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Think No Child Left Behind is working? It is if your definition on "No Child" equates to 70% of our children.
War has nothing on our failing education system when it comes to extinguishing the futures of our young.
Last month's report by America's Promise Alliance concluded that nationwide, nearly 1.2 million students drop out of school every year and that about seven out of ten of students graduate on time. While these alarming statistics may only seem a problem for failing schools and the children they affect, the loss of potential along with the economic burden on society as a whole should be of immense concern for all of us.
The Alliance along with the Bill Gates Foundation has announced its support for summits to be held across the country to "increase awareness, encourage collaboration and facilitate action" to improve graduation rates. But will any of these summits deliver anything different than the same ole-same ole?
A Philadelphia Inquirer editorial (Leaving School 4-23) addressed the drop out problem, stating, "The problems are complex and not entirely the schools' fault. In fact, the most effective solutions to reducing the dropout rates start at home."
In a perfect world, that may be, but home is only the solution where there is no dropout problem. It's a Catch 22. If the home solution premise was applicable to the kids dropping out, we would have no such problem. You'd be better calling for a wholesale change in society than expect the families of drop outs to be able to get the kids back at their desks.
You can have as many educators' symposium's and "dropout summits" as you like. But no matter how hard you work it, continuing the same approach and expecting a different result, is not a description of success. It's the definition of insanity.
It doesn't start in the home, nor with the student. It starts with the attitude of the educational system towards the student. And that will need a complete overhaul. That might sound expensive, but it really isn't. When a child drops out of school we not only lose revenues derived is they had remained, but we're also losing their futures and everything they could have contributed to society. We're losing the taxes from work income and the potential their creativity could have generated, if only we showed them how to access it. Instead we end up with welfare and criminal drains on our taxes and well-being. An overhaul done right becomes a revenue producer, not an expense.
And the recipe for the turnaround just might be as basic as implementing a lemons to lemonade principle; transforming tart to sweet, only more. We need to remind children, repeatedly, how adversity, mistakes and failure can be key ingredients to cooking up a tasty pot of success. Pushing ahead in spite of the obstacles we all face not only turns many defeats into victories, but more importantly, reveals a passion or hidden talent that otherwise would have remained buried; something so unique to the child alone, something so vital to his or her happiness, that no one else but they could have discovered it.
But it all starts by removing the negative implication of the word "failure."
In sports we call it practice. In entertainment, rehearsal. In science, research.
In education...failure. Bad, bad failure.
That needs to be changed. And it will - the moment we choose to start using the tools that failure provides; not to smash, but to shape possibilities.
It's is not about embracing incompetence, but about students recognizing their own strengths, NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE, and using them as a jumping off point. Failure should never be where we stop, but where we begin; not a place of loss, but one of discovery.
In most cases our present educational process makes an effort to teach the same thing to in the same way to every individual student, using the same techniques and expecting the same result. But with each student's individual experience and level of expertise, how in the world would we ever expect any diverse group of children to learn on an equal level? Not everyone learns in the same way nor at the same speed.
Rather than a negative, that diversity in the capacity to absorb information is what makes us all unique. It's not about how quickly or what road we take to get where we're going, it's about making sure we all get there to reap the benefits. We all trip up or fail at some point - most of us, at many points. With a willingness to persevere despite the obstacles, we can see our stumbles not as rock-hard barriers but as rest stops where we pause to reassess and recharge, continuing our journey stronger, smarter, and with a greater sense of purpose.
To do that we need a new pair of glasses. If a student scores a 40 out of a 100. We don't start teaching where we want him to be, we begin where he is. Before we try to teach them 100, we need to teach them 41. Most important in any teaching proposition is establishing the proper place to start. In failure, there is actually a place of knowledge, a place of comfort, and therefore a viable learning tool. And what is comfortable for the student may be an uncomfortable place for a system now encumbered with a teaching to the test mentality based on standard academics. Today we may need to tap into music, sports, video games, the street, even sex, to reach some students. But once you build a mechanism around their comprehension, learning other subject, even those academic, becomes possible. It is on that foundation that we can begin to construct a complete education.
