While the goals behind No Child Left Behind were admirable, experience has taught us that the law has some serious flaws that are hurting our children instead of helping them. Teachers are being forced to teach to a test, while subjects like history and science are being squeezed out. And in order to avoid having their schools labeled as failures, some states lowered their standards in a race to the bottom….
Yesterday, I announced that we’ll be giving states more flexibility to meet high standards for teaching and learning. It’s time for us to let states, schools and teachers come up with innovative ways to give our children the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future.
— President Obama, Weekly Address, 9/24/2011
States are going to be able to get waivers from the federal standards of “No Child Left Behind,” but in order to get those waivers, they will have to present another plan for improving school performance. Illinois is reportedly looking at applying for a waiver (WJBC, Chicago Tribune). Nearly all educators agree that the federal No Child Left Behind standards were unrealistic. But now that states have a chance to write their own standards, what should they be?
The question of the day is: What standards should Illinois put in place to replace federal NCLB requirements and improve school performance?
Start by making state aid and academic acountability intertwined. Reward exceeds students and cut funding for baby factories who pass them on to grandma under the guise of foster parenting. And School Board member Ross we’d like to hear from you.
How about a realistic return to basics at the elementary level and continued emphasis on these skills throughout the K-12 process? The inability to read progresses to the inability to comprehend, and therefore fosters the inability to reason. As to social ethics, we have been a nation of equality by law for nearly six decades. Now is the time to teach equality, not divisiveness, and prepare our students for the future, not continue to dwell upon the inequities of the past. As to mathematical skills, let us now begin to teach budget management at the beginning of secondary education to prepare these future citizens for a real life that will not include dependence upon government programs and hand outs.
How about a curriculum that prepares student for a real and better life?
It is time that the state of Illinois is able to take scores from more than just ISAT testing that is conducted in March…I know, that could be a logistics nightmare for administrators.
The students are taking many assessments throughout the year and many continue to make marked increases on NWEA, etc. Why are those scores not included with NCLB?
ISAT has out-lived its usefulness as a determining tool for meeting AYP. We are teaching to the test…and not a very effective one.
Just my opinion.
I know it would be difficult, but I think one of the best indicators of a school’s effectiveness would be to find out what its grads are doing 10 years after high school graduation. So many of us–following line with NCLB assumptions–believe that standardized tests are the sole indicators of how well young people will do in the future. We. also, have preconceived notions about what success looks like.
Standardized tests measure the student’s abilities at required skills, not what they do with them after they learn them. Standardized tests are the only way to measure the ability of the student to read, write, and comprehend what they are learning. They are the only way to measure what the student has learned in order to compete in the real world. Without a way to measure things, you cannot evaluate how effective your teaching is. And there ARE basic skills that EVERYONE must have. READING, WRITING, MATH…these are all measurable and quantifiable skills. When a student does not have these skills, they should be held back until they have learned them. Period. Without them, they are doomed to fail in society.
I attended both parochial schools and public schools. In the parochial school you learned your ABCs, how to make sentences and cursive writing in the first grade. In public schools you were lucky if you could do that by the third grade. You had homework everyday in private school, not so in public school. In private school parents being involved were a must. In public schools you might get to meet the parents once every three or four years. Now I don’t agree with all that private school does, but when you graduated from private school you were prepared to go out and hit the world well equipped. I know kids nowadays that are sophmores in public school that couldn’t compete with third graders in private school. They can’t spell. Can’t construct a sentence, can’t speak properly, plus numerous other things. And don’t get me started on the fashions they wear to school. We wore uniforms in grade school but we had no competition for clothes and our parents saved a fortune. Perhaps our local schools should take a look at how private schools teach. I know when I left private school and started public school in my freshman year I was grades ahead of those kids. I am no smarter than the average person but I was given a great advantage in my primary years in school and it paid off handsomely. I feel so sorry for the kids nowadays and how and what they are learning and where they are going. I do have to say that children with learning challenges are getting a better education now than in my day but that doesn’t help the rest of them. We may believe in no child left behind but where are we taking them and how are we doing it? It doesn’t do any good to push them to the front and then drop them off in society without all the necessary tools to make a good life.
Illinois as a state, tax money better spent. But that is a pipe dream. Mr. Mike Smith is one example of our messed up state funding. Get the feds and state out of education and bring it back to the local levil.
If you eliminate the department of education-federal and the dollars that they send to states.
then the local and state authorities will have to pick up the difference or do more with less.
NBC News is airing “Education Nation” today, and it is quite interesting. NCLB is an accountability tool…not a teaching tool, which is why President Obama is giving waivers to states to find a different type of accountability. Teachers no longer have to teach to the test.
Our 21st Century students need History and Science. They do not need watered-down versions to fit a small time period during the day.
Our 21st Century students also need confidence and self-esteem. Having the ISAT scores railing against the education system does not give many people confidence, especially the students. With improved test scores (be it NWEA, easyCBM, whatever), that confidence should be building and self-esteem improving.
