Bush's "No Child Left Behind" - The Grandgrind Method
Last week, I was taking the Lexington Avenue bus downtown in the late Manhattan afternoon for some Christmas shopping when I noticed a group of exhausted kids in the back of the bus, their faces pinched and drawn, carrying enormous backpacks filled with books and homework that might have killed a Tennessee mountain mule.
These kids were not returning home from a tin mine; they were coming home from school. As the father of two adult sons I haven't paid much attention to kids lately, but this group got me thinking, particularly now that I have a pre-school granddaughter whom I adore. Why do kids look so worn out and weary today? I spoke with a neighbor who has two small children in school, and she told me that their homework often kept them at their studies until ten or eleven at night, and that meant she had to be there for them, long after her own work day had ended. Then we started to discuss the "No Child Left Behind" program instituted by our Bush-brained government.
The stated intention of this program was to change the culture of America's schools by closing the achievement gap, producing report cards on progress so that even the underachieving students and schools in the worst neighborhoods met certain government standards. Because of the NCLB program, children must now pass new uniform tests with schools and teachers liable to be discredited if the students don't do well. This program was designed to provide every child with a basic education, certain fundamental reading and math skills, all in the hope of manufacturing a better American worker for the digital age. Whew! I sigh with relief that I am older and never had to face this program as a kid. Yes, I know that standardized tests have always been there. While growing up I had to endure the Regents Exams and the SAT's, but I also had teachers who were free to tailor their teaching to their student's needs, rewarding originality as well as high test scores. Like virtually all of the programs enacted by this administration NCLB doesn't work, unless you fudge the results, as the Bush administration does so well. It could work, if like George Bush, every child came from a wealthy family with important business and government connections that could assure preferential treatment for admission to the best colleges, and good jobs for those who possess a few imbedded facts, a minimum level of literacy, and an incapacity for rational thinking. .
What Bush's NCLB has done has been to impose an insupportable burden on the dangerously overcrowded and underfunded public school system in America, all in the name of helping the children of the poor, without actually helping to change the living conditions which so contribute to their failure rate. God save us all from such helpers. Worst of all it has imposed that greatest burden on all our beleaguered children. They are overworked and under-stimulated at the time of life when we learn more from discourse than by memorizing, when we learn from the pleasure that comes from exploring our own possibilities: practicing the arts, playing wild games (as distinguished from organized sports) and by not turning the world into a set of flash-card facts and winners and losers. A truly child-concerned program would include Civics courses so that every child knows how government works, thus nobody would ever vote for the likes of a George Bush again and have such educational programs imposed upon young lives. We might even produce the creative adults that we need for our future. Yes, there is factual information that a child must have to move forward in the world, but I don't for a moment believe that improved test scores will make for a better educated or more productive society. It is an Orwellian way to regulate minds, train children for robotic future jobs, rather than learning for the living of a better life. Does a hand-made education sound elitist? Utopian? Sure it does, but education is elitist and utopian or it is not education. It must be tailor made, one size cannot fit all, otherwise it is not education; it is regimentation. Our hope is to raise children with a love for learning because learning can be a joyful experience, right up there with sex and rap and iPods and computer games. Expensive? Undoubtedly. Hard to accomplish? Certainly. But there is no short-cut to the educated mind. Most of all there is no cheap quick fix for the problems facing our schools. It will cost for smaller class sizes and better paid, better prepared teachers, but nowhere near as much as a year in Bush's bottomless war. When we invade the public schools as we invaded Iraq with some Bushian fantasy we have those unintended consequences of educational casualties, creative children who are left behind. This learning by testing is the educational version of those missing WMDs, the product of a willful ignorance. You only need to read Charles Dickens "Hard Times" and you will see the NCLB method as practiced by Mr. Grandgrind, that horror of sadistic educational practice. It was Grandgrind who famously said, "Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted today."
We need provocative kids who probe and poke and question, debaters who become creators. Argument and writing are keys to any education - and the heavy backpack filled with a million pounds of facts is the enemy to thought and a love of learning. It seems evident that some of the most creative children are being left behind by this No Child Left Behind policy which fails to accommodate that most precious of childhood qualities - the imagination, something that often survives in spite of, rather than because of such programs. The 19th century Brits created a school model that guaranteed the misery of a childhood education. After attending an Eton or a Harrow a child had been so brutalized, and had learned to brutalize others, so that nothing in later life could seem quite as awful as early school years. Indeed, the survivors such as George Orwell often reminisced in memoirs about the beatings and the ice cold baths and the wretched food. Well, we have made some progress since those days. But No Child Left Behind is our 21st century form of beating education into a child who is filled with infinite possibilities for thought and creativity, the creativity that keeps a society moving ahead. It's time we show some of the mercy to children that we show to ourselves, not only for our children's sake but for our future as a country. We can start by getting rid of Mr. Bush's unintelligent design for education based upon the infamous Grandgrind method. And for God's sake lighten those backpacks.
Full Version: Bush's "No Child Left Behind" - The Grandgrind Method
Community-based Education would best fit our constitutional democracy. It is too often resisted because it promotes
community integration. Reforming goverment and education requires a strong committment to democratic values and
an open society.
community integration. Reforming goverment and education requires a strong committment to democratic values and
an open society.
QUOTE(Noonan @ Dec 26 2006, 01:28 PM) 
Bush's "No Child Left Behind" - The Grandgrind Method
The stated intention of this program was to change the culture of America's schools by closing the achievement gap, producing report cards on progress so that even the underachieving students and schools in the worst neighborhoods met certain government standards. Because of the NCLB program, children must now pass new uniform tests with schools and teachers liable to be discredited if the students don't do well. This program was designed to provide every child with a basic education, certain fundamental reading and math skills, all in the hope of manufacturing a better American worker for the digital age.
What Bush's NCLB has done has been to impose an insupportable burden on the dangerously overcrowded and underfunded public school system in America, all in the name of helping the children of the poor, without actually helping to change the living conditions which so contribute to their failure rate.
It is an Orwellian way to regulate minds, train children for robotic future jobs, rather than learning for the living of a better life. Does a hand-made education sound elitist? Utopian? Sure it does, but education is elitist and utopian or it is not education. It must be tailor made, one size cannot fit all, otherwise it is not education; it is regimentation.
The stated intention of this program was to change the culture of America's schools by closing the achievement gap, producing report cards on progress so that even the underachieving students and schools in the worst neighborhoods met certain government standards. Because of the NCLB program, children must now pass new uniform tests with schools and teachers liable to be discredited if the students don't do well. This program was designed to provide every child with a basic education, certain fundamental reading and math skills, all in the hope of manufacturing a better American worker for the digital age.
What Bush's NCLB has done has been to impose an insupportable burden on the dangerously overcrowded and underfunded public school system in America, all in the name of helping the children of the poor, without actually helping to change the living conditions which so contribute to their failure rate.
It is an Orwellian way to regulate minds, train children for robotic future jobs, rather than learning for the living of a better life. Does a hand-made education sound elitist? Utopian? Sure it does, but education is elitist and utopian or it is not education. It must be tailor made, one size cannot fit all, otherwise it is not education; it is regimentation.
The Shrub didn't invent this. In fact, Ted Kennedy and a number of other liberal policy makers had a hand in it. White affluent American families are reluctant to share resources needed by schools in less affluent communities. The Shrub's hand in this is to discredit public schools from less afluent communities and "privatize" them. American conservatism has this article of faith that the private sector can always do things more efficiently than the public sector. Education at all levels, public and private, has become business. The corporate mindset of managing public perceptions is invading and occupying the classroom. Educational administrators now have career tracks similar to those of corporate managers. Fewer amd fewer educational policy makers have had actual teaching experience in a classroom. Teaching and providing direct service to students has been relegated to an educated underclass. Students are indeed being regimented and trained to be become part of a compliant, cheap, and disposable labor force.