In this lemons-to-lemonade principle, we must allow students to create their own lemonade. It may not turn out as sweet as we think it should be, but the process is not about accommodating our personal taste. It's about helping each student tap into their own heart, soul and enthusiasm; into that part of the student that says ``I can do it.''
The idea is not to judge, not to stifle, not to kill the freedom and energy that creativity breeds.
Hopefully our educational system sees the benefit of teaching EVERY student where they are. Only then will our children can see how far they can go.
The cost, negligible. The benefits, astronomical.
Now, if only there was a presidential candidate who really wanted to leave no child behind.
_______
Could Be The Guy Who Wrote This Column
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Learning Differences
I have been saying for years we must teach to a child's strength. That is why "magnet" schools or schools that have science, math, language, or an arts focus should be the new wave of education in our future. It really is the next step for societal development. Historically, families taught eachother a trade or profession and the next generation benefitted and had employment based on what the family did. This didn't always work out for every child just like homogenious teaching styles don't work for everyone today. Recognition of learning strengths and teaching to these strengths is the best answer to the future of our educational system and our children's future.
A new service industry for the empire is the military.
With the standards driven way down by the lack of soldiers in our over extended forces the new recruits don't need education about civics or geography or even math just to follow orders and to kill.Gang members and others of their ilk find a home in the hard life of the military. Supposedly the criminal element have shown to make the better soldier.More willing to re up and to carry out their orders with less squimishness. That is the better storm and shock troopers of an empire. People who would be otherwise usless even dangerous in a non-military role in society. The career soldier like in the Roman impire or even like the Janissaries in the Ottoman empire. Such people would be 'harmed' if they were well read and had developed a questing and questioning mind. Not something a company of wolves would want when they lord over their sheep.Whether here or in some foreign nation that has been decided it is a strategic asset or of a tactical advantage to the rulers of the American empire.
_______I am sorry for this I misplaced the previous password.
While the author
makes some good points, most of this essay is the same stuff that all teachers endure when they take education classes to get their certification or their masters. What the author advocates is impossibly expensive to implement. All teachers know what the source of 90% of the problems in education is. It is the parent/guardian. Don't believe it? Ask them. In any given class, several of the "students" will come to class with nothing to write with or write on and no one at home to tell them that that is unacceptable.
This shows that Bush Co. is batting 100%
The Clear Skies program allowed for more pollution.
The Health Forest program allowed for more logging.
The Freedom Fuel program promotes more fossil fuels.
Do you see a pattern here?
Is false hope better than no hope at all?
You damn well betcha!
From the neocons' point of view, NCLB is a screaming success..."success" being defined as a means of discrediting, de-funding and dumbing down public schools. The final goal is to put our children at the mercy of "private enterprise", teaching them only what's necessary to turn them into obedient little burger-flipping robots. Truly meaningful education? Four-year college? That's supposed to be the prerogative of, shall we say, "carriage people".
The Gates Foundation? Gimme a break! Bill Gates is the scion of Seattle's upper crust, a product of Lakeside, one of the most exclusive private schools in the western United States. Melinda might have some credible Catholic social conscience, but in their own backyard their machinations seem directed to diverting school budgets to buying lots of classroom computers instead of employing capable, dedicated teachers.
Defunding...
Was the key word there.
When a school has a problem the best answer is of course to solve that problem. It means investigating the causes and correcting them. It might involve punishing administrations who screw up, it might involve hiring more teaches. The fact is without the investigation you don't know.
This costs money.
The NCLB was designed to be a cheap answer to a problem, looking flashy on paper but really doing nothing more then that. Surprised? If anything it ensures the problem never gets solved, as it eliminates the investigation and hences prevents any real solutions coming to light. Coupled with crippling, over the top, punishments as the only response it is guaranteed to make the problem worse.
