Meji Imaru

No Child Left Behind: 'Widespread Demorilzation Of Teachers And Students'

I'm quite dismayed at the amount of support there seems to be out there for instituting merit pay for teachers whose students perform well on tests connected to the No Child Left Behind (as reported by Jamie Musick in a recent tribune article "Educators say 'yes' to merit pay tied to test scores.")Such a procedure misses what many educators have been saying and increasing the numbers of legislators and the public are now coming to realize. The assumptions of NCLB are fundamentally fallacious while it's means are deeply flawed.

A recent local forum on NCLB held with U.S. Rep. Phil English brought out several important points. We need national standards but not the rigidly standardizing methods foisted on communities across the country by the federal government. Performance on standardized tests gives little indication of what students are actually learning and retaining and fails to account for different learning styles and different types of intelligence, leaving perhaps 60 to 70 percent out in the cold. Testing, in and of itself, does not lead to improvement and may in fact undermine it by creating undue anxiety among many students. The goals of the NCLB are patently unrealistic and virtually mandate failure for many districts; there is great consistency in meeting Adequately Yearly Progress (AYP) and much cheating from state to state. I would personally add my voice to the chorus of experts around the country who declare that knowledge students are being tested on begs the question of whether it is of any real use to them in this day and age. Moreover, aside from its negative effects on student learning, a moments thought should tell us that high test scores naturally favor those teachers lucky enough to be teaching in affluent districts where students tend to benefit from greater resources and extracurricular activities.

For anyone paying close attention, the punitive regime NCLB has foisted on public education is leading to widespread demoralization of teachers and students. Those who want a taste of this should google a three-part PBS Jim Lehrer "News Hour" investigation of NCLB run a couple weeks ago. It cumulates in an interview of a prize-winning teacher. (profiled by the same program in 1999) who weeps as he talks about quitting the profession because the strictures of NCLB have completely undermined his capacity to teach.

For those who worry about the quality of our teachers, there is much evidence showing that better salaries, improved working conditions and peer-monitoring programs as well as time for the teachers to reflect and collaborate are much more effective ways to ensure teaching excellence than placing them in grim competition with each other. That would add a whole dimension to the charge of "Teaching to The Test". And there's already ample evidence that the pressures of NCLB have led some teachers to resort to cheating.

It would seem that our misguided mania for falsely 'objective' forms of measurement only lead to a further deterioration of the most important institution upon which our democracy is based: public education.

-Professor David Miller-

Ahem, wow. That's a lot of bullshit and I don't have my boots on. First of all, I'd like to state that it's not all bad. Despite having used 'and' at the beginning of a sentence he did in fact state one single truth.

"Testing in itself, does not lead to improvement" Congratulations Prof. You've pinpointed what I've been saying to my teachers for several years.

Anyway back to the negatives, after all, thats what we're here to debate. Alright, I'm sure you, like my teachers, fellow students and myself upon reading this are perhaps somewhat aggravated by his statement. Demorilzation is to give up, to basically become hopeless. When I read this I think that this is merely a professor who's spirit is breaking. Looking for a popular medium to throw out his grievance on. I mean "We need national standards but not the rigidly standardizing methods foisted on communities."? I'm pretty sure we all voted on this act and for god-sakes, an award winning teacher weeps as he speaks of quitting a profession? Bah! Bunkis! I cry out, what a pussy this man must be to just give up like that. He had gone through college to get that job and like that he's ready to give up because he's not the will to stick it out and push his way through the system? Travesty! With all that said it's still short of my words. So. Lets hear your opinions on this!

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tsurara

.... As a teacher and one who has worked in mutiple school systems in the world. I think the professor is right and I need some heavy-duty boots to wade through YOUR "bunkis".

"bunkis" is not a word, for the record.

"Demoralize" does not me "to give up" or "lose hope" by the way. It means to deprive someone of spirit, courage, or motivation.

"we all" did not vote for No Child Left Behind. The voting system does not work by complete consensus, nor do all agree that it's not something horribly broken and hopeless in and of itself.

Perhaps if your own teachers were better paid and your school had enough money for proper textbooks, supplies and extracirricular activities: you would know those things. Instead, they're rushing to drill you on essentially useless exam trivia so that the Republican party won't take MORE of their incredibly limited funding from them.

