Posted on 07/21/2008 6:00:52 AM PDT by Amelia
....The original No Child Left Behind law recognized the importance of teacher quality but did not properly emphasize teacher performance in the classroom. The reforms in the District and elsewhere offer a lesson for national policymakers: To best serve our nation's children, Congress needs to fix No Child Left Behind rather than abandon it. Lawmakers can do this by identifying, promoting and rewarding successful teachers; by better targeting professional development; and by strengthening provisions that hold teachers accountable for the performance of their students.
Congress should encourage states to develop programs that attract the best and brightest teachers to the public schools, and we should ensure that educators are given the compensation they deserve. The innovations here in Washington and in school districts across the country demonstrate how this approach to education can work....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The fact that the Washington Post endorses NCLB in some manner is proof that this idea was bad from the start, and ought to be repealed.
Two comments:
1) Imagine: Pay people more and they do a better job. It would appear that markets still work.
2) There is a lot of the "800 Pound Gorilla" factor here, too. While it's not PC to talk about it, the DC schools are almost totally black. From my wife's "home visit" experiences with students, these kids have $200 sneakers, an IPod, a cell phone, and an X-Box, but virtually all homes have nothing to augment an educational experience (books, magazines, newspapers, Hooked on Phonics, etc.) The lowest performers in the classroom are also the ones whose parents never come to a PTA meeting, an open house, or a fund-raising event. There's a large measure of the "lead-the-horse-to-water" problem here and throwing more money at it will only be effective if the parent become engaged in their kids' education.
“To best serve our nation’s children, Congress needs to fix No Child Left Behind rather than abandon it. Lawmakers can do this by identifying, promoting and rewarding successful teachers; by better targeting professional development; and by strengthening provisions that hold teachers accountable for the performance of their students.”
And is it true that the states are too incompetent to do this on their own (if they choose)???. No, of course not.
But then they couldn’t get that magic money that comes from the mystery pot of gold called the U.S. Treasury.
The politicians just refuse to tell the people that “federal” money comes from the same place their states, their counties, their towns get it - our pockets.
People seem strapped to pay “local” taxes because they have allowed politicians at higher levels to “fund” local needs, from “higher” government funds - while “higher” government taxes (especially state taxes) just keep growing.
Left locally there would be more than enough money for local needs, but then local politicians would be held accountable instead of pretending that they got gifts for the people from state and federal politicians.
The fix is simple - present a test upon graduation. Divide the test into 4 parts - math, english, science, history. Grade the student's ability in each section. Issue a diploma based on passing all 4 sections, and give honors to students that excel in any or all sections. Publish their score on their diploma, or other documentation. If they fail, the score will tell them where they need to study.
And finally, allow anybody to take the test, regardless of whether they finished attending school or not. If they've mastered all 4 areas, then they need not burden society with spending more time in publicly-funded schools.
This scheme would eliminate the need for the federal government to continue to meddle with local schools, and would allow students to learn outside of the school environment if they desire. It would be much less costly than the present 'oversight' scheme, and could drastically reduce the size and cost of the NEA. And, a federally-endorsed diploma would carry equal weight across the country, whereas now, a high-school diploma is merely an attendance certificate in most large-city schools, while it shows acheivement in most rural schools.
What it really failed to recognize is that the government(fed)has no constitutional power to be involved in education. Dump this stupid program, get the government out of our lives.
Our state already does this. Would you make it a national test?
Virginia already does this. Students must pass 6 Standards of Learning tests in addition to earning at least 24 credits. All students graduating have verified credits in each of the subject areas (math, science, history) 1 in 11th grade reading, 1 in 11th grade writing, and then 1 in an advanced subject area (ie... world history and US history, or earth science and biology). Every year the local paper has done a piece on seniors who fail to earn the credits to graduate and how it's so awful that these poooor kids aren't getting a diploma. This was the first year however that all seniors got the message and passed their exams.
Funny thing about holding kids feet to the fire, they eventually stop whining and start working.
Bingo! You have nailed it. There was a study of the failure of DC schools paid for by the DC government. The study found that the main problem was lack of parental involvement and a pronounced “black culture” that denigrated academic achievement and looked down on students that studied as “acting white”.
This is one of the worst consequences of “progressive” politics and victimology that pervades the left. Blacks are continually kept down by persuading them not to try to achieve. Note that in Reverend Wrights church, members are hectored not to act “middle class”.
Okay so literacy in the lower grades went up 100 percent, from 5 to 10 percent. What an accomplishment. They should be very proud of themselves.
Well, yes. Perhaps not mandatory - locals could still hand out their diplomas like candy if they want, but if the student wants "federal endorsement" or a federal diploma, they would have to pass the federal test. In fact, I'd like to see it independent of all state and local tests so that a student could gain the federal diploma and go on to college without enduring 12 years of the left-wing indoctrination that some public schools provide at the expense of a real education.