The entities that are making out “big time” from NCLB are the SES programs like Sylvan, Brain Hurricaine….etc. They make about $1,500 per child in their program (directly from D150 coffers). These companies pay the instructors (I will use that term loosely because even T.A.s are tutoring), between $45 and $65 per HOUR. Quite frankly, I have not seen ANY increase in student achievement after last year’s tutoring sessions, just a decrease in the district’s budget. I realize I am “trivializing” how the budget is set up, but the reality is, this is a HUGE waste of tax payer money that could be used on such things as TEXT BOOKS and PAPER. Get rid of NCLB and get back to basics; reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I see the same thing, Teach…and getting back to basics fits into all curriculum, and makes sense for steering the ship that is D150.
Attendance even declines in after-school (SES) programs as the year progresses. It is not taken seriously enough to make much difference.
Thank you, CJ, for allowing us to “type” (talk) this issue over.
When I was going to school, of course, there were no standardized tests. The ACT may have been around, but I certainly didn’t know about it or take it. The computer and the whole world of technology has made all this testing, analyzing, and blaming possible. Don’t any of you find it amazing that the United States produced many, many outstanding students who went on to successful careers, etc., without this testing craze? The lack of testing didn’t cause the decline of literacy, etc., and testing isn’t going to solve the problem either.
Of course, much of the problem lies in the fact that the United States is trying to educate more of the population that it did 50 to 100 years ago. Very few, maybe one or two, of the adults in my family (parents, aunts, uncles) finished high school, but all provided for their families. Certainly the slave population was not educated–for obvious reaons. Then when black children began to go to school, the schools were segregated and not the best and not mandatory. Few lob opportunities for high school or college grads existed for black young people and adults until the 1960s.
Anyone who thinks 50-60 years is enough time to erase all those roadblocks and attitudes is not being realistic. And now with the end of the factory system (and unskilled labor jobs being shipped out of the country), there aren’t enough jobs for those who were used to getting decent jobs without a high school education.
When are taxpayers going to wake up to the misuse of money through NCLB? Children are not being helped, but many fly-by-night companies are helping themselves to much taxpayer money–Teach is right.
Another thing I notice is that when I went to school, and again I am referring to parochial school, our teachers had 35 and 40 students and when we finished the year we all knew what was going on and had learned. They didn’t have a problem with large classes and we didn’t have Aides. Nowadays if a teacher has 20 students in their class they consider it a burden and need Aides. Now a lot of this I lay on lack of parental care. These children are not ready for school and are a handful for the teacher. And so many are quitting school at an early age with no education. They eventually have to take non-skilled jobs and when they lose them they have no education to even fill out an application let alone get a good job. No amount of money being spent by the government is going to bypass lack of parenting that is the precursor to good schooling. They are not being prepared for school.
Again, where is the “proof” that early childhood education is working in Peoria? It appears to be a babysitting program. Parents in pajamas dropping off their children, only to go back home to bed. How about making the parents stay and possibly learning how to “help” their child at home? By the time they reach me, it is hard to tell that they had ANY preschool and if they did, they obviously didn’t remember a thing they had been taught. Enough with the “preschool” babysitting project. If the district wants it, make the parent sit in there with their child or make it a two hour a day program where they have to come and pick them up in two hours instead of the WHOLE day. Have a morning and an afternoon session, that way more kids can get that “head start” that so many are lacking in D150.
The truth is that when I started teaching at Manual I, also, had large classes of over 30 and most of my students were successful academically. The change began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of the primary reasons is that many parents of Manual kids began to move away from the area–at first, not necessarily because of dissatisfaction with Manual, but because as parents become more financially able, they move to more affluent areas and nicer homes, etc. As the more motivated families moved away, more discipline problems developed at Manual (and no one did much to stop this trend). Gradually, anyone who could move away did. And here we are.
Many of the children of Manual’s successful students from the 1970’s and 1980’s became successes at Richwoods–or MHS’s successful students moved out of Peoria.
Movement out of Peoria is especially true of the growing middle class of African-American students. They found job opportunities away from Peoria.
Suburbia and private schools have pulled many good students out of our public schools, and the effect has been devastating.
Then, of course, well-paying, unskilled labor jobs at Caterpillar went away–surely you must all understand the devastating effect that has had on education in Peoria.
The reasons aren’t hard to comprehend; the solutions are elusive.
One of the biggest aspects of the current system that needs to be changed is using the performance of specific subgroups to determine whether a school is “adequate” or not. I think that all groups need to make progress, but it is unrealistic to expect children in special education classrooms to perform at or above grade level if their very disability indicates that they aren’t! For instance, a third grader who cannot read due to a mental impairment or learning disability is expected to perform at the same standard as his/her peers in regular division third grade, even if his/her reading level is measured to be at a first grade level. Seems (at least to me) to be contradictory to IDEA, the other educational law of the land…this process is the reason that several schools in Peoria didn’t make AYP this year. Their scores for the whole school were fine, but the scores from this subgroup of kids kept them from making AYP. Doesn’t seem fair to anyone, in my opinion…
Whats wrong with unrealistic expectations and teaching to a tests? Don’t businesses set lofty goals for themselves? I see nothing wrong with ‘failing’ most schools because most of them are failing. We can all cite the problems with it, but NCLB broke up an established system, started failing schools, and started requiring dramatic decision making based on the measures. You’ll never hear me say teaching to a test is ideal, but when the standard procedure is FUBAR you have to give NCLB some kudos of going in the right direction. For the most part IMHO it is the whiney educator’s unions criticizing the program for the most part, and I don’t hear many parents complaining it is interfering with their kid’s education.