The best recourse that parents have is to help their kids work the system to get the credentials, but also rely on home schooling and "alternative" educational programs that are free to help kids discover a love of learning. Education has become a grind because of corporate hype about upward social mobility with more education. Quality of life and greater social interest in community are not commodities that can be manufactured and marketed by corporations.
One size fits all is a nice slogan, but it offers little in terms of an education policy. This is what you get with No Child Left Behind. A one size fits all approach when the educational needs of our children and our society are as diverse as our population.
Some may say why does it matter that the gifted children are left behind. After all, they are gifted. Well, diversity comes in all shapes and sizes and public schools benefit from having gifted children. Also, often gifted teachers like to teach gifted children. NCLB leaves little incentive for these teachers to participate in public schools where they do not teach, but rather they indoctrinate students on the best methods to take a multiple choice test.
The Gifted Children Left Behind
By Susan Goodkin and David G. Gold
Monday, August 27, 2007; A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2600909_pf.html
With reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda as Congress returns from its recess, lawmakers must confront the fact that the law is causing many concerned parents to abandon public schools that are not failing.
These parents are fleeing public schools not only because, as documented by a recent University of Chicago study, the act pushes teachers to ignore high-ability students through its exclusive focus on bringing students to minimum proficiency. Worse than this benign neglect, No Child forces a fundamental educational approach so inappropriate for high-ability students that it destroys their interest in learning, as school becomes an endless chain of basic lessons aimed at low-performing students.
These predictable problems were reported as early as 2003, when the Wall Street Journal warned that schools were shifting their focus overwhelmingly toward low achievers. Expressions of concern from distressed parents and educators of gifted children have come in increasing numbers ever since.
No Child is particularly destructive to bright young math students. Faced with a mandate to bring every last student to proficiency, schools emphasize incessant drilling of rudimentary facts and teach that there is one "right" way to solve even higher-order problems. Yet one of the clearest markers of a nimble math mind is the ability to see novel approaches and shortcuts to attacking such problems. This creativity is what makes math interesting and fun for those students. Schools should encourage this higher-order thinking, but high-ability students are instead admonished for solving problems the wrong way, despite getting the right answers. Frustrated, and bored by simplistic drills, many come to hate math.
Talented writers fare no better in language arts education. Recently, a noted children's author recounted her dismay when fifth-graders attending one of her workshops balked at a creative writing exercise. She was shocked to learn that the reluctant writers were gifted. The children, however, had spent years completing mundane worksheets designed for struggling classmates and thus rebelled at an exercise they assumed would be yet another tedious worksheet.
One suggested revision to address these concerns is "growth modeling," which tracks the progress of all students, including those already scoring above proficiency. But as long as No Child requires that every student reach proficiency by 2014 and it continues to focus only on grade-level material, teachers will lack incentives to appropriately educate students who can master their grade's curriculum well before spring testing. Nor will growth modeling prompt schools to provide an enriching curriculum that goes beyond the basics.
The response of many parents to this situation was summed up succinctly by one of our numerous friends, colleagues and family members who have pulled their children from neighborhood schools: "We've learned that the real solution is called 'private school.' "
Perhaps if more policymakers sent their children to public schools they would address these unintended but disastrous consequences of No Child. Rather than trying to rectify this situation, however, many politicians advocate a voucher program that would only encourage more parents to desert public education.
Some politicians justify vouchers with the Orwellian claim that taking money from public schools to pay private tuition will improve the public schools by forcing them to compete for students. This claim is absurd given the uneven playing field between public and private schools.
Most obviously, private schools can reject any student who would require extra time from teachers. Thus it is left to public schools to handle children with behavior problems or severe learning impairments, and non-English speakers. Until private schools receiving vouchers are required to accept all applicants, vouchers simply allow them to cherry-pick public school students, giving them an insurmountable competitive edge.
Ironically, the private schools to which President Bush and his allies are so anxious to hand public funds are also exempt from the standardized testing these politicians declare to be the critical measure of educational success. Private schools need not impose upon their students the drudgery of preparing for and taking weeks of standardized tests and can offer an enriching curriculum beyond the basics without worrying about No Child sanctions. Given these one-sided constraints, no one could honestly claim that vouchers do anything but drain resources from the public schools this act was supposed to improve.
In adopting the No Child law, Congress finally addressed the shameful neglect of students in failing schools, particularly inner-city schools. Now it must address the fact that the requirements it imposed are driving away many of the concerned and involved parents critical to our ailing public school system.
Susan Goodkin is executive director of the California Learning Strategies Center, an education think tank. David G. Gold is a lecturer and consultant on strategic issues in negotiation
Some may say why does it matter that the gifted children are left behind. After all, they are gifted. Well, diversity comes in all shapes and sizes and public schools benefit from having gifted children. Also, often gifted teachers like to teach gifted children. NCLB leaves little incentive for these teachers to participate in public schools where they do not teach, but rather they indoctrinate students on the best methods to take a multiple choice test.
The Gifted Children Left Behind
By Susan Goodkin and David G. Gold
Monday, August 27, 2007; A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2600909_pf.html
With reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda as Congress returns from its recess, lawmakers must confront the fact that the law is causing many concerned parents to abandon public schools that are not failing.
These parents are fleeing public schools not only because, as documented by a recent University of Chicago study, the act pushes teachers to ignore high-ability students through its exclusive focus on bringing students to minimum proficiency. Worse than this benign neglect, No Child forces a fundamental educational approach so inappropriate for high-ability students that it destroys their interest in learning, as school becomes an endless chain of basic lessons aimed at low-performing students.
These predictable problems were reported as early as 2003, when the Wall Street Journal warned that schools were shifting their focus overwhelmingly toward low achievers. Expressions of concern from distressed parents and educators of gifted children have come in increasing numbers ever since.
No Child is particularly destructive to bright young math students. Faced with a mandate to bring every last student to proficiency, schools emphasize incessant drilling of rudimentary facts and teach that there is one "right" way to solve even higher-order problems. Yet one of the clearest markers of a nimble math mind is the ability to see novel approaches and shortcuts to attacking such problems. This creativity is what makes math interesting and fun for those students. Schools should encourage this higher-order thinking, but high-ability students are instead admonished for solving problems the wrong way, despite getting the right answers. Frustrated, and bored by simplistic drills, many come to hate math.
Talented writers fare no better in language arts education. Recently, a noted children's author recounted her dismay when fifth-graders attending one of her workshops balked at a creative writing exercise. She was shocked to learn that the reluctant writers were gifted. The children, however, had spent years completing mundane worksheets designed for struggling classmates and thus rebelled at an exercise they assumed would be yet another tedious worksheet.
One suggested revision to address these concerns is "growth modeling," which tracks the progress of all students, including those already scoring above proficiency. But as long as No Child requires that every student reach proficiency by 2014 and it continues to focus only on grade-level material, teachers will lack incentives to appropriately educate students who can master their grade's curriculum well before spring testing. Nor will growth modeling prompt schools to provide an enriching curriculum that goes beyond the basics.
The response of many parents to this situation was summed up succinctly by one of our numerous friends, colleagues and family members who have pulled their children from neighborhood schools: "We've learned that the real solution is called 'private school.' "
Perhaps if more policymakers sent their children to public schools they would address these unintended but disastrous consequences of No Child. Rather than trying to rectify this situation, however, many politicians advocate a voucher program that would only encourage more parents to desert public education.