Meji Imaru

Regardless of if that word is real, it's definately known what I meant as it's universally used in American society and anyone who can read English and speak it would be able to have enough sense to know that. As for demoralize, sorry, I expressed it in an awkward fashion. I actually meant what you were saying and I realize that 'we all' didn't voter for it but, it was what the majority wanted and we as Americans should respect that.

I think that as a teacher you shouldn't be judging other schools on one person's lack of proper speech. I go to a fine school. Our teacher, the one whom brought this to my attention had the privilege to make a difference as shown here; Great Teachers

Mrs. Anderton; has by far shown the most, neigh, the maximum amount of care for her students and has been acknowledged by it. A teacher should be keeping on this topic rather then avoiding it by slandering a school for a meaningless scape-goat.

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tsurara

I didn't slander the school. I know nothing about the school, save that, as an American school, it is likely under the restrictions of the "No Child Left Behind" program. I slandered your ability to post a coherent argument in correct academic English (which seems to have been the aim). You didn't present an argument at all, you merely danced around the issue by using vague insults, slang and "everyone thinks so, so it must be right" logic.

That's not an argument. It's a rant.

If you would like to deconstruct the professor's argument, or make one of your own: you need to demonstrate that you understand the issue central to the debate (ie. What IS the "No Child Left Behind" act and what implications does it have for educators and students?), discover and point out factual/logical fallacies/inaccuracies in the professor's argument (provide alternate reasoning, contradictory evidence, etc), and make a point of your own ("He's wrong" doesn't cut it unless you can offer an alternative).

And I have never heard the word "bunkis" in my life. As an American and as an English teacher.

I currently teach in Japan, a nation where "the test" has become the sole goal of each and every educational system in the nation. The children here are listless, unimaginative, and disillusioned by education in general. They feel that their entire futures are pinned on how well they can perform on a battery of endless tests. They're rushed to keep up so that enough material can be covered in time for the next exam. Crucial information is withheld from students because it isn't relevant to standardized testing. There is no sexual education, there is no practical foreign language speaking practice encouraged or required, and there's certainly no time to explore the students' own interests. The textbook is the center of a Japanese educator's world... and tests are the center of the entire universe. Failure of ONE crucial exam can potentailly ruin their lives and decimate their own future plans. Incidentally Japan has the highest rate of teenage stress-related illness and
suicide in the developed world...

The LAST thing America needs is to follow Japan's example. Unless, of course, we want to ensure our children have much more rigid, stressful and impersonal experiences with education.

ska_lives

i think that the no child left behind act is foolish, it just makes kids that worked hard feel cheated and the ones who dont get to pass go for free. I mean this is just making kids think that they dont have to try to get anywhere, and that things will just be handed to them whether or not they work for them or not. To me it is doing way more harm than good. The fact that standardized testing is the sole way of finding out whether a kid is good enough to be promoted to the next grade level is a good idea but it is also just testing knowledge and not social development. there are way more things to growing up than just learning 2+2=4, but thats what the standardized test is teaching. There should really be a way for things to be judged impartially so that the forces that be can see which children can pass on and which need just a little more time to develop, if anything to different types of school, one learning and the other decision making related testing worldly knowledge. A little to the side of the no child left behind topic but sometimes to develop or to gain that motivation to succeed some kids need to be left behind otherwise the future is going to pay for it with a generation of lazy bums(for lack of a better term). Think about it when you were a kid you know one of the reasons you tried to pass in school was so that your friends didnt make fun of you for being a grade behind them, when you should be with them, after all some of the best motivation for success is peer pressure.

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Joe Mage

Now there's an idea, I agree wit Tsurara on this. I don' feel that the standardised tests r doin' anythin' for students, or teachers, except causin' unnecessary aggravation and stress. When my 8 year old niece comes home cryin', 'cause she under alotta stress ta pass a test, somethin' is wrong. Kids in school r under more stress now than when I was goin' ta school. The problem isn' the students, nor is it necessarily the teachers; it's the whole d@mned system. Congress needs ta get off their collective @$$es and try ta figure out a way, that'll work, ta fix this. Fosterin' competition between teachers isn' goin' ta do anythin' except 'cause alotta kids and teachers ta develop strokes or other stress related diseases. School should b a stress free environment, where learnin' is fostered, not competition.

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trustworthy

**** yeah! Wow, I don’t think you could have said it better. I completely agree. I mean, if the only way teachers are going to be able to show themselves as good teachers is based on testing, then all there going to do is teach the kids to pass the tests. That’s not real teaching, and no one can say what definitely needs to be learned, so no one can know what really should be tested.

