Education Reform Goes From Bad to Worse

No Child Left Behind has seen better days. Under attack from both the right and left, President Bush’s signature education achievement might not survive if some members of Congress get their way.

House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) offered a 435-page legislative draft last month that rewrites several provisions and guts the few measures in the law that limited-government conservatives support.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants to go one step further and rename the law to something other than No Child Left Behind.

So not only does the Bush administration face the prospect of significant policy changes, it could also lose the marketing appeal of the law’s name.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who last week fought back against the proposed changes, might be better off with the status quo than trying to reauthorize the law in a hostile Congress. Her biggest gripe was Miller’s attempt to water down the penalties schools face for failing to live up to the law’s testing requirements, but it’s just one of many differences that need to be addressed.

Meanwhile, conservatives who are seeking to trim government bureaucracy, end ineffective programs and restore state and local control in education won’t find much to like in Miller’s 435-page draft. His other changes include new regulations, more programs and fewer options for school choice. Miller has also made no attempt to fix No Child Left Behind’s structural problems.

Changes to the school-choice provisions are particularly troublesome given the large number of congressmen who support private schools in their personal life. A report from The Heritage Foundation last week revealed members of Congress send their kids to private schools at a rate nearly four times that of the general population.

Two notable examples are Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). But they’re not alone. More than 37 percent of House members and 45 percent of senators have sent their children to private school. Meanwhile, 52 percent of Congressional Black Caucus members and 38 percent of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have had at least one child in private school.

Despite those surprisingly high numbers, Miller’s proposed changes to No Child Left Behind gut its school-choice provisions. It seems some members of Congress—who are paid $165,200 per year—have no problem personally taking advantage of school choice, but they are willing to reduce the school-choice options for those without financial means to afford it on their own.

As Democrats push for these changes, conservatives have taken the opposite approach. Led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), a group of Republicans are pursuing legislation known as A-PLUS. Their bill attempts to bring greater transparency to No Child Left Behind and reduce the additional 6.7 million hours that school officials are spending to comply with the law.

“No Child Left Behind originally sought to return some education policy-making authority to the states, but in its current form the legislation is a massive spending bill filled with federal mandates that increase the presence of federal bureaucrats in our classrooms,” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), a co-sponsor of the A-PLUS Act, said last week on the House floor.

It’s too bad Spellings was so quick to reject the conservatives’ ideas earlier this year. While their proposal might not have been exactly what she wanted, it would be a significant improvement over the big-government solutions that Miller hopes to pass into law.

At this point, no conservative could support what Miller has proposed. If liberals are serious about the changes they want to make, it’s only a matter of time before the Bush administration realizes it won’t get anything good from this Congress on education policy. The status quo just might be a better option.

>>I heard about a school that was failing. They totally dropped everything except reading and arithmetic, for the entire year, and doubled their scores.<<

Identifying and humiliating failing schools in public is one of the positive aspects of No Child Left Behind. In fact, given a choice, I would make my classroom the mirror of local government, in that everything that I do would be “public record” with the exception of specific student assignments. In other words, the homework, tests, assignments, readings, writing prompts, lesson plans, curriculum, and other planning and organizational items would be available to anyone. (In fact, I do this already.) Of course, student work itself deserves privacy, but the community also deserves to be able to see exactly what I’m presenting to students in the classroom, sort of an “open meetings law” for teachers.

About “doubling” scores: I once taught in a school way out there in western Alaska. Most of my junior high students had reading levels anywhere from preliterate to third grade. By the time they finished my class, most of them had more than “doubled” their reading levels. It doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to lift a kid from preliterate to fourth grade when they’re 14 years old.

Our schools are in terrible shape. Teachers like myself want to be able to do our best, not conform to the strictures of some guy in a cubicle 5,000 miles away. When teachers are able to practice their craft in the market, parents will be enpowered to make good choices for their child, and the child will see examples of excellence all around them. Uncle Milton pegged it many years ago. God willing I’ll see it before I die.

NCLB should be changed to "No Teacher Left Standing."

