The vast majority of educators and increasing percentages of the public have serious misgivings about the federal law and the focus of their discomfort is usually around testing and the judgments the law imposes based on a single test. There is another broader and perhaps even more important issue that worries me even more. Two comments from two very different educators captured it for me and if I were issuing “profiles in courage” they would each be contenders.
Over a year ago I attended a conference in Washington - a Summit on Public Education sponsored by Phi Delta Kappa International- at which John Goodlad was one of the keynote speakers. As a young teacher, I was strongly influenced by Dr. Goodlad particularly his book, A Place Called School. After his presentation, I asked Dr. Goodlad if I could have a few moments to interview him for a podcast. He graciously agreed, and when we finally sat down I asked him a question I had asked many people: “Dr. Goodlad, given your vast experience in school change, what would be your greatest criticism of NCLB?” Without hesitation he responded, “The greatest problem with NCLB is that it asks too little of us.” I was stunned at the time with the brief and yet eloquent response, but it stuck with me in a very powerful way.
Last week the New York Times did a series of regional pieces on the impact of the proficiency requirements in NCLB. One of the stories focused on Greenwich, CT. Betty J. Sternberg has been the Superintendent of Schools in Greenwich since 2006, prior to that she was the first woman to be appointed Commissioner of Education for the state of Connecticut. In her relatively brief tenure as commissioner, she spearheaded a campaign to make reasonable changes to the federal law touching off a praiseworthy and highly public dispute with the Bush administration. Her concerns with the law are grounded in her new reality and consistent with John Goodlad.
“If you believe in a comprehensive education, this [NCLB] has been a detriment to that,” Dr. Sternberg said. “More importantly, if you believe that the kids’ needs in the 21st century involve innovation, creativity, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking — but the way you judge schools is to judge them solely by a narrow set of skills that are not ‘higher order’ if you will — I believe this law only hurts.”
(see article on Greenwich in sidebar)
Connecticut Schools Confronting Proficiency Demands
Two voices one message. The unprecedented federal intervention, while noble in its intent, is causing great harm to our system of education and through its narrow focus is diverting our attention from the real conversation that we need to have as a nation. Rigor alone will not develop the qualities of character and habits of mind that Dr. Sternberg alludes to and that this new millenium will demand. We need to ask as has been asked any number of times over the last century: What is it that we want of our public schools and how do we get there? Perhaps the stalemate over the reauthorization of the law provides us the time necessary to redirect the conversation and in some small way we could start here.
21 responses so far ↓
Kara // March 31, 2008 at 10:09 am
There needs to be some form of testing to determine an objective method of assessing students’ performance. Public school education, in countless jurisdictions, is overwhelmingly abysmal. To suggest that no objective testing criterion should be employed is simply a union self-protection ploy. This union’s goals are no different from the goals of the Teamsters.
Jeff Juliard // March 31, 2008 at 10:18 am
I am the son of two teachers. My father was a professor at Lehigh and my mother taught there as well. Both my parents have advanced degrees. My mother also spent 13 years teaching high school and I have a couple friends that are elementary school teachers. My wife works as a Special Education Para-professional for the Region 15 school district. None of them like NCLB. Mainly because they feel it limits a teacher’s ability to actually teach.
I can tell you I’m no fan of NCLB either. As a parent of two children that are currently in elementary and middle school I’ve seen what I perceive to be a pretty large disparity between what is actually taught in school and what the kids are tested on. The perception I have is that teachers are required to blaze through a large quantity of testable material without spending enough time on really teaching it. A fair share of the actual teaching now has to be done at home by the parents.
If you compare how my two sons function in this environment the disparity is alarming. My youngest is very organized and has no trouble focusing. He does pretty well. My oldest is the opposite. He’s an intelligent kid who is not very organized and has trouble focusing. He is constantly struggling and his grades clearly reflect that.
For a program called No Child Left Behind, it seems that the current requirements make it pretty easy to leave a child with even the mildest LD problems behind.
JoAnn // March 31, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I think NCLB has a lot of flaws - I think that the child who is learning disabled is at a disadvantage in two ways - people are upset because they hold back children with no problems and they themselves don’t get the special attention they need -Let’s go back to the old style classroom - if you fail - you stay back - don’t just move these kids through the system.
Terry King // March 31, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I fully agree that good education consists not only of test-taking, but also learning to interpret information critically, purposefully and creatively. Students need Social Studies, Sciences, Arts, etc. included in their lesson plans every year. It is not enough for teachers to simply teach students how to take standardized tests in math and reading. Like the teachers in this ad, I believe there is more to an individual student than a test score. What is going to happen when we end up with a nation full of students who can do a pretty good job of figuring out which answers are wrong on standardized multiple-choice tests, but cannot THINK?