Some politicians justify vouchers with the Orwellian claim that taking money from public schools to pay private tuition will improve the public schools by forcing them to compete for students. This claim is absurd given the uneven playing field between public and private schools.
Most obviously, private schools can reject any student who would require extra time from teachers. Thus it is left to public schools to handle children with behavior problems or severe learning impairments, and non-English speakers. Until private schools receiving vouchers are required to accept all applicants, vouchers simply allow them to cherry-pick public school students, giving them an insurmountable competitive edge.
Ironically, the private schools to which President Bush and his allies are so anxious to hand public funds are also exempt from the standardized testing these politicians declare to be the critical measure of educational success. Private schools need not impose upon their students the drudgery of preparing for and taking weeks of standardized tests and can offer an enriching curriculum beyond the basics without worrying about No Child sanctions. Given these one-sided constraints, no one could honestly claim that vouchers do anything but drain resources from the public schools this act was supposed to improve.
In adopting the No Child law, Congress finally addressed the shameful neglect of students in failing schools, particularly inner-city schools. Now it must address the fact that the requirements it imposed are driving away many of the concerned and involved parents critical to our ailing public school system.
Susan Goodkin is executive director of the California Learning Strategies Center, an education think tank. David G. Gold is a lecturer and consultant on strategic issues in negotiation
Congressman Offers Revisions to 'No Child'
Proposal Would Lessen Some Penalties
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 29, 2007; A08
The leading House Democrat on education issues proposed revisions yesterday to the No Child Left Behind law that would ease the penalties for public schools that barely miss academic testing targets but tighten another rule that has helped the District and Virginia.
U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and a leading sponsor of the law in 2001, called his proposal a work in progress. He and three other committee members were floating the ideas as they move toward introducing a bill likely to contain major changes to the controversial law. Miller has said he wants to move a bill through the House of Representatives next month.
The proposal would allow states to use more than annual tests in reading and math to rate schools; give credit to states for students who are projected to reach proficiency within three years; and require states to test certain students with limited English skills in their native language. For some schools that fall only slightly short of academic targets, the proposal would also lift requirements to provide after-school tutoring and let students transfer to better schools.
In addition, Miller proposed strengthening a rule that requires test scores to be reported separately for groups of students identified by ethnicity, race, family income and other factors. Currently, Maryland reports separate scores for groups in a given school if there are at least five students in the demographic category. D.C. schools report scores from all groups with at least 40 students in a given school, and Virginia sets the threshold at 50 students.
The proposal would require scores to be reported -- and achievement raised -- for all demographic groups with at least 30 students in a school. That could make it harder for Virginia and D.C. schools to reach academic targets.
The proposal also endorsed allowing states to rate schools based on the progress of individual students, rather than comparing, for example, this year's third-graders with last year's. That would build on a trial "growth-model" accountability program the Bush administration recently launched.
"The recognition throughout the educational community of the value of measuring how schools do with individual students over time is both striking and encouraging," said Thomas Toch, co-director of the D.C.-based think tank Education Sector.
Nina S. Rees, former head of the U.S. Education Department's Office of Innovation and Improvement in the Bush administration and now senior vice president of the tutoring provider Knowledge Universe Education, said the proposal would keep tutoring and parental-choice requirements for schools that missed targets by a wide margin but "ultimately reduce the number of schools that have to offer those options to families."
Miller's draft also puts new emphasis on high school dropouts, proposing resources to help schools with the lowest graduation rates have "data-driven decision making, improved curriculum and instruction, personalization of the school environment, staff collaboration and professional development and individualized student supports," according to a summary of the plan.
In another shift, Miller would relax accountability rules, allowing the use of more than test scores to rate schools. Other measures of progress, the summary said, could include "graduation rates, dropout rates, college-going rates, percentages of students successfully completing end-of-course exams for college preparatory courses" and improvement in the performance of the worst and best students in a school.
The law requires annual testing in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school. Although many critics of No Child Left Behind promote multiple measures of school performance, some backers of the law have expressed doubts about changes that would reduce the urgency of raising standardized test scores for all students, including the disadvantaged.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2801762_pf.html
Proposal Would Lessen Some Penalties
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 29, 2007; A08
The leading House Democrat on education issues proposed revisions yesterday to the No Child Left Behind law that would ease the penalties for public schools that barely miss academic testing targets but tighten another rule that has helped the District and Virginia.
U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and a leading sponsor of the law in 2001, called his proposal a work in progress. He and three other committee members were floating the ideas as they move toward introducing a bill likely to contain major changes to the controversial law. Miller has said he wants to move a bill through the House of Representatives next month.
The proposal would allow states to use more than annual tests in reading and math to rate schools; give credit to states for students who are projected to reach proficiency within three years; and require states to test certain students with limited English skills in their native language. For some schools that fall only slightly short of academic targets, the proposal would also lift requirements to provide after-school tutoring and let students transfer to better schools.
In addition, Miller proposed strengthening a rule that requires test scores to be reported separately for groups of students identified by ethnicity, race, family income and other factors. Currently, Maryland reports separate scores for groups in a given school if there are at least five students in the demographic category. D.C. schools report scores from all groups with at least 40 students in a given school, and Virginia sets the threshold at 50 students.
The proposal would require scores to be reported -- and achievement raised -- for all demographic groups with at least 30 students in a school. That could make it harder for Virginia and D.C. schools to reach academic targets.
The proposal also endorsed allowing states to rate schools based on the progress of individual students, rather than comparing, for example, this year's third-graders with last year's. That would build on a trial "growth-model" accountability program the Bush administration recently launched.
"The recognition throughout the educational community of the value of measuring how schools do with individual students over time is both striking and encouraging," said Thomas Toch, co-director of the D.C.-based think tank Education Sector.
Nina S. Rees, former head of the U.S. Education Department's Office of Innovation and Improvement in the Bush administration and now senior vice president of the tutoring provider Knowledge Universe Education, said the proposal would keep tutoring and parental-choice requirements for schools that missed targets by a wide margin but "ultimately reduce the number of schools that have to offer those options to families."
Miller's draft also puts new emphasis on high school dropouts, proposing resources to help schools with the lowest graduation rates have "data-driven decision making, improved curriculum and instruction, personalization of the school environment, staff collaboration and professional development and individualized student supports," according to a summary of the plan.
In another shift, Miller would relax accountability rules, allowing the use of more than test scores to rate schools. Other measures of progress, the summary said, could include "graduation rates, dropout rates, college-going rates, percentages of students successfully completing end-of-course exams for college preparatory courses" and improvement in the performance of the worst and best students in a school.
The law requires annual testing in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school. Although many critics of No Child Left Behind promote multiple measures of school performance, some backers of the law have expressed doubts about changes that would reduce the urgency of raising standardized test scores for all students, including the disadvantaged.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2801762_pf.html
August 29, 2007
No kidding
Dr Tanya Byron has decided not to make any more TV parenting programmes. She tells our correspondent why, and explains how her new book encourages parents to trust their own instincts
Tanya Byron
Image :1 of 8
Carol Midgley
In the foreword to her new book Dr Tanya Byron says something rather unexpected. The parenting industry, she declares, is marketing a “simplified and unrealistic view of parenting”. The raft of books and television programmes that has sprouted from the modern preoccupation with the “right” way to rear a child is not helping but increasingly disempowering parents. They are becoming overwhelmed and confused by a burgeoning industry that is presenting the most instinctive human function — raising one’s offspring — as a combination of easy tips and techniques to be learnt like a five times table. The genre, she seems to be saying, is a monster spinning out of control.
But hang on a minute. As the country’s leading child psychologist and parenting guru with two acclaimed television series and three books under her belt, didn’t Dr Byron help to create this monster? At her home in North London, where we meet to discuss her latest book, Your Child . . . Your Way (another parenting book but with a difference), her answer is unhesitatingly “yes”.