Part of the problem, at least here in California, is twofold. 1) The quality of parenting has been on a steady decline for the past 30 years. Where you had 2 parents helping their kids, reading to them, modeling learning, all that stuff, you now have spoiled brats in adult bodies having kids, not doing any of the "normal" things parents do with their kids to help them to learn, then wonder why their little monster isn't at the top of the class. Illegals, and let's face it, we're NOT getting the cream of the crop here, can't even speak the language, so how can they help their kids? For some children of farm worker families, an American school is their first. For others, it is a series of schools, as they are pulled out after five months when the family has to move to follow the harvest. Because of this, standards have grown from a 40-page booklet to a 200-page tome of all the different things the kids have to know at each grade level. And like it or not, that's what the teachers are held to, regardless of where a kid is when he or she shows up at school, what kind of support they have at home, all the stuff we used to consider "normal" in kids. It's not there anymore, but teachers are required to magically put it there and *poof* the kid is an instant Einstein. We're supposed to have 100% of ALL the kids on grade level by 2012. Ain't gonna happen. There are too many drag factors, like the ones mentioned above. Throw out all the illegals, make English Lingua Una, turn off MTV, Oprah, and all the cable crap that intereferes with learning, toss the X-Box under a bus, and MAYBE we'll have enough to bring this country back to the level of braininess we enjoyed in the past.

2) The calculations that figure who is a successful school and who is not are flawed. California, for example has two sets of standards: the state and the federal. While we might succeed in meeting performance levels for the state, we don't for the fed. When factoring in kids, one kid might count more than once in the calculations if he is in more than one demographic group. If he's Hispanic, comes from a low socio-economic background, and is in special ed, that kid's low scores dings my good kid's score three times, even though that good kid's score might be at grade level or above. It's not a straight test, either; the CST test has "release questions" you can get off the website to supposedly help you prepare, but those questions are ones that either were too easy or too hard, so they don't reflect what's really on it. I hate it.

I would love to see the school system burned to the ground so that we could rebuild it better. Give more local autonomy. Provide vouchers, so that us "reg'lar folk" can have the same choice as Queen A$$hole Hillary. Require competency in English before anything else, and make it harder for parents to not be accountable for what THEY do. Make a test that really measures how the teachers do, not this convaluted abomination that doesn't measure much of anything.

I've been a teacher for 25 years. Some years are diamonds, some years are stones. I've had kids whose parents are behind them 1000%, and they succeed mightily. I've had other kids from shattered homes for whom school is the only shred of stability they have. And the government doesn't take conditions like this into consideration. No, the kids are little robots, that if you do this and that, these results will be spat out of their mouths. There's not a politician in Washington or Sacramento who would last a week doing what I and my fellows do, and we know that any success we have is from our Lord. THAT's what keeps us going.

I've never seen, except for the military, a trade where politicians go out of their way to make it fail.

Who is Jorge Bush. Your hatred against the president is pathetic. Why don’t you go over to DU or Daly Kos. I am sure they appreciate you over there

Whatever my hatred of Bush might be, I guarantee you that I do not hate Bush as much as those he has chosen to side with. Teddy Kennedy wishes him real harm, and yet Bush takes Kennedy's side against his own party on illegal immigration. Bush gave Kennedy EVERYTHING he wanted on No Child Left Behind, Prescription Drugs and Amnesty. There is a BIG argument to be made that Teddy Kennedy wrote more legislation during the Bush years than the Clinton years. That is the irony Teddy Kennedy was a bigger player in the Bush administration that the Clinton administration. Obviously, during the Clinton years, they did not have a lot of time with congressional majorities. But to think, that Bush and the Republicans used the congressional majorities they enjoyed for SIX years to have Teddy Kennedy become a significant player is outrageous. And if Kennedy was as a big a player in the Democrat Party as he is in the Teddy Kennedy Wing of the Republican Party, then his hatred of Bush would have him impeach Bush in nano second.

It seems that the Dems get much of what they want during R administrations and vice versa. Some people have the theory that this is done to take whatever the legislative issue is off the table as a factor in the next election.

