NCLB: Act II

Five years after NCLB was enacted and the Secretary of Education says some states "still have issues" with implementing the current accountability system. Will there ever be any accountability for this EdSec in her utter failure to ensure full implementation of the law.

Simple answer: Never. Or rather, Congress won't answer the question this year--too much is at stake politically. Look for them to punt this year and take it up in 2009.

The Public Schools have never been at risk. They have, however, been continually placed at risk by unwarranted reforms supported by poorly substantiated evidence. Those who don't read will always be victims of those who don't read.

Hmmm, thought you might appreciate this quote from a reviewer of the SAT in "The Ninth Mental Measurements Yearbook" (1985), p363: "One fact in the Handbook is newsworthy because of the furore about the 'decline of SAT' in self-selected samples: Norms for the preliminary SAT for representative high-school juniors show no downward trend from 1960 to 1983." The Sandia report later affirmed this. The issue was not a question of performance by students in the public schools. This issue was the ever changing pools of students in the Public Schools. And, still, the best predictor of college success continues to be High School GPA. This leads to the obvious question: Why have standardized tests continued to fail to adequately describe students' performance in the Public Schools? More importantly, why are the endless reforms based on standardardized testing?

Please don't use grade inflation as an excuse. The research simply doesn't support that notion.

Margaret Spellings opposes anything that prevents African Americans from reading at grade level. Humm? Does a war budget leave African American students behind?

But, seriously, Secretary of Education Spellings took a politically correct position saying in effect to the Black Caucus that she was for black students achieving.

But, I think she was misleading by using the words "reading at grade level" in reference to the administration's policies.

What is reading at grade level? Is it all students performing the same? Is it an average or above average score on a standardized test? If the test is accurate 49% taking the test will score below average and 49% above. A policy that would allow all African Americans to reach reading at grade level would be a test that by defintion is not correctly normed. It is interesting to note that nowhere in No Child Left Behind is there mention of grade level. At least the misleading concept of reading at grade level was left behind when NCLB passed.

I would like to add to my comments that what we need is a panel to evaluate reform initiatives. Most, like the "A Nation at Risk" report simply doesn't measure up to standards.

Should one of my students have submitted that report to me, I would have given it back. The report has no citations. It is nothing more than a narrow consensus of a predetermined agenda, absent the valadity of rigorous examination of data.

And, nothing has changed except the Public School teachers continue to get burdened with empty reform initiatives that hinder all students, particularly those of color.

And, the United States is still the number one super power with an alleged Public School System going to hell in a handbasket. What's wrong with this picture?

The only reform needed in the Public Schools would be State Panels empowered to dismiss substandard reports. This would ensure unwarranted and largely unattainable enactments like NCLB never become law.

The truth is no other profession, particularly the legal and medical quarters, guarantees the outcome. The objective is to provide conditions through which the best outcomes may ensue.

No clients and no patients left behind. Neither the legal nor the medical quarter would tolerate the notion of guaranteeing the outcome. And, these quarters have far more control over their conditions than does education. Likewise, NCLB largely, if not entirely, compromises that comparable objective in the education quarter.

Hmmm... One reform might be to place reformers in the classroom with their reforms. And, when their objectives aren't met, reformers get to stay in the classrooms until their objectives are met. Or, until they acknowledge that it's time for them and their reforms to get out of the classrooms. I predict the latter would happen rather quickly.

We don't need reform. We need a revolution: The Articles of Independence from substandard reports that continually lead to harm in our Public Schools.

What are we going to do about our special ed population? Requiring a child that has a below ave IQ to pass the state test (MEAP) is self defeating. I would like to see some people from the sate and fed. to come and administer these tests to our children and see first hand what it is like for them.