If the test is of a level that truly demonstrates proficiency in the chosen subject areas, it might well replace the 2-year associate's degree as an indication of the scholastic level of the student/graduate. I'm not sure, however, that it could be adapted for specialties and vocational learning.
Jesse and Al sell the victim mentality all the time. If they didn’t, they’d be out of a job. If black culture is such that they don’t see any value to an education, that’s their choice. The vast majority of the poor are poor because they made bad choices. They don’t pay attention in class and are disruptive, they skip class, or the drop out...all bad choices. What I don’t understand is why I have to pay for their bad choices.
Strangely, one of the supporters of school reform on DC Council is none other than our esteemed former mayor, Hizzoner Marion Barry.
The man is a corrupt scumbag, but he has very good political instincts- he has a history of being attuned to his constituents’ needs. There isn’t much for him to gain, politically, by supporting the status quo in DC schools, but he is happy to jump on the bandwagon of making DC schools less of a disaster because that will win him favor with the voters.
We shall see how it goes, but there appears to be a broad consensus, from Georgetown Chardonnay sippers to the worst neighborhoods in Anacostia, that DC schools need to be majorly overhauled. And I have to grudgingly give Fenty props for what he is trying to do here (but let’s not talk about his ongoing waste of our tax money on defending the 2nd Amendment lawsuits).
And before people start talking about vouchers, that probably isn’t a silver bullet for the problem. Few people will come out and say it, but parents in Montgomery, Alexandria, Fairfax and Arlington Counties are not too eager to allow students from DC into their schools, regardless of the money it would bring in. Plus, the cost of tuition at DC’s public schools is probably twice the amount of the vourchers, so that avenue is closed off, too.
I think that's an interesting idea, and I think if it were sufficiently rigorous, having such a test in place would do much more to improve accountability and local education than the current NCLB approach of allowing each state to set different standards for proficiency.
Comment on your 1) -
you also have to have the ability to fire those who are not performing, and have the ability to pay less to those who don’t perform as well as the stars.
Unions keep this from happening.
Oh yea! Schools will work a lot better with Washington DC planning out how everything goes.
For some that's true. Some are poor because their parents made bad choices, and even worse never taught the children what good choices were or how to make them...
What I don’t understand is why I have to pay for their bad choices.
You're paying for the possibility that some of them can be taught how to make good choices. :-)
Sometimes it works.
Your suggestion sounds a lot like the New York State Regents Exam. If you pass you get a Regents diploma, if you don’t you just get a regular high school diploma.
It’s beyond me why people keep talking about teacher performance. The elephant in the room is the not-so-bright, non-motivated student.
The voucher program in D.C. so far is experimental and only provides vouchers for about 2000 students, IIRC...the voucher amount was originally set at approximately the tuition amount at the district's Catholic elementary schools, and I believe is $7500 per year.
Obviously, it's not going to cover tuition at any of the prestigious independent schools, although some of them agreed to accept the vouchers as tuition for students who met their standards (so far, few to none have...)
The voucher program was supposed to be a Godsend for the struggling Catholic schools in the district, but a couple of months ago they announced that 7 of those schools that weren't financially viable would be converted to secular charter schools. My guess is that the tuition charged was not covering all the expenses, and the diocese couldn't afford to subsidize ALL its schools, but that's just my guess.
So far, vouchers are only good for private schools, not for out of district public schools. At least, I've never heard of any vouchers providing for that.
I agree - especially 'unmotivated'. We aren't all destined to be rocket scientists, but high school isn't about becoming a rocket scientist - it's there to get students prepared for a wide range of things that life brings, and to prepare them to move on to rocket science if they so desire. Back when I graduated from High School, college wasn't considered necessary for one to move into a respectable job.
It is my belief that a high school diploma back in the 1970's was the equivalent of today's associate's degree in terms of the amount of basic education required. Of course, that differs from one jurisdiction to another. I really think that today's schools are more concerned with keeping teachers employed than with educating our youth.
A lot of truth in that, too.
“If I take away the entitlement programs that substantially reduce the cost of making bad choices, that will induce them to reevaluate the choices that they make. “
This is exactly the solution, and inherently, the problem, with the degrading lifestyles of certain cultures in our country.
Now, the question is -
do the policy makers understand this, which implies that they’re evil,
or do they not understand this, which implies that they’re incompetent?
I vote for evil. If you can fog a mirror, you should understand the nature of the problem. The fact that you choose to enact legislation that makes those people beholding to you is the source of the problem. Hence, I think evil is the correct choice.
I think that is a different issue than public schools.
