The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 set ambitious new goals when it required the states to improve public schooling for all students — and to educate poor children up to the same standards as their affluent counterparts — in exchange for federal aid. The country still has a long way to go to reach those goals. And they will never be met if Congress, which must now reauthorize the law, backs away from provisions that hold schools accountable for how well and how much children learn.
The country’s largest teachers’ union, the politically powerful National Education Association, would like to see the law gutted. Fortunately, the chairman of the House education committee, George Miller, Democrat of California, has resisted those pressures. Even so, his proposed changes in the law’s crucial accountability provisions, put forth in a draft version of the House bill, may need to be recast to prevent states from backing away from the central mission of the law.
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Another editorial by a non-educator who thinks that we get better results by holding a sword over every school and every educator.
Problem is: it doesn’t work.
You don’t get better results by threatening people, and especially kids. Pure and simple.
What’s more by forcing every school and child to run the gauntlet of boring, useless and meaningless standardized tests you are ruining the educational experience for both students and teachers, resulting in a raft of negative fallout: diminished interest in teaching, diminished interest in learning, narrowing of the curriculum, lowering of learning goals, the decline in critical thinking, the avoidance of taking risks and engendering creative lessons, the ruining of brain development in youngsters.
And on and on.
Sure, pat yourself on the back today. You wrote an editorial in which you sounded tough about holding schools accountable. Big words. They sound so effective, so competent, so with it.
Here’s my question: When was the last time you were even physically in a school? And would you take medical advice from someone who was not ever a doctor?
I already know the answer to these but I hope you will consider them carefully before spouting your big words about education in the future.