Jenna // March 31, 2008 at 7:35 pm
With a roommate who is a high school teacher, I do not see how the NCLB Act has been effective. I see my roommate stressed at night as she plans her lessons in a way that only focuses on the exam material. She must figure out what would best help students master the state material or risk being labeled a bad teacher if her students fail. Her students end up being the ones that miss out because their teacher is forced into teaching to the test instead of using an active learning type of teaching approach, which is actually successful. Children learn better when they can actually do their learning, such as doing an experiment out instead of simply reading about it and answering questions based on the reading. The NCLB act therefore seems to encourage passive learning. In the real world, people do not simply pick A, B, or C, they make presentations and do experiments, and such.
JT // March 31, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Testing is the only way to determine if the very expensive teaching system is working - Unless you accept waiting till we have another generation of know nothings.
Mike Slater // April 1, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I am glad someone is bringing this issue up in CT. Love the ad–very impressive on NYTimes.com. I am sure we all will agree that tests are important, esp. to pick out failing school systems and turn them around. But from what I understand, these tests are pointing out the failing schools, but these schools are not receiving the funding they need to improve student test results. It seems to me that you can’t do one without the other. Expecting teachers to improve test scores without any resources is like fitting a circle into a square hole - until the government realizes that, we are never going to see any real progress.
Heather Roberts // April 1, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I saw your ad on Courant.com this past Monday and just wanted to say thank you for bring this subject to the public. There are too many parents and “about to be parents” that are not well informed when it comes to NCLB. Sure, it sounds like a great idea, but there are so many people that know nothing about NCLB and how it is impacting out public school systems. If we hope to change the system, people need to know it is flawed first. I hope you will continue to educate CT on both the positive and negative aspects of this law. Thank you for caring about our students.
Patrick West // April 1, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Interesting ad - hope it helps!
AJ // April 2, 2008 at 12:49 pm
What is the national test required of all those private school students who eventually become our leaders? How is it they manage to be so well educated without national standards? Maybe we don’t need standardized tests at all, just lots of money and the kind of teachers they hire at private schools — the ones who come from the ivy league and preach the status quo to kids who will succeed through nepotism and a huge head start.
I don’t see the point of blaming schools for the problems of society as a whole. And I certainly don’t see how testing is going to help solve the problems we already know exist but refuse to look at honestly and objectively.
Suzanna // April 2, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Bring back former state education commissioner, Dr. Sternberg. The current state commissioner of education wants even more standardization. He has been going around Connecticut talking about high school reform. He calls it high school reform. I call it a high school straitjacket. Dr. Sternberg said it best: “creativity, critical thinking.” They should reign supreme.
John // April 3, 2008 at 9:34 am
I believe that the emphasis on testing imposed by NCLB is misplaced where it fails to take into account the two main factors for failing test scores - the breakdown of the parental support system for students and the deterioration of acceptable social behaviors in the classroom. Previously, the duty of the teacher was to teach. Now, a teacher must act as a social worker and police officer before he or she can even get around to teaching. Perhaps it is time to reverse the “inclusion mantra” that has guided public policy for so long so that those students (and I believe it is the majority of students) who want to learn will be provided the full attention of the teacher, without the distractions created by the minority of students who continually show no interest in learning. Should 25 students be forced to fall behind in their learning because their teacher has to spend an inordinate amount of time on one or two disruptive students?
Anonymous // April 3, 2008 at 4:03 pm
NCLB has been a huge detriment to school systems. In the school in which I taught, there was a wonderful and very successful vocational training program for special ed students. Once these students were mainstreamed, the program was abandoned because staff could not be stretched any farther. The mainstreamed students gained nothing! They were incapable of keeping up with their peers in regular classroom settings, in spite of extra help from special ed teachers in the class. Frequently those with more severe disabilities were major disruptions in the classroom with a variety of outbursts of temper and screaming. They were not benefited with mainstream classes, and they had lost a very valuable training program. They proved to be a major distraction and disruption to other students and classroom teachers. No one at all benefited from the changes wrought by NCLB. If I were the parent of a special ed student, I would be screaming at the top of my lungs for what my student had lost in terms of attention and training. If I were the parent of a “normal” student, I would also be screaming because of what he/she had lost, in terms of time spent calming a disruptive student and the loss of a teacher’s ability to teach under such circumstances.
Additionally, the various sub-sets of scores fail to recognize that there will not be significant growth among those who are severely limited, and yet it is these scores that are causing the title of “failing schools” to be applied to schools that are performing satisfactorily in all other areas. It appears that with only this fragment of NCLB, students and schools have been done a great disservice!
Hiro // April 3, 2008 at 5:20 pm
The purpose of education, partly, is for the foundation of the Democracy. The other part is the foundation of the economic competitiveness, and welfare.
School needs to teach. Children need to learn. The fundamental achievements of learning are only measured by effective tests.
