The recent reports coming from the Department of Education that Arne Duncan has decided to grant "waivers" to states that feel overwhelmed by the requirements of No Child Left Behind for a 100% compliance for student achievement gives hope that the many reports and protests that have come to his attention have finally penetrated his awareness that standardized tests simply don't accomplish what they are supposed to: improved public education.
In a recent Huffington Post item (8/8/2011), Joy Resmovits reported:
On Monday, the Obama administration said it would use waivers to provide regulatory relief to states, confirming an earlier plan that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan first mentioned in June in light of what he called a "slow-motion train wreck" created by the law."Today it's forcing districts into one-size-fits-all solutions that simply don't work," Duncan said on Monday. Congress has failed to reauthorize NCLB since 2007.
But although the toxic "one-size-fits-all" rubric that educators over the last decade have objected to is finally being acknowledged by Duncan for what it is: a bad idea badly implemented, much dangerous territory lies ahead. As a fig-leaf to his acknowledgement that the standardized testing mania is a failure, the Secretary of Education has indicated that in order for a state to get a waiver, it has to agree to certain stipulations, some of which could be as restrictive and harmful as the ones that are being waived. It's hoped that common sense will prevail over more micro-managing of students, teachers and supervisors that has passed for "Education reform" in the previous ten years. Perhaps the recent meeting Duncan had with representatives from the
SOS March held in Washington D.C. on July 30th made him realize how damaging the program -- including the Obama initiative, "Race to the Top," which is NCLB on steroids -- has been to public schools. But there is no telling what kind of testing schemes the states themselves will come up with to substitute for Federal mandates.
Even if one of the most important demands of the SOS March were met, however, an end to standardized testing, it will take a great deal of patience and the exercise of common sense and decency in public school governance, particularly the way teachers are treated, to attract high-quality students comparable to those in Finland to choose a teaching career. The recent test cheating scandals, which might have also been a factor in persuading Duncan to change his policy, show evidence of what can happen when an almost impossible task is given to teachers who know that with all their most conscientious efforts to improve their students' learning, they have little control over its results. One can only hope that school boards around the country will take the hint and finally listen to educators who have thoroughly researched fair and effective ways to evaluate educational achievement. But like Dr. Frankenstein, the creation Arne Duncan has helped develop might be out of his own control. He may have "seen the light" but the restrictions on good teaching imposed by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top in the hands of officials who still are wedded to the idea of standardized testing might be with us for decades to come.
The nuns always warned us about telling tales out of school, tattling, gossiping but since I’ve long been out of school I feel I can do it although the following aren’t really tattle tales or gossip. They’re scary but true tales.
Arne Duncan, who never taught a class or wrote a lesson plan in his life but did attend the elite University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and majored in sociology at Harvard, later presided over the disintegration of the Chicago public school system for almost 10years.
Apparently because of that sociology degree and his outstanding Chicago failure, Duncan was tapped by President Obama in 2009 to be the nation’s Secretary of Education, the rough equivalent of hiring Yogi Berra to teach logic to baseball players.
Secretary Duncan experienced a rare attack of honesty for a politician when he recently conceded, “And the best ideas, I’ve always said, in education are never going to come from me or frankly from anyone else in Washington,” despite the fact his cabinet-level department is primarily charged with establishing United States educational policy.
Needless to say, Duncan qualified his admission of his own and Washington’s ineptitude by saying that the best ideas are “always going to come from great teachers, great principals at the local level” where people better understand their communities’ needs.
Duncan was inadvertently . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5325)
Please don't ever say my students don't want to learn or that as a teacher there is nothing I can do. Sometimes students do not see the value in their education initially, but I have seen many students begin to understand that their choices without education are limited and change their ways.
Second, a lot of comments have suggested that accountability through testing is bad. I work in a school where there has previously been little accountability for teachers, and teachers tend to get lazy (perhaps why are "disengaged"). I think a portfolio model is a great idea, or at least some measure that shows growth. I do believe that most teachers in most schools are doing their jobs and doing them well despite the bad things policy makers restrict us with, but there needs to be accountability. My students deserve teachers who are being held accountable for their effort or lack thereof.
Duncan's only gift is for rhetorical flourishes that, while pretty and occasionally on point, have no particular connection to his actual choices. I'm sure he said some pretty things to the SOS people, just as he said some pretty things to the NEA convention. But all that reveals is some rudimentary political skills. I expect this administration will continue down the trail blazed by NCLB.
As far as education goes, we've got nothing different from another term of Bush.
Another Colorado reading teacher was directed to use one reading program to help her low readers. The program was not working with all of them and she had other strategies and materials that might be a better match for certain students. She was told to use the prescribed materials. She refused because she could not let her students fail. She was not renewed.
Teachers are professionals,who like any trained and experienced professionals,need autonomy to call the shots when it comes to individual students who are not thriving under a top-down administration's prescriptions. What if doctors were forced to prescribe only one medication for high blood pressure?
The kinds of teachers we want to attract into the teaching profession need some autonomy. They are creative and resourceful. As Yeats said, "Teaching is not about filling a bucket; it's about lighting a fire." In our democracy we want teachers who can light that fire. NCLB and Race to the Top are the bucket approach.
Katherine Cox
Principal (retired)
Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action
www.inthetrencheswithschoolreform.com
This difference between teaching and learning was illustrated by my parents--who learned English within months of coming to this country--while grandmother, who lived here for the last 53 years of her life, barely could speak a sentence in English. She wasn't dumb, but in her social milieu, she had no reason to learn English AND DIDN'T WANT TO.
You can't MAKE students want to learn. Those who do will do so because or sometimes despite their background and peer group. But if they are brought up in abject poverty without hope of improving their lives, they have little incentive to put in the necessary time and concentration to be successful students. Both NCLB and RTTT assume that ALL students can learn to a certain level. If poverty were wiped out, and high-level family expectations would be the norm then that would be more likely. But these standardized expectations don't work, harming conscientious teachers who feel helpless trying to meet unrealistic expectations or lose their jobs.