“I would never duck out and say from some sort of clinical ivory tower, ‘Look at all this that’s going on now and it’s all terrible’,” she says. “I am part of the genre. I was one of the first people who did it on telly, so I have a degree of responsibility for that genre.” And this is why she has come to a decision. She will not make any more television programmes about parenting. It is a surprising and possibly, I suggest, rash statement given that she is at the height of her marketability and could, to put it crudely, make a mint if she decided to cash in on her media brand. But her mind is made up. “It was just a sense for me that the way the genre is going I didn’t really want to continue to be a part of it,” she says.
Before she says any more there is one thing about which she wants to be emphatic. In no way, she says, is she critical of the BBC or the production teams with whom she made House of the Tiny Tearaways and Little Angels and whom she describes as “brilliant” and “hugely responsible”. She wants to be crystal-clear that she is proud of those programmes.
But some of the TV shows that bred on the back of its success (despite much encouragement from me she refuses to name names) she is not so comfortable with. “There are other programmes you do see which are either run by people with no training or it’s completely car-crash telly and you think ‘How did that family end up on TV because they so shouldn’t be there?’ ” she says. “And that’s when I do start to think ‘Oh God, where is this going?’ ” It is obvious talking to Dr Byron that there are many reasons behind her career decision. Two of them are running around in the back garden — her daughter, Lily, 12, and son, Jack, 9. “I don’t think it’s that easy for my children to be the children of Dr Tanya Byron,” she says. “They haven’t expressed it, but if I become the parenting guru for the rest of time . . . it’s intrusive for them. And because their father is so well-known — well, we’re very private in that way.” Dr Byron’s husband is the actor Bruce Byron, who plays DC Terry Perkins in The Bill, so the children have two parents whose faces are instantly recognisable. But I imagine that Dr Byron is more concerned that if she sets herself up as the TV expert who tells others how to parent, then, by implication, they might feel public pressure to be “perfect” kids. And no child deserves that.
But she dismisses my rather mercenary question about whether she is worried about killing the golden goose. “If I ever thought I set out just to want to make a shed-load of money I think I’d be really appalled at myself,” she says. “I came at this because I’m a clinician and you remain grounded because you remember where you’ve come from. If you lose where you’ve come from you also lose your integrity and respect.” Besides, she says, some parenting programmes, in their perpetual quest to offer something fresh and exciting, are veering towards just entertainment with little benefit for the children involved.
You can say that again. You don’t have to be a psychologist to feel queasy at some of the stuff we now see on television. Dr Byron may be too diplomatic to identify specific programmes but I am not. One that stood out as particularly distasteful was I Smack and I’m Proud, an ITV production in which parents boasted of their iron discipline by hitting their children in front of the camera. If this kind of thing is now a part of the genre then I can see why she wants no part of it. In any case her message seems to be that parents should trust their own instincts more and not rely on one-size-fits-all rules from a parenting manual that might not suit their own individual child.
Which brings us to Dr Byron’s new book. At a time when neurotic, competitive parents are increasingly hung up on strict bedtime routines, potty training, eating and myriad other aspects of toddlers’ “ideal” behaviour, reading it is a blessed relief.
The book differs from other parenting titles in that in its second half it tells the reader straight that no amount of manuals will help if there is a fundamental problem with their — the parents’ — attitude. It asks parents to consider some home truths about themselves and what issues they might be projecting on to their child. The second half is partly an appeal to stop obsessing about being perfect parents, use more of our natural common sense and, most of all, to enjoy our children — not turn them into a mathematical problem to be solved. We are overcomplicating the most primitive human relationship.
Here’s an example. She wonders why some parents are so preoccupied with pushing their children into potty training perhaps before they are ready. “Early bladder and bowel training is not an indication of a future place at Oxford University,” she writes, and “How many 15-year-olds do you see in nappies?”
Ditto parents who are overly anxious about their child’s eating. Put yourself in their shoes, she says, and next time you’re having a meal, get a friend to peer into your face, repeatedly mop it with a fragranced wipe and see how you like it. Most pleasing to me as a passionate dissenter of Gina Ford’s methods is her declaration, both as a mother and a child psychologist, that she isn’t comfortable with rigid routines for newborn babies. You should feel able to lift them when they cry at night and fall asleep on your chest, says Dr Byron. You need to get to know each other, to establish a bond before setting precise routines. “The young baby should not be viewed as a task but as a new, precious and bewildered little human being,” she writes.
The first half of the book is a more practical guide with advice, for example, on how to deal with tantrums, how to gradually introduce bedtime routines, sensible toilet training and encouraging small children to eat. But it differs from traditional parenting books in that its standpoint is showing the parent how to really make it work, effectively “combining thinking and emotion”.
“In this age of information about parenting what really strikes me as a clinician is how people seem more confused than they were before,” she says. “I think that’s possibly because the emphasis is on technique, and parenting — well, life, actually — isn’t about a series of techniques; it’s about a dynamic that exists between two people.” She has written this book for those parents who have bought every manual available and still feel confused and a failure.
“You can buy every book on the planet but if you don’t believe you’re a good parent and don’t believe your child is capable of being a lovely child . . . none of it will work. I’ve yet to meet a child, apart from kids with very specific neurological problems, whose problems are totally located within them and divorced from the context which they are in. But that’s not about blame. When you work systemically you take a view that any individual’s problems are representative of difficulties within the system, ie, the family, the school setting etc . . . sometimes it’s not about doing a new thing but shifting a perspective.”
There are some basic psychological principles of behaviourism “but fundamentally the only way they will work positively is if you adapt them towards you and your child”. Spending just a few hours in the Byrons’ home, you realise what a genuinely happy, grounded family they are. Dr Byron has her own upbringing partly to thank for that. Her parents loved each other very much and she was fantastically close to her father, the film, stage and TV director John Sichel, who died two years ago, an event that left her devastated. Tragically, Sichel’s own mother was murdered when Dr Byron was 15, which was, obviously, extremely traumatic for the family. But he was a great believer in positive thinking and this has rubbed off on both his children (Dr Byron has a sister, Katrina, a television director).
“My father was a very emotional man, very charismatic; he was a real proponent of the notion of self-belief,” Tanya says. “His coping strategy was understanding that it’s how you think about something that will really impact on how that thing goes. He had this great optimism, a can-do, why-not-have-a-go attitude.
“When I think about my upbringing I think that’s the key. It’s probably informed who I am.” Indeed, self-belief is the key to the book in many ways, so it is a great shame that Sichel isn’t here to see what is in part the fruit of his philosophy. “I’m really sad that he’s not alive to read it. I’m desperately sad that he’s not alive to see how his grandchildren are growing; they are both fantastic grandchildren. But I’ve sort of got to the stage in my grief where I can accept that he’s not here but that he still lives on, if you know what I mean.”
Sichel would no doubt approve of his daughter following her own instinct and walking away from the media juggernaut to protect the integrity of her first love, clinical psychology, which she says will always be her priority and which she will never give up.
She will, however, make different types of television programmes as a psychologist. She will also continue in her clinical work, and answer readers’ psychological questions in times2. Later in the year she presents a series of BBC Two documentaries, Am I Normal?, which explores the extremes of human behaviour, and she has also co-written a comedy series with Jennifer Saunders, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle, to be broadcast in October and satirises the chat-show, pop psychology in programmes such as The Jeremy Kyle Show. She feels very strongly that programme-makers should be responsible for the people they feature. On Tearaways not only was there an independent childcare committee, but all the families were screened by professionals. The ones they didn’t take on were given advice and sometimes Dr Byron would write to their GP. The Tearaways producers, she says, became like her clinical team. “They really understood as TV executives that they were coming into my world rather than bringing me into theirs. But I don’t think a lot of productions understand that.”
