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Why "No Child Left Behind" Does Not Work for our Schools: An Editorial Review of the University of Illinois-Sponsored NCLB Forum on January 28th, 2006 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Brenda Koenig
Email: bakoenig (nospam) sbcglobal.net (unverified!) |
30 Jan 2006
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What is going on in today's public classroom is this: the opportunity for teachers to open children's minds and create lifelong thinking skills is being systematically and surgically removed by educational bureaucrats, politicians and administrators under the reform banner of "No Child Left Behind". |
What I remember most about high school wasn't the high-spirited cross-country meets, the battle of the U2 cover bands at assemblies or my white-knuckled first drivers-ed outing. What I remember most occurred during a single forty-minute sophomore English class.
On that day, Ms. Shrock, always a bit flamboyant in her purple flowing scarves, strode across the room, turned off the lights, and lifted the needle onto a Laurie Anderson record called "O Superman". A few kids snickered at first, but soon we were all wrapped in a kind of silent trance induced by a single oboe note played over and over again. Anderson sang/chanted through a kind of digital "voice transformer" that made her sound like some disconnected robot. She sang: So hold me Mom, in your long arms, in your automatic arms, your electronic arms. In your arms.
For a few minutes, I was baffled. How could this musician/artist combine two such different ideals, motherhood and electronic machinery, into a single statement? What did this metaphor mean? And then I understood: she was making a critical statement about American society, about our movement away from human caring and toward a more impersonal, virtual nurturing. For me, it was an awakening into a world where words connected to something much deeper, more critical than anything I had read that year in our heavy dog-eared English text. Suddenly I understood that art, literature and music could make people think in new ways about their world. And it could also criticize the world in order to change it. And furthermore, I wasn't being told this in a lecture or assignment, I was being led to this experience, exposed without obligation or incentive, and it sunk in and changed my life.
I understand now that this is what the best teachers do; they lead students to make their own discoveries. And these discoveries are the most worthwhile because they carry life-long benefits. I was the first person in my family to attend college. Not necessarily because my English teacher played a Laurie Anderson record, but because I was given the opportunity to peek into a new world, and I liked what I saw. I participated in school-sponsored poetry workshops through visiting artist programs, I signed up for model United Nations, I petitioned for better softball uniforms for the girls' team, I went away to college and studied overseas my junior year. And when I won a fellowship to graduate school, I called up Ms. Schrock and left a cryptic message in Laurie Anderson language that I had created with a digital sampler because I was too shy to speak the tribute myself.
I wonder how many people have similar stories; teachers who handed them the opportunity to open their minds?
I wonder how many of today's public school children will have such stories in twenty years, and am terrified to think that perhaps not many will. I wonder who will be left to write novels, argue judicial cases, paint, play music, and think. Perhaps only those fortunate to have been born into families that can opt out of public school. And that scares me.
What is going on in today's public classroom is this: the opportunity for teachers to open children's minds and create lifelong thinking skills is being systematically and surgically removed by educational bureaucrats, politicians and administrators under the reform banner of "No Child Left Behind". I attended a forum this past weekend on the topic of "Making No Child Left Behind Work for Schools" at which one of the featured presenters (all of whom were administrators, bureaucrats, or University policy specialists) admitted that he was regrettably too occupied to actually visit a real classroom! Indeed, not a single voice on the panel or speakers list was a current teacher, the person most involved in making "No Child Left Behind" work!
From the not-so-quiet whispers in the teacher’s lounges at my children's schools to the National Education Association, most teachers know exactly what is going on in the classroom and they don't like it. Not because they are power-mongers, but because they know how children learn best, how to reach children who may seem unreachable and how to ignite a humane love of learning. By emphasizing test preparation and standardized scores and creating a stressful, impersonal and competitive "high-stakes" environment, NCLB effectively eliminates any support for teachers who use child-centered learning practices, project-based curriculum, or any other hands-on teaching method that cannot be immediately and efficiently translated into a test score. That means no time-wasting field trips. No artists in residence, except on brief occasions. No literature discussions. No playing records in the dark.
At one of my children's schools, there is a literature program called "Great Books" staffed by volunteer parents. This program encourages children to read stories and then discuss these stories with their peers. In order not to pre-empty valuable test-aligned curriculum time, these discussions can only take place during the lunch hour. When our small school is lucky enough to host an artist/musician/storyteller, this person is encouraged to only visit during music or art time, in order not to disturb valuable test-preparation time. When the school community wished to invite a mobile planetarium show to come, the principal agreed on condition that it visit only after the state-wide assessments had been completed, during the final eight weeks of the school year. A teacher confided in me that they had to eliminate their poetry-writing unit in order to focus on extended response practice for the tests. She also told me that extended response practice puts her students to sleep, no matter how exciting she tries to make it. Evidently, anything that truly makes school interesting, exciting and fun is questioned. And this is at a school that makes annual yearly progress (AYP) goals. Imagine the limitations at schools with poorer track records.
NCLB supporters will claim that all this sacrifice is in the best interests of our nation, that focus needs to be on those children that historically have been neglected, those not making the grade. And of course they are right about the need to focus on these children. Yet the dropout rate of lower socio-economic status children is at record high. Clearly, pushing a test-aligned curriculum isn't igniting their fires. These children need to have a reason to stay in school, and hours of test-prep and mandatory "after-school" tutoring sessions will only make things worse.
Children need more than basic skills. They need the chance to become motivated learners. They need the chance to be nurtured, to be loved. Education is not a business, a computer game, or a military operation. But to NCLB advocates, with their power-point presentations and their charts and spit-shined loafers and double-breasted suits, it is all this and more. So hold me Mom, in your long arms, in your automatic arms, your electronic arms. In your long arms. |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Re: Why "No Child Left Behind" Does Not Work for our Schools: An Editorial Review of the University of Illinois-Sponsored NCLB Forum on January 28th, 2006 |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
28 Feb 2006
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Your math skills may be excellent, but your English skills give you away everytime.... |
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Re: Why "No Child Left Behind" Does Not Work for our Schools: An Editorial Review of the University of Illinois-Sponsored NCLB Forum on January 28th, 2006 |
by happy mom
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Mar 2006
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Sorry, but I like my child learning the Illinois learning standards. I'm glad that teachers have a curriculum and that I know what is being taught. My daughter's teachers love her and she has fun. sorry about your school. |
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Re: Why "No Child Left Behind" Does Not Work for our Schools: An Editorial Review of the University of Illinois-Sponsored NCLB Forum on January 28th, 2006 |
by area teacher
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Mar 2006
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Teachers do not object to teaching to standards and having aligned curriculum is important, but for most of us working in the trencheds NCLB is a nightmare-the pressure from above is unrelenting and stultifying . It has lead to canceled field trips and enormous amounts of time doing "test prep." Scores may be going up, but many students do not have exciting days at school and those of us who think outside the test box often do it in the face of opposition from our supervisors. |
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Re: Why "No Child Left Behind" Does Not Work for our Schools: An Editorial Review of the University of Illinois-Sponsored NCLB Forum on January 28th, 2006 |
by Kat Becker
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 May 2006
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How else can we evaluate students' skills without tests? American students are pathetically behind other nations in Math and Science, but hey they at least "feel good." |
