The Hypocrisies of the Southern School Teacher/Administrator, No Athlete Left Behind, and No Child Smarter than George W.
If you are a Blue Monkey reader than I am going to assume that you intelligent enough to know your issues, and when it comes to education there is no hotter issue that “No Child Left Behind.” If you know nothing about this please stop now, consult any major news source, and come back once you have learned the key points.
Virginia, I am pleased to say, seems to be ahead of most other states in meeting federal mandates. We currently test K-12 in the four core areas: Math, English, Science, and History. This creates a plethora of problems that I’d like to address, including how school teachers and administrators are dealing with the new law, how the law is affecting our students and our budget, and my proposal for leaving no child behind.
Instead of being politically active and learning as much as possible about the law it seems to me that most administrators and teachers are more focused on achieving these lofty goals than getting to the crux of the problem: This law is a one size fits all education package and simply will not work because our children are not all one size. Keep in mind that in just a few years Mr. Bush and his goons think that 100% of students can pass any standardized test that is placed in front of them. Many Bush supporters within the school system sing his praises for “raising the standards” and “helping our schools achieve” but he’s doing just the opposite...and they are running away from raising the standards, as I will illustrate later. From what I can remember of high school our teachers were interested in teaching us critical thinking, writing, problem solving, etc. With the Standards of Learning (ironically dubbed the “SOLs”) that is no longer possible. Teachers are required to teach facts that will show up on the standardized test, and there are few ways around just teaching facts. Students are graduating from high school not knowing how to fill out a job application, write a resume, solve a dilemma, etc. How does that help our youth?
This brings me to the next point, if this legislation is designed to help our students learn then why has our drop out rates increased? In our school if a students does not pass a certain number of SOL tests then they are denied their diploma…the get frustrated and drop out…wait…didn’t we just leave that student behind? Not to mention that this has become some sort of sick numbers game within many school districts. Fortunately my high school hasn’t sunk this low yet, but in other VA schools there are reports of administrators blocking under achievers from taking the test for the purpose of raising the test scores…oh my…it looks like we just left yet another group of students behind! To support a standard that you know is unachievable and then to play with lives of children just to eek out the numbers for the politicians is more immoral, in my opinion, than allowing homosexuals to have a legal union!
I’ve already mentioned how the administrators are becoming masters of number twisting, but how are the students reacting? Our county has a policy for athletes that are as follows: any athlete must have both 5 classes and passing grades in at least 3 of them, which would mean something if the policy was enforced. Instead some administrators ask teachers for passing grades so that the star can play in the game. Sometimes no one checks athlete’s grades, which sends the message to the students that “Academics aren’t really important as long as you can throw a ball.” The students, as slow as some of them are, know this fact very well and extort anyone they can because of it. These students thusly fail the SOL tests. What angers me the most is what I am about to say, keeping in mind that athletics are such a large part of just about any public high school that no one would ever think to cut the sports programs.
Because of “No Child Left Behind” our school is losing funding. The budget cuts happen because of multiple things, but the reason that we lost a majority of our funding this year is that enrollment dropped…a lot…the schools did not have “highly qualified teachers” in accordance to “NCLB” (which is absurd, one of my good friends and probably one of the best math teachers at our school is not “highly qualified” yet does a fine job) and did not meet the pass rate set for the year. Due to this fact parents moved or sent their children to other schools.
Due to the budget crunch, this year my allowance for classroom materials breaks down to about $5 per student. Now it wouldn’t be a big deal for maybe a history or math teacher who can require that all students bring just the basic school supplies to class…but I teach music! Instrument repairs, sheet music, music stands, uniforms, media (no text books for me so I have to buy CDs and DVDs and photo copy anything else), etc. The art teacher was given the same amount. Now I know that some of you out there don’t understand the importance of arts education, and I will spare my soap box speech for now, I’m just trying to make the point that our schools are so under funded that we can’t buy construction paper and paint for the art classes without fundraising. I just want to make two points about why it is brainless to cut arts education programs just because students can’t pass a science test: 1. Research suggests a high correlation between arts education and achievement on standardized tests, and 2. Anyone that has studied multiple intelligence theory knows that some students just are not good at anything but music (or art). I peg this budget crisis directly on the federal government, schools that don’t achieve LOSE funding, it’s like swimming up to someone who is drowning and pushing their head under, and that’s just sick man. Enough of my arts education lobbying, lets get back to the matter at hand.
