Posted on 09/27/2011 7:49:27 AM PDT by reaganaut1
A decade ago, the No Child Left Behind Act ushered in an era of federally driven educational accountability focused on narrowing the chasms between the test scores and graduation rates of students of different incomes and races. The result was a whole new way of speaking and thinking about the issue: "Achievement gaps" became reformers' catch phrase, and closing those gaps became the goal of American education policy.
Today, the notion of "closing achievement gaps" has become synonymous with education reform. The Education Trust, perhaps the nation's most influential K-12 advocacy group, explains: "Our goal is to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement." The National Education Foundation has launched its own "Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative." The California Achievement Gap Educational Foundation was launched in 2008 to "eliminate the systemic achievement gap in California K-12 public education." Elite charter-school operator Uncommon Schools says its mission is running "outstanding urban charter public schools that close the achievement gap and prepare low-income students to graduate from college." Education Week, the newspaper of record for American education, ran 63 stories mentioning "achievement gaps" in the first six months of this year.
The No Child Left Behind Act's signal contribution has been this sustained fixation on achievement gaps — a fixation that has been almost universally hailed as an unmitigated good. Near the end of his presidency, George W. Bush bragged that NCLB "focused the country's attention on the fact that we had an achievement gap that — you know, white kids were reading better in the 4th grade than Latinos or African-American kids. And that's unacceptable for America." Margaret Spellings, Bush's secretary of education, said last year, "The raging fire in American education is the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their peers."
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalaffairs.com ...
A lot of the problem, I think, is cultural. Sub-cultures place differing values on educational achievement. Asian cultures seem to value it more than any other cultures, with white cultures probably coming in second.
I’m willing to say it: NCLB stunk from the git-go.
True. And everyone talks about the black-white achievement gap, but no one talks about the white-Jewish/Asian achievement gap. Whites score consistently and measurably lower on math tests than Jewish and Asian children. Why is that? Could it be that Jewish and Asian kids are more intelligent than whites on average? But no one proposes efforts to eradicate that gap. Maybe because it can’t be eradicated. Like the other gap. Except by merging i.e. interbreeding of the different ethnic groups.
We hear this term often in our district, and many of us realized that “closing the achievement gap” is another way of saying “teaching to the lowest common denominator”
They will, and are, lowering all tests so that the Achievement Gap can be lessened, not by improving teaching to certain groups, but by hurting those groups who perform the best.
This is the liberals view of NCLB, and having everyone the same is more important than teaching to the potential of the child.
Our state has been granted a waiver from NCLB, so long as we can “close the Achievement Gap”. That is our new standard. There is no standard about how many should pass this or that, or at what level a child should read or write any more. The most important thing is that darned Achievement Gap. It is so important, that a good deal of funding in Illinois will now be based on Achievement Gap, instead of test results or improvement as a whole. The result? Stop teaching the demographics that historically do well, so that the demographics which historically don’t do well, can be on the same footing. Don’t think it will happen? You can bet it will when funding is involved.
It’s a joke, and Orwellian speak.
And, I’ll even add this: My greatest FEAR is to be one of the ‘Haves’ and be seen as ‘successful’ in the eyes of Government. The more I earn, the more they take with impunity and re-distribute to others! What’s the POINT of me working harder to support others when taking care of MYSELF and staying off the dole should be JOB ONE for everyone? Some exceptions: the mentally ill and the truly disabled. The rest of you? Get busy!
It’s a fine line between what others perceive as ‘success’ or ‘failure’, but dammit, I’m walking it and will continue to do so until I’m no longer PUNISHED for being a success.
“Closing the ‘achievement gap’ is an unrealistic goal.” Reaganaut1, you obviously don’t have a PhD in edukation. You should leave comments to your betters. Since equality of outcome is the most important goal, the abolition of the achievement gab is simple. Do not teach the demographics that will not conform. It may be necessary to take “special measures” against those Jews and Asians who refuse to conform.
Now, some 28 years on, same old, same old.
Johhny and Suzie, trapped in the public education system, cannot read, write, nor reason.
And that after how many trillon dollars spent?
In 2010, Barack Obama called for fixing the public education system by giving us the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and “Race to the Top”, which he said would fix the education system already fixed by the 2001 GW Bush and Ted Kennedy legislation called “No Child Left Behind,” which was supposed to fix a system supposedly already fixed by a 1994 piece of federal legislation called “Goals 2000,” which was supposed to fix a system already fixed by America 2000,” which was a 1991 response during the Bush administration to a 1983 federal report on education called “A Nation at Risk, which was published a full four years after Jimmy Carter fixed the nation’s public school system by first establishing a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.
I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here.
It is also possible that the more intelligent populations are, on average, the more they value achievement. It certainly seems to work that way with individuals and families.
Or there may not be. What cannot be in dispute by any honest person, though, is that there are vast differences in behavior, and one style of behavior leads to an environment where learning can take place, while most others do not.
While I would very much doubt that behavior is genetic, all babies are born savages, it does correlate closely with ethnicity. What needs to be done is to enforce strict standards of behavior on the students (and some of the teachers, for that matter).
Those who disrupt should be expelled, permanently, and placed in a school that specializes in that type of child. If they are too disruptive there, well build more prisons.
Sad, but true. And coming to a country near us!
Unfortunately, our recent “compassionate conservative” president was a prime offender of this claptrap.
No money or power to be derived from “addressing” the gap in achievement between whites and Jews/Asians.
Also, in the realm of mortgage approvals, there is an analogous gap in acceptance there as well, but it isn’t pursued because no power can be derived from exploiting it.
There should be a fairly easy way to “factor out” the genetic factor by examining the achievement of black kids raised in a “white” culturally based family.
There should be enough examples of this to make a significant dataset to compare to the black population raised in black culturally based families.
Has this study been done?
But see, IMO, it doesn’t matter. Maybe the gap can be closed, maybe not. I’m not black so my ego isn’t involved. I don’t really care. I’m smarter than some; not so smart as others, and that includes some blacks I have known. We are all the same that way.
But the levels of ALL students will be raised in a proper learning environment. Isn’t that, or at least shouldn’t it be, the proper goal of our schools? To educate each student to the best of his ability to learn?
It is IMO.
That’s why we homeschool.
Each child is taught at their individual level of ability in individual subjects, whether or not that ability is the same across all subjects.
Have you noticed that we are constantly exhorted to “celebrate our differences.” Except when it comes to academic outcomes.
I don’t have a problem acknowledging group differences in intelligence and abilities. AFAIK, the only controversy is what causes them, and I actually don’t think the topic is all that controversial among people who work in the field.
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