Britt Robson wrote: > For those who are interested, here's a link to my own polemic > against NCLB. I'd love to engage any member of the list who wants > to rebut it--within a Minneapolis context, of course. > http://citypages.com/databank/25/1214/article11955.asp
I'll take this challenge. I haven't formed my opinion of NCLB with out a fair amount of thought and wouldn't be pontificating about it if I didn't think I could support my position. I will respond to what I feel are the most significant points, if you feel that I've been too selective just identify the issue you want me to respond to. City Page Article: > So it was quite a surprise last year when Dragseth received a > call from Minnesota Commissioner of Education Cheri Pierson Yecke, > informing him that Edina had been put on the state list of schools > that had failed to make "adequate yearly progress" under the terms > of the federal No Child Left Behind law. The reason? State records > showed that three of the 53 students categorized as "Asian/Pacific > Islander" in the Edina system had not taken the Minnesota Comprehensive > Assessments test, putting that subgroup below the 95 percent participation > level required by nclb. As it turned out, the three students had taken > the test--bureaucratic error was appealed in time to remove Edina from > the failure list. But Dragseth is still rankled by the experience. As I've outlined above the 95% requirement is important so that schools cannot easily ignore their minority populations. Maybe Edina is well intentioned and would never do such a thing, but I don't think that the same can be said for all public schools in the country. NCLB is designed for the entire nation and I don't believe that it is reasonable to rely on the good faith of all school districts. You might argue that Edina was placed on the list only because of an error and such action is unjustified, but anyone with extensive management experience knows that "errors" are often not as unintended as you might imagine. And besides, this one was corrected and Edina was taken off the list. > There are significant consequences in Yecke's petty decision to > emphasize bureaucratic procedure over credible test results. As > the auditor's report points out, putting schools and districts on > a failure list can have a negative effect "on parents' perceptions > of schools (and their enrollment decisions), on the morale of school > staff, and on the NCLB sanctions to which schools are subject." Well gee, of course the "failure list" has negative consequences that's the whole idea. It is not clear from this article whose error this was and the article also doesn't make it clear that schools have the ability to challenge a listing before the list is finalized. > Under its most optimistic scenario for student improvement--which > assumes, among other things, that the state's percentage of special > education and immigrant students won't continue to grow, and that > brand-new immigrants can boost their test scores just as rapidly as > native-born Minnesotans--the auditor's office estimates an 82 percent > failure rate on AYP for elementary schools in 2014, and the restructuring > of 35 percent of the schools funded by Title I. > But there are no provisions in the NCLB law to accommodate these > "value-added" performance measurements. Instead, the performance > of the students occupying a school on the test-taking day this year > is assessed against the performance of the students occupying the school > on the test-taking day last year. These measurements requirements are not immutable. You wouldn't expect Red McCombs to move the Vikings because he didn't have a good running back, why trash the only national public school accountability program because it needs adjustments to its measurement formulas? > The upshot is that approximately 90 percent of a school's special > education students are still being required to take the same tests > and achieve the same level of proficiency and participation as every > other subgroup. Otherwise, under NCLB, their school will be placed > on the state's failure list. Although I don't know the exact breakdown by disability, is it unreasonable to assume that paraplegic student couldn't perform as well on reading and math tests as a normal student? Anyway, I believe that the Feds have already made adjustments for special education students and if not they can tweak these rules as well. > The NCLB guidelines on limited English proficiency students are less > egregious but still unreasonable. By definition, those in the LEP > subgroup are unlikely to score well on reading tests. At first, > NCLB would have counted the test scores of LEP students who had > just arrived in the country and bumped others out of the subgroup > as soon as they passed the language proficiency assessment, which > is less challenging to immigrants than the reading tests. > But research has demonstrated that it can take anywhere from four > to 11 years for most LEP students to master English. This is an indictment of contemporary bilingual programs, not NCLB. The goal of NCLB is for school districts to find effective instructional methods and not limp along with existing ones. Once again adjustments can be made where necessary. > The required proficiency rates for math and reading will inexorably > climb over the next decade until, in 2014, we arrive at the theoretical > endgame, where the only options are failure and perfection. Again, this can be changed without changing the basic structure of the law. > As part of its commitment to NCLB for fiscal year 2004, Congress > authorized $18.5 billion in federal Title I funds, specifically > designed to assist the impoverished students Paige invoked in his > speech. But Paige's boss, President Bush, requested just $12.3 billion > of that money in his budget. This an argument that really frustrates me. 1) States should already be financing regular testing. 2) Schools should already be financing tutoring for failing students. 3) At least in Minnesota there is existing financing for bussing students to other schools. Lots of legislative financing is adjusted after the fact. > During last year's session of the Minnesota Legislature, > Yecke's boss, Governor Tim Pawlenty, cut $185 million > from the education budget, the first real-dollar reductions > education has suffered in modern state history. This is a State issue and is not related to NCLB. > Which begs the question: Who is going to foot the bill > for this cornerstone of the Bush administration? Actually, since most of the functions of NCLB should already be budgeted by school districts, the question should be one for the State's support for public education and not a criticism of NCLB. > Now that NCLB is at a stage where schools and districts across > the country are beginning to contend with the law's first remedial > sanctions, many state legislators, researchers, and education > officials are growing nervous that they will be saddled with huge > costs from an unfunded federal mandate, as they already are in the > case of special education. This is nothing more than fear mongering. The Tribune reported a few weeks ago that far fewer schools were listing as failing to make adequate progress than had been predicted by opponents of NCLB. > William Mathis, a superintendent of a Vermont school district > near Rutland and a senior fellow of the Vermont Society for > the Study of Education, has analyzed studies from 18 different > states, which project the costs of raising test scores to meet > either the requirements of NCLB or their own state standards. > Nearly all of them reveal that, even with the assistance of > federal Title I money, states would need to raise their > education budgets more than 20 percent to raise student > performance across the board. This argument assumes that there will not be any adjustments made to NCLB. > Here in Minnesota, the auditor's report noted that it was too > early in the NCLB process to make any detailed predictions > about the law's fiscal impact, but pointedly added that it > was "quite plausible" that its costs would exceed its funding. Right. It is "quite plausible" that we will all die in an accidental exchange of nuclear weapons, but it doesn't mean that we will. This is responsible journalism? Looks more like editorial bias to me. Michael Atherton Prospect Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 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