Finally I would like to challenge Mr. Bush and his cabinet (whoever is left anyway) to take the VA SOL tests. I think that they should make his score the minimum passing score for each test. Lowering the standards is the only answer, baring major reform to the law, to having 100% pass rate (statistically a monkey could at least get a 2%, right?). That might just be the only way to get all of the kids to pass it and TRULY leave no child behind.
*Just one side note: funding for arts education has been cut for years now, this is not a new problem, yet it is getting worse due to the NCLB Act and budget cuts. One bit of bitter sweet news, I read an article in my professional journal just the other day that said the Bush administration is looking to officially add music as a core class (sweet...more funding)........they will also be working to create a standardized test for it (bitter).
Comments
One of the best discussions of NCLB that I've seen. Standardized testing has been growing in this country for many years, since well before Bush II. It's a solution to a problem that has been created in political campaigns, and it makes sense to everyone except to the teachers who have to teach to the test.
Posted by: Blue Monkey | November 17, 2004 12:06 AM
Are the standardized tests given now dramatically different from the ones given during the '80s and '90s? None of the standardized tests I ever took required a need to memorize "facts" of any kind. What they tested was precisely skills like critical thinking, reading comprehension, etc. Unless the entire nature of these tests has changed suddenly, I don't understand the argument that requiring students to score well on these tests requires teachers to "just teach facts" rather than critical thinking, problem solving, etc.
Posted by: Clint | November 17, 2004 8:43 PM
I seem to recall reading about a bean-counter working for a TV studio who hung around the set of a TV series looking for ways to save money. He reported that the director should stop asking the actors to do so many takes -- that was why the budgets for TV were so high!
I'm not sure why this image pops into my mind... perhaps because I'm responding to Clint's question about testing. There are some things that tests are good at measuring. I think all teachers teach to the test to some extent... but when you're teaching to someone else's test, you're more conscious of the corners you cut and the spoon-feeding you do.
While I think many of the education students I've taught are bright and studious, because they are ed students first and English majors second, I get the feeling that they are simply trying to "get by" in my class. After all, their thinking seems go go, does an elementary ed student really need to evaluate Shakespeare at *that* level?
Again, I find most of the ed students to be studious and eager to do well; they ask for help, they point out when my syllabus is vaugue, they turn in drafts early... they are a pleasure to have in the class because they recognize the value of the exercises and activities that may seem like busywork to students who aren't familiar with pedagogy. But a pleasant class isn't always an intellectually challenging one... they tend to choose "safe" paper topics, and while I am often "pleased" by their work, I am rarely surprised or challenged. Maybe I just need to learn how to teach education students...
I don't have a solution, of course... but my point is that, compared to the creative writing majors and journalism majors and lit majors, who can be somewhat more bohemian and passion-driven, the ed students who are trying to finish a five-year program in four years just don't have the time to invest their intellectual energies in their major courses, since they have to perform to fit into what seems (to me, as an outsider) to be a cookie-cutter job description.
In my "Seminar in Thinking and Writing" class, we have had several good discussions about who is to blame when students fail to learn. Several students complained about bad teachers, but a few education majors took the daring approach to blame students for their own failures.
Is it fair to say that if teachers are teaching to the test, then they are not good teachers? As I learn more about NCLB, I see that the funding and administrative pressures are similar to those that I see affecting the ed students in my classes -- that is, the need to succeed within the system takes so much of their energies that taking a shortcut seems more attractive.
Again, I speak as an outsider. As a college faculty member, I have a great amount of control over my syllabus. I can adjust it so that I teach my strengths, and I can adjust the testing (when I do test, which is only in literature survey courses) so that I test students on what I teach well, not on what someone else says they are supposed to know.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz | November 18, 2004 12:13 AM
Clint,
Thanks for the comment. The tests have indeed changed dramatically. Here is an example of a World History SOL test question: "Who was Alexander the Great's teacher?" Keep in mind that ninth graders take this test. This type of question is not testing general knowledge, it's testing facts...and somewhat obscure ones at that. Also these tests don't ever factor in student effort (one of my husband's students handed in the test after 5 minutes!), nor does the test factor in attitude, discipline, etc. If we are going to have tests that mean this much to a school then we have to look at all of the variables and not just peg the failure on the teachers. We do our job, we plan lessons, assign homework, assess...but if the students don't care it doesn't mean anything.
Posted by: ChesterArthur | November 18, 2004 10:51 PM