NCLB Got Us Rolling

Now we need to do something about it.  My main take on NCLB is that it was a way to show in a powerful and public way how many schools are failing to do what they were thought to be doing.  (I specifically did not say "failing", because that word is loaded and requires unpacking:  It is one thing to fail because you weren't able to do a job that you should have been able to do, it is another thing to fail to do a job it wasn't possible for you to do.)

I think most educators in relevant schools, or familiar with the data already out there for decades knew this was true, and the reasons why.  But NCLB made it public, and forced the public's hand on education-as-a-right.  At the same time, however, in trying to bring upwards, punitive pressure to low-performers (read mostly low-SES, across - but also within - schools), it also brought downwards pressure to high-performers, in the form of lowest-common-denominator, one-size fits all curriculum and teaching to the test, etc.

I think it's illustrative to look at the very title of the act from a philosophical point of view.  "No Child Left Behind" places laser-like emphasis on those kids who had previously been glossed over.  It represents a dramatic clarion call to a larger educational philosophy that is not about intervention but inspiration and a love of learning. 

30 years ago, when I was in kindergarten, I'm not sure there was any pencil-paper work at all.  We were given access to rich materials, encouraged to play imaginatively, learned cooperative songs and generally explored the classroom.  That Kindergarten no longer exists.  There is a scripted, mandated curriculum that is all about phonics, rote memorization, and discipline.  The difference is that while the former model worked fine for me and my middle class peers, it was catastrophic for disadvantaged children, who lacked the social resources at home to fill out what was not explicitly taught in school.  Research shows that more structured academic skill building - surprise - really improves results.  But what you lose is the other side of the spectrum, where critical thinking, student-centered, collaborative and exploratory learning is thrown out, or relegated to the odd teacher who is able to actually pull it off despite the prescribed curriculum.

And so you have this clash of philosophies playing out over a range of socio-economic demographics.  Inner-city parents are being pushed into hyper-structured, factory-style learning because given budgetary realities, with one teacher and 30 students (a large percentage needing intervention), that's what gives you the most bang for your buck.  Meanwhile middle class parents are freaking out because the state has now mandated this model across the board, and school has become even more drudgerous (as if that were even possible). 

We're just now dealing with the fallout of a massive sector of the economy that is routinely and systematically failing to do what we want it to do.  Yet it is less that the schools are getting worse, we are just getting better at quantifying the achievement gaps that had always existed.  We just weren't all that concerned about it.  I mean, Jaime Escalante started teaching in 1974.  1974!!! 

The "war on poverty" was just getting rolling.  For instance, the classic study that Hart & Risley did on SES and early childhood language development wasn't even completed until into the 1980's, when A Nation at Risk came out.  While in some ways that report's recommendations have yet to be fully implemented (the extension of the school day and year - being the biggest - would require considerable increases in funding), the report is laughably naive in its suggestions for correcting the real differences in SES achievement.

I think it was just a matter of the data building and building, but we've finally gotten to the point where we realize how important a quality education is.  We don't have to guarantee it.  I think that's a moral question masquerading as a philosophical one. But until we do, nothing will really happen.  We can fiddle around and fool ourselves into thinking if we just find the right way to do what we're doing better we'll ever "leave no child behind".  We might do a bit better here or there for a while.  But we won't come close until we dramatically rethink what we want education to be in society, and seriously ask ourselves how important that goal really is.

(And the Flaming Lips new album, "Embryonic" is amazing...)

Obama's Marginal Plans for Education Reform

Obama's plan for education overhaul was announced today, the NY Times calling it "sweeping overhaul".

While it does seem to address some of the negative aspects of NCLB, it doesn't get us anywhere the real reform required to actually achieve the stated goal "that all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career."
Some highlights:

• replace NCLB's pass/fail school grading system, instead measuring individual students, attendance, graduation rates and something called "school climate"
• more vigorous interventions in failing schools
• more incentives for performance

Obviously, these are basically window dressing on the same failed approach we have always taken.  While NCLB is tightened up around the edges, there is no real accounting for the vast differences between demographic populations in terms of the role socio-economic status plays in educational achievement.

Instead, it's the same old model: take 30 students from every walk of life, give them one teacher, and with a heaping dose of accountability and incentives expect to attain the goal of a quality education as civil right for every child.  There is no emphasis on the vast differences in both human and social capital that are a fundamental part of creating a successful student.

No surprise then, that the teachers' unions aren't supportive.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said of the proposal, “This doesn’t make sense.....From everything that we’ve seen, this blueprint places 100 percent of the responsibility on teachers and gives them zero percent of the authority."

Teachers in failing schools are being asked to a job that simply is not possible to do, but are then blamed when the result is failure.  No wonder then that their advocates are upset with a continuation of a plan that promotes them as scapegoats for society's failure to come to grips with its own socioeconomic structural dysfunction.

The Conveyor belt

NYTimes has a piece on efforts to preemptively target at-risk kids. We all know that by the time many hit kindergarten and the larger system they're already way behind. Over the summer I read Meaningful Differences , by Betty Hart and John Risley, which detailed their study of how family interaction between the ages of 1.5 and 3 impacts cognitive and language development, putting lower SES (socio-economic-status)* kids at least a good 2 years behind upper SES peers.

From the times:

The American social contract has always identified public schools as the one place where the state can and should play a role in the process of child-rearing. Outside the school’s walls (except in cases of serious abuse or neglect), society is seen to have neither a right nor a responsibility to intervene. But a new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide between school and not-school is out of date. It ignores, they say, overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environments on children’s achievement. At the most basic level, it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle-class peers. There is evidence that schools can do a lot to erase that divide, but the reality is that most schools do not. If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more.

The piece makes it sound as if Obama's people have an ear to this stuff. An interesting point made was that there isn't any natural consituency for this area, like there is with unions, or the environment. Its basically people looking at poverty from (usually) the outside and intervening.

Speaking of unions, the piece mentioned the fact that charters are often non-union, and gave an example of one. Some proponents of school reform often point to this element of the charter movement as a good thing. I'll agree that it may often be, but as a teacher at a non-union school in a poor area, in which we are put in the position of effecting intensive interventions on a daily basis, the lack of representation, while possibly stimulating of best practices, also has many negative aspects. The wall between leadership and staff is quite rigid, and staff are generally in constant fear of rocking the boat. Performance-based employment is great if you have good leadership. But what happens when it is out of touch, negligent, or downright hostile? As for evaluation, it is a completely one-way street, with teachers having little say in the decision making process schoolwide, and none whatsoever in the performance of the administration.

Anyway, back to the piece. At the very least I think a renewed national debate about how to actually effect change in poor schools/neighborhoods will be good. NCLB was a good slap in the face, but now comes the more difficult task of taking a good look at what the roots of poverty really are, and what role government, via schools, etc. needs to play.

*edit: You know, I want to know what my SES status is. I've looked for an index but never found one. I kow there are a lot of factors, such as education and income potential. But I'd like something concrete!