That was the plan. Bankrupt the school system and use that money to fund more war or corporate welfare programs. The 'free market' will solve the problem of crippling non-education in the next generation, won't it?
PS: Rhetorical question that one, we both know it won't.
_______None at the moment, any ideas?
Whenever I meet someone who is a teacher
I always ask what they think of NCLB and I ALWAYS get the same response...a roll of the eyes, a shake of the head and a comment along the lines of "That is the biggest turd ever laid on our education system", or "Oh Christ dont get me started" or "Bush is an idiot so you have idiotic policies". NO ONE finds anything good to say about it. And yet we still have congress creeps who back it and say it just "needs tweaking" or it just "needs better funding". BULLSHIT. I have seen first hand how it fucks up schools and their curriculum. I have seen first hand how teachers only care about getting the right scores...no matter how easy they have to make for the students. My kids spent the better part their school years under this fucked up system and I see what it does. Its awful. Anyone who defends it is either an idiot or somehow making money off of it or both.
American education is piss poor and mostly due to NCLB. Bush and his terrorists have blown up our school system just as they have the middle east, New Orleans, the environment and all government agencies. America will never recover from the damage done by this administration and the cult known as the republican party.
_______"There's always been people that have to cause fear
They've been talking of the war now for many long years" - Dylan 1963
I wouldn't say mostly due to Bush
He's certainly piled on, but we live in a sick society, and therein lies the root cause of poor education. The only thing that will turn it around is the same thing that will cure many of our excesses in society: A major debilitating economic depression. Depressions exist because of poor behavior by humans and depressions change most of society's bad habits.
Those bad habits include lots of debt (living beyond your means), a poor work ethic among a sizable portion of the population, and lack of interest in current affairs that really matter. When people actually go hungry and move in with relatives and forgo cell phones, cable, and eating out, then they will change their behavior for the long term. The people who actually lived through the last depression are dying out. I am fortunate to have heard them talk about how things were in the 30's. I don't need to be shown first hand to understand what it will be like. It's a real life survivor show. No second takes, just grinding poverty and hanging on.
Think a free education might mean more after a decade of that?
The move to privatize
I took a year of graduate level education classes. After realizing the NCLB was expecting IMPOSSIBLE results with no funding I decided that I didn't want anything at all to do with being an educator and I changed programs.
During that year one of my fellow students shared that he had done some research that suggested the NCLB was designed specifically to cause public schools to fail in order to PRIVATIZE the entire system. After learning about the destructive nature of NCLB that is the only real explanation I can see for continuing such deleterious and damaging education policy.
Unfortunately the cost to the generation that is in public school now is astronomical and will have lifelong effects.
_______"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein
NCLB
When this legislative shit storm came roiling out of Bush's colon in 2001, I saw it for what it was; the first step in the total destruction of public education, so that the almighty vouchers could sweep in and rescue all children. Well, Bush never got the memo that most of the school districts in America are rural, and geographically speaking, there is no choice for most kids. They go to school where they live. And with gas prices...
No, NCLB was sold to the American public because of the so-called "miracle in Texas". When Bush was playing governor of Texas, graduation rates and test scores soared statewide. In reality, kids that normally would be labeled dropouts were funneled into GED or opportunity school programs. They are thus out of the school system, but still counted by the school system. In my high school chem class we called this fudging the data.
As a teacher under this steaming pile all I can say is Fuck George Bush and every member of Congress who supported this.
No child left WITH their behind
is what I've always called it.
_______"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."
Root and Branch
That would be a total change in our educational system, not just a major one. What is the purpose of our educational system; to teach children or socialize them? Is it to help children grow and realize their potential or show them their place and teach them to conform to expectations for their family status and social position? You believe in the first set of goals. Many teachers do before they burn out. Administrators, most coaches and a few of the teachers believe in the function of socialization rather than growing people by their actions if not their words. Most learning in school is an accident.