She tells me about a father of a child she sees in her clinic who had pushed his son into potty training too early, resulting in terrible soiling problems. Most of the work she ended up doing was with the father who, it turned out, had always felt inadequate as a child. His parents had separated when he was young and he had never been made to feel quite good enough. “When that man stood there and looked at his little boy every piece of unresolved and painful experience in his life was triggered by his son struggling to potty-train,” she says. “It was all about projection.” The problem is that you will create exactly the child you don’t want to create, she says — one who feels a failure, that they have let you down. “It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Not all parents, of course, suffer from such problems but Dr Byron says that her book is for those who perhaps do; those who have tried everything but still something is wrong. “I have parents who come to my clinics who just cry,” she says. “I say ‘Tell me something you enjoy about being a parent’ and they say ‘Nothing. I always feel I’ve failed.’ And you feel so sad for them.” But her worry generally is that with all the emphasis on theory we risk losing the sense of joy in bringing up our children. “Why do people think that anything as important and complex and intimate and intricate as bringing up a child is going to be simple?” she says. “How do you get to that point? It’s such a dangerous belief to have.”
As the book says, the relationship between parent and child is the most primitive, the most natural, the most amazing of all relationships. Why don’t we just relax and enjoy it?
Finally, I ask whether being a psychologist has made her a better mother. She is quick to say that despite knowing all the so-called “techniques”, she still struggles at times. She remembers herself and her husband being exhausted when their daughter had a sleep problem as a baby but, even as a qualified professional, she felt unable to implement all the “right” methods because they didn’t feel instinctively right for her — reassuringly, she says, emotion can cloud rationality even for those with the training to “know better”.
Besides, she doesn’t want to raise her kids purely by using psychological techniques, so they become “compliant little people with no spark of personality, no ability to say ‘NO!’ ” She wants parents to have the courage to just let their child be when it feels right, without worrying about what others say. “Being a practitioner hasn’t made me a better mother,” she says, “but being a mother has made me a better prac- titioner.”
— Your Child . . . Your Way by Dr Tanya Byron, Penguin, £10.99. Available for £9.89 from Times BooksFirst, 0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/booksbuyfirst
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_an...icle2341758.ece
No kidding
Dr Tanya Byron has decided not to make any more TV parenting programmes. She tells our correspondent why, and explains how her new book encourages parents to trust their own instincts
Tanya Byron
Image :1 of 8
Carol Midgley
In the foreword to her new book Dr Tanya Byron says something rather unexpected. The parenting industry, she declares, is marketing a “simplified and unrealistic view of parenting”. The raft of books and television programmes that has sprouted from the modern preoccupation with the “right” way to rear a child is not helping but increasingly disempowering parents. They are becoming overwhelmed and confused by a burgeoning industry that is presenting the most instinctive human function — raising one’s offspring — as a combination of easy tips and techniques to be learnt like a five times table. The genre, she seems to be saying, is a monster spinning out of control.
But hang on a minute. As the country’s leading child psychologist and parenting guru with two acclaimed television series and three books under her belt, didn’t Dr Byron help to create this monster? At her home in North London, where we meet to discuss her latest book, Your Child . . . Your Way (another parenting book but with a difference), her answer is unhesitatingly “yes”.
“I would never duck out and say from some sort of clinical ivory tower, ‘Look at all this that’s going on now and it’s all terrible’,” she says. “I am part of the genre. I was one of the first people who did it on telly, so I have a degree of responsibility for that genre.” And this is why she has come to a decision. She will not make any more television programmes about parenting. It is a surprising and possibly, I suggest, rash statement given that she is at the height of her marketability and could, to put it crudely, make a mint if she decided to cash in on her media brand. But her mind is made up. “It was just a sense for me that the way the genre is going I didn’t really want to continue to be a part of it,” she says.
Before she says any more there is one thing about which she wants to be emphatic. In no way, she says, is she critical of the BBC or the production teams with whom she made House of the Tiny Tearaways and Little Angels and whom she describes as “brilliant” and “hugely responsible”. She wants to be crystal-clear that she is proud of those programmes.
But some of the TV shows that bred on the back of its success (despite much encouragement from me she refuses to name names) she is not so comfortable with. “There are other programmes you do see which are either run by people with no training or it’s completely car-crash telly and you think ‘How did that family end up on TV because they so shouldn’t be there?’ ” she says. “And that’s when I do start to think ‘Oh God, where is this going?’ ” It is obvious talking to Dr Byron that there are many reasons behind her career decision. Two of them are running around in the back garden — her daughter, Lily, 12, and son, Jack, 9. “I don’t think it’s that easy for my children to be the children of Dr Tanya Byron,” she says. “They haven’t expressed it, but if I become the parenting guru for the rest of time . . . it’s intrusive for them. And because their father is so well-known — well, we’re very private in that way.” Dr Byron’s husband is the actor Bruce Byron, who plays DC Terry Perkins in The Bill, so the children have two parents whose faces are instantly recognisable. But I imagine that Dr Byron is more concerned that if she sets herself up as the TV expert who tells others how to parent, then, by implication, they might feel public pressure to be “perfect” kids. And no child deserves that.
But she dismisses my rather mercenary question about whether she is worried about killing the golden goose. “If I ever thought I set out just to want to make a shed-load of money I think I’d be really appalled at myself,” she says. “I came at this because I’m a clinician and you remain grounded because you remember where you’ve come from. If you lose where you’ve come from you also lose your integrity and respect.” Besides, she says, some parenting programmes, in their perpetual quest to offer something fresh and exciting, are veering towards just entertainment with little benefit for the children involved.
You can say that again. You don’t have to be a psychologist to feel queasy at some of the stuff we now see on television. Dr Byron may be too diplomatic to identify specific programmes but I am not. One that stood out as particularly distasteful was I Smack and I’m Proud, an ITV production in which parents boasted of their iron discipline by hitting their children in front of the camera. If this kind of thing is now a part of the genre then I can see why she wants no part of it. In any case her message seems to be that parents should trust their own instincts more and not rely on one-size-fits-all rules from a parenting manual that might not suit their own individual child.
Which brings us to Dr Byron’s new book. At a time when neurotic, competitive parents are increasingly hung up on strict bedtime routines, potty training, eating and myriad other aspects of toddlers’ “ideal” behaviour, reading it is a blessed relief.
The book differs from other parenting titles in that in its second half it tells the reader straight that no amount of manuals will help if there is a fundamental problem with their — the parents’ — attitude. It asks parents to consider some home truths about themselves and what issues they might be projecting on to their child. The second half is partly an appeal to stop obsessing about being perfect parents, use more of our natural common sense and, most of all, to enjoy our children — not turn them into a mathematical problem to be solved. We are overcomplicating the most primitive human relationship.
Here’s an example. She wonders why some parents are so preoccupied with pushing their children into potty training perhaps before they are ready. “Early bladder and bowel training is not an indication of a future place at Oxford University,” she writes, and “How many 15-year-olds do you see in nappies?”
Ditto parents who are overly anxious about their child’s eating. Put yourself in their shoes, she says, and next time you’re having a meal, get a friend to peer into your face, repeatedly mop it with a fragranced wipe and see how you like it. Most pleasing to me as a passionate dissenter of Gina Ford’s methods is her declaration, both as a mother and a child psychologist, that she isn’t comfortable with rigid routines for newborn babies. You should feel able to lift them when they cry at night and fall asleep on your chest, says Dr Byron. You need to get to know each other, to establish a bond before setting precise routines. “The young baby should not be viewed as a task but as a new, precious and bewildered little human being,” she writes.