All that’s going to happen because of this program is that kids will pass the tests, knowing that information, but have no real knowledge of anything else. They will have gaps in there understanding of things, and miss out on a whole world of information outside of what the government says should be known. That just doesn’t sound or feel right to me.

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Arrianna

Why do you assume it has anything to do with following Japans example? Because you are living in it?

As a parent of school children that supports the standardized testing and accountability found in this act and having also spoken with others who support it I have never once heard them say "lets be like Japan." No they say "lets return to the basics and require our children actually learn." They, and I, want a return to past USA standards. Ones that require schools actually pass on knowledge and teach the basics before worrying whether or not they have the "correct" socioecological view as determined by the Teachers Union.

You want some facts? At the time the public school system was instituted in the US one of the reasons given was so every person in the US would be literate. By 1969 they had nearly succeeded. So explain why, if the system we have now is so much better, that has changed so drastically? Functional illiteracy numbers in the US at this time are truly scary. Changes to the system that occurred after '69 that were more concerned with the students "feelings" and things like "new math" have done our students no favors.

If you want to see how bad the current public school system is at teaching you don't have to look any further then the Universities. My father worked at a local State College and my husband does as well. Each year the number of remedial classes they have to add just to get their students up to beginning levels increases. These are students that have passed with a high school diploma and are supposed to be competent in things like basic math and literature. Yet the College tests them and discovers that they have to teach them basic math etc. (some can't even do 5th grade math) that they are supposed to know. If standardized testing is so horrible then explain to me how them being passed on without being required to do these basics shows that the schools aren't failing?

I have every respect for teachers. I have no respect for people who feel entitled to benefits without results. I went through the school system. Past 5th grade I learned nearly nothing until I arrived at college. As far as I am concerned "No Child Left Behind" protocols are long over due and I have no pity for teachers complaining that they do not have the time to teach more then the basics. If their students can't pass the basics they should not be moving on to other subjects anyway. School is there to teach, not to socialize and experiment. Teach the basics and if you can't then we will go to someone who can.

It used to be that when a student in the US graduated from school at 16 they were considered competent enough to teach. Now far to many of them are not even competent enough to write a letter or balance a check book. Teach the basics and pass the tests or step out and let someone else do it.

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tsurara

I am not assuming that it has anything to do with intentionally following the Japanese education model. I'm pointing out that there are school systems in the world: mainly Japan and Korea, that rely entirely on standardized tests to educate children and that those school systems are no better off for it than the US system.

I also grew up in the Regents Testing System. Meaning that I, myself, went through 3 years of high school doing nothing but studying for standardized testing. I did very well on those tests and recieved my regents diploma with honors. I STILL felt unprepared for university and as though I had learned nothing in high school. I can no longer recite basic multiplication tables... material for tests is crammed and then forgotten. It isn't useful, it isn't memorable and it isn't interesting.

The major difference between schools that succeed in education and those who do not boils down to three things:

-Funding available and it's distribution. When I was in school in the United States, I used a 5 year-old out of date textbook that had been written in by 5 previous students... my teachers often bought supplies out of their own pockets so that we would have materials to work with. We had to collect box tops to buy one computer every year and a majority of our school computers had black and white monitors... in 1998!

Art and music education are constantly cut for lack of funding and ability to provide teachers the school board can actually pay.

-The socio-economic background of the students. It's very difficult to teach students who do not want to learn... it's even more difficult to teach them when they see nothing at all practical to be learned from education. A child who lives in a neighborhood where people get shot daily probably isn't terribly concerned about his math grade. And parents dealing drugs or stripping certainly aren't going to provide any guidance at home.

- The training, support and motivation of teachers. Teachers have argueably one of the most important jobs there is. Lately, it's also become one of the more dangerous and open to daily criticism from parents looking to scapegoat their children's failures on some outside source. There are plenty of awful teachers in the school-system, yes. But consideringthe average teacher makes less than the average hotel-chef, electrician or plumber; it's a bit difficult to convince the right sort of people to go into the field.

Some states have done away with the requirement that all teachers be liscenced: simply because there AREN'T enough liscenced teachers. It's a thankless, low-paying job which requires you to be accountable daily for factors that you can't necessarily do anything about.