I think politicians believe that you can betray your base and get away it, because your base is captive and has no where to go. And I believe they are right to some extent. The lying, promising breaking George Bush thought that he could raise taxes and get away it and he may have , if not for crazy little banty rooster Ross Perot, whose campaign was more anti-Bush than anti-Clinton. Clinton betrayed his base big time, with NAFTA. My cousin has a daughter who married a fairly high level union official. He was livid at Clinton, but politics being politics admitted to me, that unions were held captive by the Democrats, and even though they were angry, the betrayal on Nafta would not have much consequence. One might argue Clinton got two terms and it did not cost him, but it may have cost the Democrats congressional majorities. Everyone knew Bush was sympathetic toward illegals and probably favored amnesty, but no one knew that after 9/11 he would neglect border security because of his sympathies. They could also not realize that he would so publicly turn on his base and line up with his many enemies in the Senate all because of amnesty. This Bush paid no price for betraying his base, he will go down as a two term President, but one has to feel that although Bush and Rove milked the base for two presidential terms, that the costs of turning on the base on education, prescription drugs, budget busting pork, and amnesty will continue to be paid by lots of other Republicans.

>>I do not understand your complaint.

You said that they required you to have an English degree but gave you an option to test out of that requirement. So.... what’s the problem?<<

True, it’s a minor complaint. Pile up the minor complaints and they turn into a major pain in the backside. My point is that I was already a demonstrated expert in my field. People had paid me good money to write, research, edit, proofread, and work with the public. In fact, I can demonstrate my life experience is the crucial factor when presenting writing and reading lessons to my students. When a student asks me why he or she has to learn good writing skills, I can instantly share dozens of real-life situations where good writing is crucial for success. Those experiences wouldn’t have emerged from a graduate seminar on Sylvia Plath.

Regulations imposed from above often do not equal quality. For instance, you can work as a biologist for decades in the Fish and Wildlife Service but not be considered “qualified” for teaching biology if your degree is wildlife management. The regulation demands a degree in biology. The regulations don’t recognize teaching skill, personality, or knowledge gained outside the college classroom.

I can also get started on a rant about the uselessness of college classes, especially those in the schools of education and journalism, if you would like, but I would imagine that you’re familiar with the severe shortcomings in those departments.

Schools are the business of parents and communities in order to serve their children. The feds should restrict themselves to those duties outlined in article 1, section 8 of the Constitution.

Testing. Not just testing of students, but of teachers, too. And letting the states make up their own tests was a huge mistake; those tests needed to be done nationally - one test for each grade.

In theory, that sounds like a panacea. In reality, it assures nothing. The students who get tested...their results aren't returned to the teachers in whose classroom, or grade, they were in when the tests were taken. The results are not returned until months later. The tests assume that "all children are equal." But with federal mandates that ALL children "be placed in the least restrictive environment" you have children with special needs in ALL classrooms now. That includes autistic children, children who do not speak English, children who are dyslexic, and so on. Testing teachers? On what will you "test" teachers? If the religiously applied doomed-to fail, but required by the local board of education's curriculum, like "new math" or "whole language"? Let's blame the teachers who have no say about doomed to fail curriculum, national standards (especially those in math and science, which require computers be used...because such things as algorithms are so "outdated and old fashioned"). Certainly, there are many teachers who'd pass with flying colors because they've embraced the new fads put out by liberals on state boards of education.

the only way out is we trust and check one another at the local level, federal government be damned.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The only way out is for parents to abandon the government schools one by one. Look at North Carolina. There are now 68,000 homeschoolers! That is an amazing number.

If they were to join with the parents who are sending their children to private schools, there could be significant political power. Perhaps enough power to elect representatives who will SHUT DOWN these Marxist indoctrination camps ( misnamed schools).

By the way,,, It is time we called leftists what they really are: Marxists and Useful Idiots.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IS A DISASTER - BUSH TRIED TO PLACATE THE LIBERALS AND FAILED THE KIDS - THEY ARE COMING OUT DUMBER NOT SMARTER.

Although the Constitution makes no mention of public education, the Tenth Amendment reserved TO the states the powers NOT delegated to the Federal government.

Under this interpretation of the US Constitution, the subsequent acts of the states and the character of public education as a function of the states have been legally recognized.

Federal recognition of the states’ responsibility for education was clearly embodied in the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787.

Education IS primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States.

It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation.

The structure of education finance in America reflects this predominant State and local role.

Of an estimated $909 billion being spent nationwide on education at all levels for school year 2004-2005, about 90 percent comes from State, local, and private sources.

Federal role in education as a kind of “emergency response system,” a means of filling gaps in State and local support for education when critical national needs arise..... ONLY THEN!

STATES RULES must be reinforced. Get the FED out of education!

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