The first half of the book is a more practical guide with advice, for example, on how to deal with tantrums, how to gradually introduce bedtime routines, sensible toilet training and encouraging small children to eat. But it differs from traditional parenting books in that its standpoint is showing the parent how to really make it work, effectively “combining thinking and emotion”.
“In this age of information about parenting what really strikes me as a clinician is how people seem more confused than they were before,” she says. “I think that’s possibly because the emphasis is on technique, and parenting — well, life, actually — isn’t about a series of techniques; it’s about a dynamic that exists between two people.” She has written this book for those parents who have bought every manual available and still feel confused and a failure.
“You can buy every book on the planet but if you don’t believe you’re a good parent and don’t believe your child is capable of being a lovely child . . . none of it will work. I’ve yet to meet a child, apart from kids with very specific neurological problems, whose problems are totally located within them and divorced from the context which they are in. But that’s not about blame. When you work systemically you take a view that any individual’s problems are representative of difficulties within the system, ie, the family, the school setting etc . . . sometimes it’s not about doing a new thing but shifting a perspective.”
There are some basic psychological principles of behaviourism “but fundamentally the only way they will work positively is if you adapt them towards you and your child”. Spending just a few hours in the Byrons’ home, you realise what a genuinely happy, grounded family they are. Dr Byron has her own upbringing partly to thank for that. Her parents loved each other very much and she was fantastically close to her father, the film, stage and TV director John Sichel, who died two years ago, an event that left her devastated. Tragically, Sichel’s own mother was murdered when Dr Byron was 15, which was, obviously, extremely traumatic for the family. But he was a great believer in positive thinking and this has rubbed off on both his children (Dr Byron has a sister, Katrina, a television director).
“My father was a very emotional man, very charismatic; he was a real proponent of the notion of self-belief,” Tanya says. “His coping strategy was understanding that it’s how you think about something that will really impact on how that thing goes. He had this great optimism, a can-do, why-not-have-a-go attitude.
“When I think about my upbringing I think that’s the key. It’s probably informed who I am.” Indeed, self-belief is the key to the book in many ways, so it is a great shame that Sichel isn’t here to see what is in part the fruit of his philosophy. “I’m really sad that he’s not alive to read it. I’m desperately sad that he’s not alive to see how his grandchildren are growing; they are both fantastic grandchildren. But I’ve sort of got to the stage in my grief where I can accept that he’s not here but that he still lives on, if you know what I mean.”
Sichel would no doubt approve of his daughter following her own instinct and walking away from the media juggernaut to protect the integrity of her first love, clinical psychology, which she says will always be her priority and which she will never give up.
She will, however, make different types of television programmes as a psychologist. She will also continue in her clinical work, and answer readers’ psychological questions in times2. Later in the year she presents a series of BBC Two documentaries, Am I Normal?, which explores the extremes of human behaviour, and she has also co-written a comedy series with Jennifer Saunders, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle, to be broadcast in October and satirises the chat-show, pop psychology in programmes such as The Jeremy Kyle Show. She feels very strongly that programme-makers should be responsible for the people they feature. On Tearaways not only was there an independent childcare committee, but all the families were screened by professionals. The ones they didn’t take on were given advice and sometimes Dr Byron would write to their GP. The Tearaways producers, she says, became like her clinical team. “They really understood as TV executives that they were coming into my world rather than bringing me into theirs. But I don’t think a lot of productions understand that.”
She tells me about a father of a child she sees in her clinic who had pushed his son into potty training too early, resulting in terrible soiling problems. Most of the work she ended up doing was with the father who, it turned out, had always felt inadequate as a child. His parents had separated when he was young and he had never been made to feel quite good enough. “When that man stood there and looked at his little boy every piece of unresolved and painful experience in his life was triggered by his son struggling to potty-train,” she says. “It was all about projection.” The problem is that you will create exactly the child you don’t want to create, she says — one who feels a failure, that they have let you down. “It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Not all parents, of course, suffer from such problems but Dr Byron says that her book is for those who perhaps do; those who have tried everything but still something is wrong. “I have parents who come to my clinics who just cry,” she says. “I say ‘Tell me something you enjoy about being a parent’ and they say ‘Nothing. I always feel I’ve failed.’ And you feel so sad for them.” But her worry generally is that with all the emphasis on theory we risk losing the sense of joy in bringing up our children. “Why do people think that anything as important and complex and intimate and intricate as bringing up a child is going to be simple?” she says. “How do you get to that point? It’s such a dangerous belief to have.”
As the book says, the relationship between parent and child is the most primitive, the most natural, the most amazing of all relationships. Why don’t we just relax and enjoy it?
Finally, I ask whether being a psychologist has made her a better mother. She is quick to say that despite knowing all the so-called “techniques”, she still struggles at times. She remembers herself and her husband being exhausted when their daughter had a sleep problem as a baby but, even as a qualified professional, she felt unable to implement all the “right” methods because they didn’t feel instinctively right for her — reassuringly, she says, emotion can cloud rationality even for those with the training to “know better”.
Besides, she doesn’t want to raise her kids purely by using psychological techniques, so they become “compliant little people with no spark of personality, no ability to say ‘NO!’ ” She wants parents to have the courage to just let their child be when it feels right, without worrying about what others say. “Being a practitioner hasn’t made me a better mother,” she says, “but being a mother has made me a better prac- titioner.”
— Your Child . . . Your Way by Dr Tanya Byron, Penguin, £10.99. Available for £9.89 from Times BooksFirst, 0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/booksbuyfirst
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_an...icle2341758.ece
No student left behind
There Is A Growing Concern Among Teachers Over The Process Of Social Passing
Allison Hanes
National Post
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Failure was not an option for a group of seven remedial students who joined a Grade 8 core French class at a Toronto middle school last year. According to the teacher, the seven were part of a program for students who had fallen far behind their peers, and even though they were reading at between a Grade 3 and Grade 6 level, their "transfer" to high school this fall was already guaranteed.
The group's progress in the French class illustrates both the hopes and frustrations of teachers charged with employing a concept called social passing, which is the promotion of students from one grade to the next regardless of whether they have met the requirements of the curriculum.
One girl, with the support and encouragement of her parents, earned the second-highest mark in the class.
On the opposite end of the spectrum a boy basically took his freebie 50% and ran -- even though his real mark would have been between 20% and 30%.
"The gentleman gave the attitude that, 'Well, I know I'm going to get transferred no matter what so I don't need to try,' " said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "His parents were a little indifferent. They had the attitude, 'We'll worry about Grade 9 when we get to Grade 9.' "
In the push to ensure that no student is left behind, grade retention (it's not called failing any more) seems to be on the wane in Canada, hovering around 1% nationwide.
In Manitoba, for example, the rate slid from 1.8% in 1998 to 1.17% in 2002. At the same time, standardized testing scores, literacy and numeracy rates and anecdotal evidence suggest a disconnect with actual learning and achievement.
Studies have shown that there is little if any educational benefit to holding a child back a year -- that in fact it may do more harm than good in terms of self-esteem and social development.
But some teachers, who increasingly encounter students struggling with the three Rs and feel pressured to lower standards, along with university professors appalled at the abysmal writing and spelling of young adults pursuing a higher education, are beginning to question at what point the feel-good, every-one-is-special brand of education in Canadian schools is failing the next generation.
The argument for social passing is rooted in the belief that repeating a grade can diminish self worth, undermine the ability to learn and brand a child a failure among their schoolmates.
"Success breeds success," said Marilyn Westbury, a classroom veteran and long-time teacher of teachers, who is now a dean at Concordia University College in Edmonton, noting that weak students who are socially passed must also be identified and supported.