At the same time, schooling needs to be creative. This is a means, not the end. Creative teaching cannot be the replacement for testing facts and skills. Tests only measure certain aspect of the result of teaching and learning. However, certain fundamental knowledge and ability must be taught repeatedly if necessary to achieve fundamental educational results. Tests are unavoidable. Making tests more creative may certainly be an option to consider. Students should not have to be spending entire school hours filling circles in by pencils. The use of computers and the card reader had gotten to be the only methods to measure. This is certainly wrong, though the alternatives are more work for the teachers.
Teach how to think is to give them tools to think with. This is skill set teaching. Very poorly measured, and moreover, very poorly understood and applied.
Teach them to be creative. Only a few can learn to be creative from school. This cannot be the goal of schools. Only a privileged few can learn to excel beyond teachers by being creative. But fundamental knowledge must be there before becoming creative.
Cindi // April 3, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I’m not sure what you mean when you say there’s a stalemate over the “reauthorization of the law.” Does that mean the government is just rubber stamping the NCLB law that has given us so much trouble in recent years?
Anonymous // April 4, 2008 at 5:25 pm
All I can say about NCLB is, lets give our teenagers more of a reason to commit suicide. Should we really follow in the steps of Japan and Australia whose teen suicide rates are through the roof due to these tests?
I got A’s, B’s and C’s in school. I’m Dyslexic and ADD. I never would have passed those tests. Should I not have graduated? Even though I have a 3.66 GPA at college and work at a multi-national corporation?
The NCLB act needs to go away. It does no one any good and only hurts our children and our teachers’ abilities to actually teach.
Carol // April 9, 2008 at 9:58 am
The principle behind NCLB is good. The implementation and the use of the results, however, have a negative rather than useful effect upon the educational enterprise. It is also discouraging that yet another federal mandate does not include adequate funding to encourage change to improve the results.
Hartford Reader // April 9, 2008 at 3:48 pm
In order to function in society we ALL need to have a well-rounded education that focuses on more than just what NCLB calls the “basics.” Art is a basic. Social Studies is a basic. Developing and articulating complex ideas is a basic.
One of NCLB’s problems is that it tried to take the very complex process of education and make it sound simple.
Al // April 9, 2008 at 10:14 pm
NCLB arises out of a very narrow goal, namely, reducing the “achievement gap” between the white, middle class students and those of color and especially of poverty. This is obviously a political goal. NCLB does not aim at fostering creativity or any of those other good things mentioned above. It is absurd to claim and maintain that “good teaching” can reach the goal of NCLB, especially since there is nothing in the NCLB that fosters good teaching. The NCLB will fail; it is already failing. It is typical of the authoritarian administration we have (cf. torture, Abu Ghraib, secrecy, etc.) that the law is based on a belief that if you apply sufficient pressure to teachers, they will get the desired results from their students. It doesn’t seem that anyone in a position of authority is asking what this practice is doing to the relationships between teachers and students.
Al // April 9, 2008 at 10:28 pm
My comment is awaiting moderation. Alright, here it is. I favor reducing the achievement gap between the white, middle class students and those of color and from poverty. (We can set aside, for the time being, the gap between Asian-American and white middle class students. That gap favors the Asian-American group. We will have to wait for a version of NCLB that addresses that gap.) There is no question that the way NCLB is administered is authoritarian. I do not think the school administrators have any input, and I know for a fact that the teachers were not consulted in its creation. It is a top-down, threat-based system. If you don’t come through with the desired effect, your school can be closed and your students dispersed to other schools. Does NCLB do anything to help teachers do a better job? Is there anything in the law that addresses the massive social and economic problems that make the prospect of narrowing this gap remote? I haven’t heard of anything of that sort. It is really too bad that so many teachers have been further demoralized by the demands of this law. I admire the state or states that have spurned federal money, rather than knuckle under to NCLB in their schools.
Gloria // April 21, 2008 at 5:48 pm
NCLB says that under the concept of Adequate Yearly Progress by a certain year ALL students will be able to pass the test. ALL- EVERY- no matter if the student is handicapped, learning disabled, blind, deaf, ESL, etc. If that does not happen, the school will be labeled a failing school. It does not matter how many students do learn. Only the passing of the test matters. I believe there is something drastically wrong with this whole idea!
And AYP measures this year’s group of students against last year’s students in the same grade. Does this make sense? Shouldn’t we do as most teachers do and look at each child as an individual and chart his/her progress?
AYP makes about as much sense to me as telling a parent, “You must make sure that your little Sam grows at least three inches this year because his brother Fred grew three inches last year. If he doesn’t, we are going to label you a failing family.”
The other problem I have is that the test only measures what can be put into a paper and pencil test. Are there not things that we all agree are important to be taught that cannot be measured by any such test? Responsibility? Creativity? Compassion? Respect? Patriotism? Love of learning? Teamwork? Will we totally eschew the arts, physical education, and vocational education in our curricula because they are not on THE TEST?
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