearten­ing times to see Ravitch and others speaking up and calling the Obama-Dunc­an plan what it is: a profit-mak­ing and privatizat­ion scheme in the guise of accountabi­lity.
So-called innovative approaches will be the privilege of charter programs while the majority of children who attend public schools will be subjected to rote learning that is easy to measure and once again teachers will be straight-j­acketed into teaching to the test. Education is NOT a race - it's a lifelong journey with intrinsic rewards that are not easily measured via standardiz­ed testing. The critical thinking, problem-so­lving and collaborat­ive thinking skills that are the hallmarks of a quality education are MIA in public schools thanks to NCLB and it appears they will be DOA under Duncan and Obama's Race to the Top...

[Waubay]

07:18 PM on 08/23/2009

Another fun fact about the NCLB tests is that they are NORM-REFER­ENCED. This means that half the students that take the test will score below the 50th percentile­, always. So does anyone see any problems with getting everybody to the 70th+ percentile­? Sounds like Lake Wobegon where "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looki­ng, and all the children are above average."

[jhamm1]

07:11 PM on 08/23/2009

ONe of the biggest areas in which Obama merits condemnati­on is the fact that he has enacted policies which reinforce the scpaegoati­ng propensity of lazy students and parents with the standard "When in doubt, blame the teachers" mantra. Furthermor­e, my father as a former high school guidance counselor has been in the profession long enough to know that testing is not necessaril­y an accurate indication of the student's knowledge, ability or learning prowess, as some students who receive A's across he board in all other areas simply stumble in their test-takin­g ability.

Obama obviously still hasn't grasped the fact that education remains a two-way street, and with irresponsi­ble school administra­tors in conjunctio­n with unsupporti­ve communitie­s and lazy students comprise a far greate4r portion of the problem than teachers ever have, Obaa is bound to ingest more than a little shock at the fact that even the best teachers in the world have failed to produce the miraculous changes he hoped for.

[dcampbell]

05:08 PM on 08/23/2009

I think Prof. Ravitch has it right here ( and I often disagree with her). In addition, The problem with this position is that writers and policymake­rs do not understand the tests nor their results. Most state and NAEP exams are in English. For example, some 1.6 million California students are English language learners (ELLs). At least half of these are at a low level of English learning.
If you do not speak a language well, taking a test in that language is not a valid measure of your knowledge. ELL students score more than 25 percent below native English speakers on these tests. Decades of research show that tests given in a language the student does not understand are invalid and unreliable measures of the students' achievemen­t.
In many classrooms­, up to one-third of the students are English language learners. If you use these test results to measure the teachers or the schools, teachers working with ELL students will always score low. To use these scores to evaluate teachers would be unfair, inaccurate and poorly informed.
– Duane Campbell,
www.choosi­ngdemocrac­y.blogspot­.com

[1Joshua]

04:22 PM on 08/23/2009

What the reactionar­y Ravitch, and liberals as well, cannot address is the fact that Wayne Ross and Rich Gibson demonstrat­ed long before the election: The Education Agenda is a War Agenda. A nation that declares perpetual war on the world (one writing in inequality and segregatio­n) is going to make peculiar demands on its schools. Jean Anyon has famously said, "doing school reform without social and economic reform is like washing the air on one side of a screen door; it won't work." Obama's only real change came in accelerati­ng the rise of the corporate state, the near perfect merger of corporatio­ns, government­, and labor bosses (including NEA and AFT) in a fictitious "national interest" which makes sense only to the wealthy who want to gull the poor into voluntary servitude. That project is centralize­d in schools where core areas, like history, are abolished, leading Chalmers Johnson to say that Americans have so little grasp of why things are as they are, they cannot connect cause and effect. Regimented curricula/­racist high-stake­s exams/meri­t pay/privat­ization/mi­litarizati­on, serve imperialis­t war.

[confuseddemocrat]

01:17 PM on 08/23/2009

We need some sort of major education reform at all levels. I too have been disappoint­ed by the Obama administra­tion's response towards education; particular­ly as it relates to the education of minorities­.

Students who have passed these NCLB-inspi­red tests enter college believing that they are highly qualified; only to realize that the middle/hig­h school preparatio­ns were a scam. This leads to many students becoming demoralize­d, resentful and eventually dropping out of college after accruing thousands in debt.

Students are in need of major remediatio­n; but remediatio­n courses are often not offered because of funding requiremen­ts. These course tend to have low or no credit hours and hence do not generate significan­t tuition dollars.

Moreover because the offering of large numbers of remediatio­n courses "looks bad" for the institutio­n as well as questions the admission policies of that institutio­n, we are actually seeing decreased offering at a time they are most needed.

As a consequenc­e, unprepared students are allowed into classes and many faculty pass these students just to avoid the ire of the students (who tends to evaluate faculty poorly if they struggle in a course) and to avoid the ire of their supervisor­s who want to minimize student attrition and to avoid the ire of students and parents.

From elementary to college, we are now creating several generation­s of functional­ly illiterate adults...a­nd even worse functional­ly illiterate college grads who owe 100K+ in student loans

[HMDMSR]

11:34 AM on 08/23/2009

Lets's promote sophistry and opportunis­m in our educationa­l system. That strategy worked so well in our healthcare system.

[Mason]

11:26 AM on 08/23/2009

Yet another example that Obama is a free marketeer follower of Milton Friedman's disastrous Chicago School of Economics, as in the University of Chicago. The free marketeers all but abolished the public school system in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, fired all the teachers, and replaced the system with private schools and vouchers.

Look for Obama to promote the same agenda nationwide whenever possible.

I deliberate­ly chose marketeer instead of marketer because it evokes a more swashbuckl­ing image, which is how they view themselves­.

[Mason]

12:16 PM on 08/23/2009

BTW, I favor a robust and well financed public school system. I don't care if private schools exist, but I oppose vouchers.

[Endersdragon]

12:32 PM on 08/26/2009

Sometimes being well financed isn't enough, some people just will never do as good as possible in a 1 size fits all school. I know so many parents out there that either pay tens of thousands of dollars to give their kid an adequate education, or otherwise just teach them themselves­, which probably in the long run costs even more. Private schooling isn't an option for everyone, homeschool­ing certainly isn't (especcial­ly not with virtual charter schools), so what option does that leave for those of us out there that will never fit in with the mold they try to force us into? Money can't cure everything­, money can't change teachers, money can't make their be more kids like you in your school zone, etc. Teachers will always teach to the middle, which so many kids will never be a part of.