No Child Left Behind creates penalties for teachers, more pressure for them and makes it impossible to teach anything of one's own choosing anyway. If every teacher is expected to produce exactly the same result with exactly the same material: what's the point of a human being in the classroom at all? Replace us all with computers, if that's what you want. Then you can just send all the money you're always complaining about paying the people who look after your children for 40 hours a week to the Republican Party directly to use to make bombs ~_~;

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Arrianna

... and you are teaching and received a diploma? Congratulations, you just proved my point on how bad the entry level to college has gotten.

And I went through without the standardized testing and kids cramming for finals then forgetting what they learned was what most did then as well. The difference was that there was no standardizing in requirements and we had a list of easy teachers and hard teachers based on how hard their tests were. I could get an A in an easy class knowing so little I would have gotten an F in a hard one.

Funding? Hardly. Higher funding has shown to have no correlation with results. Crappy teaching won't get better results just because they are paid more. Some of the best educated primary educations in the world are done on a minuscule amount compared to what the US spends per student.

As for your old texts and computers, my heart bleeds. So what if your monitor was black and white, as long as you aren't doing art who cares. Old text books, so what? I had old text books as well. Fact is the older text books were better for learning the new ones were just pretty. In my opinion we would save a ton of money if we just stopped buying big, glossy, mugger beater, books and stuck with basic paperbacks with all the pertinent info. Each student could have their own and last I checked Math hasn't changed in over a millennia and English in over a century. All new text books do is encourage you to open them as little as possible so that you won't be fined for any damage done while using them at the end of the year.

Then maybe we should get rid of the Teachers Union and fire all the staff that are unnecessary but hold on to their jobs through Union sponsorship.

As true as that is they have done studies and found to their surprise most students, even in the circumstances you describe, do want to learn. They just don't believe that they will actually be taught anything. I wonder why.

Electricians and plumbers have to pass certification exams and re-certify yearly. Then if the state board receives complaints about their inability they will be striped of their license. Yet you are here saying that teachers should be paid the same amount but not be held to any standards? Hah. The day that teachers have to pass yearly tests and any who fail to teach or don't uphold school standards are summarily fired is the day I will consider that point. Until then it's like crying because a bookkeeper doesn't make the same amount as an accountant.


This fuss over the accountability standards is a power scream and nothing else. The teachers union and federal organizations don't want to lose the power they have gained in the last 35 years and nothing more. There is no legitimate competition anymore so there is no incentive to do better. Take the money and give it to the parents to send the kids wherever they want. That way there would be full accountability for results. A school sucks? The parents who care will go somewhere else. Perhaps the fact that home schooled children consistently score in the top of the nation will be a wake up call as to how little children are actually learning in school.

"No child Left Behind"? Maybe not but it is a far cry from the old rallying cry, "No standard is too low if it allows every student to pass."

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tsurara

I don't teach MATH. I also speak 3 languages, have travelled Asia, can fix your computer, type 80 words a minute, and probably know more about history than you ever will. All thanks, at least in part, to University.

You may be able to do basic multiplication without a calculator: but how many languages do you speak?

We go to college to learn useful skills relevant to our respective carrers: not general knowledge.

The point is, not all knowledge is necesarily useful to everyone. And what isn't useful, tends to atrophy.

When you're learning about history and your book ENDS with the Regan presidency... I would say that's a problem.

Something tells me you wouldn't be so eager to scrimp if it was your line of work we were talking about...

Most states that require liscencing require renewal exams every 5-10 years AND that a teacher recieve their graduate degree in education before a certain amount of time...

Where does your irrational hatred of educators come, exactly?

You seem very eager to include us all in the category of "useless, overpaid idiots"

If you're so much more qualified to teach children, why don't you go into the field? Maybe then you'll realize what it's like to fear dwindling job security and have to buy school supplies out of your own pocket for children because the school and their parents can't afford them...

My students seem to think I'm a pretty good teacher. I've gotten letters, cards and gifts from students who say that because of me, they like a subject they once hated. I have students cry and hug me at graduations... and I know I'm not the only one.

Yes, I've met a handful of crappy teachers: but for every one of them, there are four or five incredibly overworked, dedicated individuals who are carving something extraordinary out of their limited resources. They touch children's hearts and open their minds-- the important thing isn't that students go out into the world knowing basic multiplication: it's that they go out into the world wanting to learn more about whatever it is that they're passionate about.

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