She conducted two pioneering studies of Alberta schoolchildren in the late 1990s that found no evidence staying back a year improves academic achievement by following the progress of a cohort of borderline
primary students with similar learning abilities and social characteristics.
"The majority of students who were continually promoted were doing just as well," Prof. Westbury said. "It's almost as if you recycle a child through the same techniques and the same teaching methods that didn't work before."
The second study overturned conventional yardsticks -- such as actual age within the grade -- that teachers and administrators use to determine who should be held back and who should be bumped forward.
"It was a terrible thing to be used because not only did it not predict [who would benefit from being held back], but in my study the poorest students on the scale improved the most," she said.
Another study published in the Canadian Journal of School Psychology this spring by researchers from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy discovered that students who repeated a year were most likely to be male, younger than their classmates, and in grades 1, 2, 3 or 8.
It also revealed that students are three times as likely to drop out if they failed once and eight times as likely if they repeated more than one grade. Still, many lament the convey-or-belt aspect of social passing and the knowledge deficit that can result.
"What it really is, is about passing the buck," said Anton Allahar, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. "In a system where one is not accountable you pass them on to the next level, from Grade 3 to Grade 4 or from first year, to second year, to third year, so that somebody else later on down the line someone else inherits the problem."
In their recent book Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis, Prof. Allahar and his colleague James Cote lay significant blame for the current state of affairs at the feet of a public education system they say is breeding "empowered idiots."
"This idea of boosting self-esteem of students, especially those who don't do well, has led to problems at
primary, secondary and university educational levels where you have people who don't aspire to do well, but still expect the star," said Prof. Allahar in an interview.
"They still expect the reward and they still expect mommy and daddy and teacher to say, 'Way to go! You gave it your best!' But they are not giving it at their best. So what people like Jim Cote and I have inherited at the university level is a lot of people with very high self-esteem who are idiots."
Public schoolteachers on the front lines often struggle professionally with whether to pass or flunk a student -- a decision that seldom is left to them alone.
Some educators complain of pressure from principals to bump up marks to a pass. A recent survey of high school teachers in Durham Region revealed four in 10 felt pushed to lower the bar in the classroom while one in four felt dissuaded from giving Fs.
In places such as Alberta, promotion of poor students is the default manoeuvre, although the province provides special funding to develop individualized learning plans for students who slip too far back from their actual grade level.
Saskatchewan high school teacher Amy Edwards said she has grappled with the issue of maintaining high standards despite students who cut class and don't hand in assignments.
"When I first started teaching I was like, 'Well, they didn't do it, they didn't do it. Too bad,' " she said. "As I've kind of grown and matured a little bit professionally, I've realized nobody really wins when you're black and white like that because kids aren't like that and I'm not doing anybody a service if I don't kind of adapt what I'm doing to each kid.
"That doesn't mean lowering standards for different kids, it means teaching different kids in different ways so they can all be successful -- whatever that means for them."
Ms. Edwards, who teaches core English and social studies in a rural community, said it's more about giving weak students another chance to earn a passing mark in a way that's more conducive to their way of learning with exam preparation work or extended deadlines on missed assignments.
"That's the rationale, logistically to bump it," she said. "A good teacher can take the weakest kid in the class and get him a 50. I used to really think that that made me a pushover and there are times where I'm working harder than those kids to get them a 50 for sure, but you really have to look at what is in the best interests of that kid and what does the future hold for that kid and what is the benefit of giving them a 40?"
The anonymous Toronto teacher is left wondering how the bulk of the group of seven who passed through the French class will fare as they begin high school this week.
"Maybe when you're that low, when you're reading at a Grade 3 or 4 level and you're getting a 30, maybe you need to return another year," said the teacher.
"For me I don't know if it's the best thing for the students. Grade 8 may be the turning point."
ahanes@nationalpost.com
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.h...ec-8cc5243cb85d
There Is A Growing Concern Among Teachers Over The Process Of Social Passing
Allison Hanes
National Post
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Failure was not an option for a group of seven remedial students who joined a Grade 8 core French class at a Toronto middle school last year. According to the teacher, the seven were part of a program for students who had fallen far behind their peers, and even though they were reading at between a Grade 3 and Grade 6 level, their "transfer" to high school this fall was already guaranteed.
The group's progress in the French class illustrates both the hopes and frustrations of teachers charged with employing a concept called social passing, which is the promotion of students from one grade to the next regardless of whether they have met the requirements of the curriculum.
One girl, with the support and encouragement of her parents, earned the second-highest mark in the class.
On the opposite end of the spectrum a boy basically took his freebie 50% and ran -- even though his real mark would have been between 20% and 30%.
"The gentleman gave the attitude that, 'Well, I know I'm going to get transferred no matter what so I don't need to try,' " said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "His parents were a little indifferent. They had the attitude, 'We'll worry about Grade 9 when we get to Grade 9.' "
In the push to ensure that no student is left behind, grade retention (it's not called failing any more) seems to be on the wane in Canada, hovering around 1% nationwide.
In Manitoba, for example, the rate slid from 1.8% in 1998 to 1.17% in 2002. At the same time, standardized testing scores, literacy and numeracy rates and anecdotal evidence suggest a disconnect with actual learning and achievement.
Studies have shown that there is little if any educational benefit to holding a child back a year -- that in fact it may do more harm than good in terms of self-esteem and social development.
But some teachers, who increasingly encounter students struggling with the three Rs and feel pressured to lower standards, along with university professors appalled at the abysmal writing and spelling of young adults pursuing a higher education, are beginning to question at what point the feel-good, every-one-is-special brand of education in Canadian schools is failing the next generation.
The argument for social passing is rooted in the belief that repeating a grade can diminish self worth, undermine the ability to learn and brand a child a failure among their schoolmates.
"Success breeds success," said Marilyn Westbury, a classroom veteran and long-time teacher of teachers, who is now a dean at Concordia University College in Edmonton, noting that weak students who are socially passed must also be identified and supported.
She conducted two pioneering studies of Alberta schoolchildren in the late 1990s that found no evidence staying back a year improves academic achievement by following the progress of a cohort of borderline
primary students with similar learning abilities and social characteristics.
"The majority of students who were continually promoted were doing just as well," Prof. Westbury said. "It's almost as if you recycle a child through the same techniques and the same teaching methods that didn't work before."
The second study overturned conventional yardsticks -- such as actual age within the grade -- that teachers and administrators use to determine who should be held back and who should be bumped forward.
"It was a terrible thing to be used because not only did it not predict [who would benefit from being held back], but in my study the poorest students on the scale improved the most," she said.
Another study published in the Canadian Journal of School Psychology this spring by researchers from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy discovered that students who repeated a year were most likely to be male, younger than their classmates, and in grades 1, 2, 3 or 8.
It also revealed that students are three times as likely to drop out if they failed once and eight times as likely if they repeated more than one grade. Still, many lament the convey-or-belt aspect of social passing and the knowledge deficit that can result.
"What it really is, is about passing the buck," said Anton Allahar, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. "In a system where one is not accountable you pass them on to the next level, from Grade 3 to Grade 4 or from first year, to second year, to third year, so that somebody else later on down the line someone else inherits the problem."
In their recent book Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis, Prof. Allahar and his colleague James Cote lay significant blame for the current state of affairs at the feet of a public education system they say is breeding "empowered idiots."
"This idea of boosting self-esteem of students, especially those who don't do well, has led to problems at
primary, secondary and university educational levels where you have people who don't aspire to do well, but still expect the star," said Prof. Allahar in an interview.