I think the point is no one cares anymore… at least no one with any power to do anything about it.
I used to care… and then three successive inocmpetents are put in charge of District 150… I don’t know how many before… it doesn’t matter. Nothing changes… nothing ever will until the system collapses. You can’t fix it.
Band aids don’t cure cancer.
I don’t care any more.
“What standards should Illinois put in place to replace federal NCLB requirements and improve school performance?”
Illinois is approaching this from two angles:
1. Common Core Standards
2. MAP testing
common core establishes the standardized benchmark of subject instruction. map testing establishes the growth model against which a student’s annual progress along common core runs.
the focus on an individual school needs to be a subsidiary consideration of an individual’s growth during a school year. bring the individual growth up against the core benchmark in a year enough times along individual participants, and the school as a collective progresses equally.
NCLB could have been a good idea. First, J.C. is right about the subgroups. If the subgroups had been reported separately, school districts would not have had to yield to the temptation to teach to the test. The purpose of teaching to the test is not to help all students. The kids on whom the most time is spent are those on the border line who can be most easily “pushed over the line” so to speak.
DevilsAdvocate, are you sure that parents don’t complain about teaching to the test. Parents of children who can read at grade level should be complaining because their children are losing ground in other subjects such as science, social studies, the arts, etc. As an English teacher, my biggest complaint about the changes in the English curriculum is that literature is no longer an important part of the high school curriculum. Teaching to the test means reading material designed for reading tests–and that material is not good literature.
My major problem with NCLB is the major waste of money to taxpayers–also, money is spent on much that has little effect on the classroom. Just look at all the companies on which District 150 spends money looking for magic cures and so far none of those cures have worked. Kids are actually losing interest in reading because the testing material they are reading is boring.
This is hysterical – Everyone knows that the Educ Dept and OBummer signed onto this in order to appease the teacher’s unions – the last thing the teachers unions want is anything merit based. It was not by chance the Chicago Public Schools are first in line for a waiver. The teachers unions for the most part continue to lobby to effectively ruin education.
Uncle P–Signed onto what? Whoever would have been President in 2012 was going to have to shut down NCLB altogether or to some extent–having nothing whatsoever to do with teachers’ unions. By 2014 all schools were expected to meet NCLB AYP or be on warning and watch lists. Everyone knows that 100% compliance is impossible; the very best of America’s schools cannot meet that standard–not Dunlap, not Metamora, not Washington, not the Chicago suburbs, not schools without teachers’ unions. Pressure from the better schools and from the parents, etc., will shut down NCLB.
Don’t blame Uncle P for ignorance. After all, all he’s got is Fox News.
Friday
11:30 AM Board of Education Special Meeting
Anybody care to float a rumor as to what this meeeting is about?
a) hiring more “retired” consultants to help spend that $34 million
b) organizing a schedule for the BOE members to patrol the grounds at various schools
c) discuss how to complete the 2011-12 school year with no books
d) BOE taking applications from parents for the next payout on a lawsuit
e) BOE taking applications from employees for the next payout on a lawsuit
f) special training class for BOE members to become bus drivers for 58 school days
Any chance it is to form a committee to begin the search for yet another superintendent for PSD 150?
It’s to adopbt the tentative budget. Fact not rumor. Nor teachingrocksforbrains.
Please explain why D150 is jumping around like Snoopy about $34 million from the bankrupt state for legislation that is not finished which will come in which fiscal year?
Critical thinking skills seem to be absent from elected officials’ thought process.
Comedy not insults.
The special meeting Friday is listed as budget related.
Karrie, I’ve, also, been trying to figure out how the bankrupt state of Illinois is going to come up with $34 million. Dave Leitch certainly was at the meeting to bring the good news (and to take credit for it). Kennedy did caution several times that there is no guarantee when the money would be available.
teachingrocks
FUNNY!
The State of Illinois coming up with $34 million? Easy, remember they passed a Capital Projects bill for highways and schools and whatever else the Chicago campaign donors want for Cook County. Funds come from the extra $21 we’ve been paying last 2 years for renewed vehicle registration; extra $20 for renewing your driver’s license; video gambling machines in bars and other places (some counties opted out).
I’m sure other fees were raised for the new Capital Bill.
That’s not to say there is $34 million lying in the State Treasury waiting
for a check to be cut. If there was, it’s probably already gone for state payroll, so Dist. 150 may have to wait awhile for another cash influx to the Illinois Treasury before it comes to Peoria.
Man, why have I been so sarcastic lately?
Dennis: I thought that this was the capital bill tied to the video poker debacle where the State of Illinois is going to have a centralized video poker terminals to prevent illegal payouts …. hum consider the odds of that happening … not having illegal payouts in the State of Illinois …. ha ha … more comedy …. not.