In any event, welfare was substantially reformed during the Clinton years (though the GOP Congress had to drag Bubba kicking and screaming to enact welfare reform). The welfare rolls in this country have been slashed drmatically over the last decade or so. Down from 5.1 million families to 1.9 million since 1994.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-17-welfare-reform-cover_x.htm
In a number of states membership in a teachers union is mandatory. In addition there are a number of teachers (Myself included) that are members for the teaching insurance. It is cheaper for me to do this than to purchase it on my own.
I don't think so. Poor education and low incomes are highly correlated. Also, the study was conducted for DC schools which has a high welfare incidence. We've thrown billions of dollars at the education programs in this country and it hasn't seemed to upgrade the very students it was designed to help.
In my mind, the reason is because those marginal students just don't want to make the effort to make the programs work. And from what I see, neither do the parents as evidenced by their lack of support for teachers and educational activities (e.g., PTA and the other things I mentioned earlier).
This study shows that teachers get better results when they are paid more. This suggests that lower paid teachers are just "going through the motions" of teaching. I don't buy this. I think you'd see the same improvement if administrators backed their teachers rather than cave in to political pressure from parents and other external factors.
Perhaps the good thing this study suggests is that teachers must "stick to the textbook" when teaching rather than spouting their political views and passing that off as education. Still, you should be able to accomplish that with adept administrators and active parents will little or no cash outlay.
“do the policy makers understand this, which implies that they’re evil,
or do they not understand this, which implies that they’re incompetent?”
Democrats have a very high motivation not to see reality, and to make up all kinds of attractive (to them) lies to keep themselves in power with lots of money rolling in.
I think you're better off blaming the parents than the students. After all, some of these students are 5 or 6 years old. I don't think they are too worried about whether or not a government program works.
They might be worried about where they are going to sleep tonight, whether Mom is going to be drunk or stoned tonight, or whether she'll come home, or whether her boyfriend will beat them up, or whether they'll be able to sleep with the loud music or fight in the next apartment...
And from what I see, neither do the parents as evidenced by their lack of support for teachers and educational activities (e.g., PTA and the other things I mentioned earlier).
Back to what I said about the parents...if you're a little kid and Mom doesn't respect the schools, if Mom doesn't show any interest in your education, if Mom doesn't get you up in time to get to school, or you don't have any clean clothes to wear to school, you're going to have a bit of trouble learning in school.
This study shows that teachers get better results when they are paid more. This suggests that lower paid teachers are just "going through the motions" of teaching. I don't buy this.
I suspect that teachers who get paid more also work in wealthier districts with students of higher socioeconomic groups, who tend to have more home support and tend to score better on standardized tests. I also suspect that districts which pay more can afford to be a bit more selective in their hiring, because they'll get more applicants.
I think you'd see the same improvement if administrators backed their teachers rather than cave in to political pressure from parents and other external factors.
That would definitely help.
Same here. Hispanic, but otherwise, the same. But it's the teachers who get fired, not the parents. Sadly.
It still goes back to bad choices, in this case, choices by the parents and the kids pay the price. Clearly, I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think throwing more money at it works, as we've tried that for decades.
The fact that black culture celebrates ignorance and lack of education is never mentioned. (Probably because this inconvenient truth would labeled one a ‘racist’. Baloney. It’s true and it’s sickening. They look the other way when kids don’t learn to read or write, don’t achieve, don’t graduate and learn skills to land a good paying job.) In many cities, black kids who study are ostracized by their baggy pants wearing, under achieving black peers. Achievement and graduation are ‘white goals’ and therefore not honorable. It’s appalling and begets another generation of poverty mired black ‘victims’ of the evil white power strcture. Jesse Jackson and pals love it.
The problem is that liberals are very adept at using words to mean different things at different times, while ignoring the distinctions produced thereby. It's not right to regard one race as better than another, but it is often very right to regard one culture as better than another. Some people would claim that to regard as inferior a culture that happens to be associated with blacks is racist. If the reasons for regarding the culture as inferior have to do with the quality of the culture rather than the race of those who partake, such judgments are not racist.
The function of PC is to prevent evil from being examined and rooted out. Evil must not be allowed to hide.
It is in education circles. I think the solution to that is going to have to come from the black community, as will the solution for the large number of out of wedlock births in that community.
I'll note that it's not all black people, but the ghetto subculture is toxic to education.
“But then they couldn’t get that magic money that comes from the mystery pot of gold called the U.S. Treasury.”
Ah, actually, it comes from the taxpayers.
“I’ll note that it’s not all black people, but the ghetto subculture is toxic to education. “
It’s toxic to any positive aspect of life.
I think that's an excellent point. Far easier to blame someone else.
Ping for later
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