"They still expect the reward and they still expect mommy and daddy and teacher to say, 'Way to go! You gave it your best!' But they are not giving it at their best. So what people like Jim Cote and I have inherited at the university level is a lot of people with very high self-esteem who are idiots."
Public schoolteachers on the front lines often struggle professionally with whether to pass or flunk a student -- a decision that seldom is left to them alone.
Some educators complain of pressure from principals to bump up marks to a pass. A recent survey of high school teachers in Durham Region revealed four in 10 felt pushed to lower the bar in the classroom while one in four felt dissuaded from giving Fs.
In places such as Alberta, promotion of poor students is the default manoeuvre, although the province provides special funding to develop individualized learning plans for students who slip too far back from their actual grade level.
Saskatchewan high school teacher Amy Edwards said she has grappled with the issue of maintaining high standards despite students who cut class and don't hand in assignments.
"When I first started teaching I was like, 'Well, they didn't do it, they didn't do it. Too bad,' " she said. "As I've kind of grown and matured a little bit professionally, I've realized nobody really wins when you're black and white like that because kids aren't like that and I'm not doing anybody a service if I don't kind of adapt what I'm doing to each kid.
"That doesn't mean lowering standards for different kids, it means teaching different kids in different ways so they can all be successful -- whatever that means for them."
Ms. Edwards, who teaches core English and social studies in a rural community, said it's more about giving weak students another chance to earn a passing mark in a way that's more conducive to their way of learning with exam preparation work or extended deadlines on missed assignments.
"That's the rationale, logistically to bump it," she said. "A good teacher can take the weakest kid in the class and get him a 50. I used to really think that that made me a pushover and there are times where I'm working harder than those kids to get them a 50 for sure, but you really have to look at what is in the best interests of that kid and what does the future hold for that kid and what is the benefit of giving them a 40?"
The anonymous Toronto teacher is left wondering how the bulk of the group of seven who passed through the French class will fare as they begin high school this week.
"Maybe when you're that low, when you're reading at a Grade 3 or 4 level and you're getting a 30, maybe you need to return another year," said the teacher.
"For me I don't know if it's the best thing for the students. Grade 8 may be the turning point."
ahanes@nationalpost.com
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.h...ec-8cc5243cb85d
After Fairfax Misses Target, Officials Cite 'No Child' Flaws
By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 25, 2007; B01
Fairfax County schools boast SAT scores significantly higher than the national average. More than 93 percent of graduates go on to college or trade schools. And the dropout rate is low.
But this week, the school system was given a new -- and negative -- label: failure to meet academic goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Fairfax educators say the system as a whole, along with 68 of its schools, fell short largely as the result of tighter federal testing requirements for students with limited English skills. Officials and parents now face the question of whether the rating will tarnish the district's reputation.
Liz McGhan, mother of three children in Fairfax schools and president of Garfield Elementary School's PTA, said the rating doesn't change her positive view of the schools.
"For me personally, and for other people I talk to, school scores are not everything about the school," McGhan said. "I think a majority of the parents understand what's going on behind all the numbers. There's so much more to a school than the testing."
School and county officials, who often cite the quality of schools as a lure for businesses and residents, argue that Fairfax's situation illustrates flaws in the federal law.
"This is not a question of academic performance. It's a question of a rigid law," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Board of Supervisors. "The No Child Left Behind law does not make allowances for a highly diverse school systems such as we have in Northern Virginia."
Federal officials disagree. They say that all students must be held to the same standards and that Virginia had ample time to adjust to testing requirements. "We know that some limited English students need an alternative assessment," U.S. Education Department spokesman Chad Colby said. "We're working with states, but [Virginia] could have done that going back to 2003."
Many other Virginia school systems fell short of academic targets. But some reached them, including those in Chesapeake, Roanoke County and Virginia Beach.
The federal law, which aims to shine a light on blocs of struggling students and allow schools to pinpoint areas that need improvement, requires annual reading and math tests in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. It also requires schools, and school systems, to show steady progress in improving scores. Subsets of students -- including ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, those with limited English skills and those from low-income families -- also must show gains each year. If one group does not meet the target, the school or district may be designated as not making "adequate yearly progress," or AYP.
Several other Northern Virginia school systems, including those in Alexandria and in Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, also did not meet targets on the spring Standards of Learning tests. The number of Northern Virginia schools that did not make the grade nearly doubled, rising from 76 in 2006 to 146 this year.
Education experts say school systems nationwide are experiencing similar increases. Each year, it is tougher for schools to meet standards, because states raise performance targets as they move toward the goal of having every child proficient in reading and math by 2014.
In Maryland, for instance, the number of elementary and middle schools targeted for academic improvement because of low test scores rose this year from 167 to 176, the largest total since the No Child law was enacted in 2002.
"The crunch is starting to be felt," said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive of the D.C.-based Center on Education Policy. "There's more tests, and there's a higher bar. The game is getting more challenging."
The experience of Northern Virginia, and the question of whether student performance on standardized tests should be the sole measure of a school's success, is expected to play a significant role this fall as lawmakers debate reauthorization of the federal law. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), House education committee chairman, has called for additional measures, such as graduation rates or the number of students passing Advanced Placement exams, to be included in the ratings.
Michele Menapace, president of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs, said parents who are not familiar with the intricacies of the federal law might question principals and school officials about the county's ratings.
"I don't think people will be up in arms, but I think there will be questions asked," Menapace said. "There has been a great deal of confusion. All they see is that their school didn't make AYP, and they don't understand all the testing groups."
Fairfax County School Superintendent Jack D. Dale said he is not concerned about the label.
"What I hear from the community is, AYP information has become meaningless," Dale said. "Our parents want to know how kids are doing on a broad spectrum of assessments."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2402125_pf.html
By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 25, 2007; B01
Fairfax County schools boast SAT scores significantly higher than the national average. More than 93 percent of graduates go on to college or trade schools. And the dropout rate is low.
But this week, the school system was given a new -- and negative -- label: failure to meet academic goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Fairfax educators say the system as a whole, along with 68 of its schools, fell short largely as the result of tighter federal testing requirements for students with limited English skills. Officials and parents now face the question of whether the rating will tarnish the district's reputation.
Liz McGhan, mother of three children in Fairfax schools and president of Garfield Elementary School's PTA, said the rating doesn't change her positive view of the schools.
"For me personally, and for other people I talk to, school scores are not everything about the school," McGhan said. "I think a majority of the parents understand what's going on behind all the numbers. There's so much more to a school than the testing."
School and county officials, who often cite the quality of schools as a lure for businesses and residents, argue that Fairfax's situation illustrates flaws in the federal law.
"This is not a question of academic performance. It's a question of a rigid law," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Board of Supervisors. "The No Child Left Behind law does not make allowances for a highly diverse school systems such as we have in Northern Virginia."
Federal officials disagree. They say that all students must be held to the same standards and that Virginia had ample time to adjust to testing requirements. "We know that some limited English students need an alternative assessment," U.S. Education Department spokesman Chad Colby said. "We're working with states, but [Virginia] could have done that going back to 2003."
Many other Virginia school systems fell short of academic targets. But some reached them, including those in Chesapeake, Roanoke County and Virginia Beach.
The federal law, which aims to shine a light on blocs of struggling students and allow schools to pinpoint areas that need improvement, requires annual reading and math tests in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. It also requires schools, and school systems, to show steady progress in improving scores. Subsets of students -- including ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, those with limited English skills and those from low-income families -- also must show gains each year. If one group does not meet the target, the school or district may be designated as not making "adequate yearly progress," or AYP.
Several other Northern Virginia school systems, including those in Alexandria and in Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, also did not meet targets on the spring Standards of Learning tests. The number of Northern Virginia schools that did not make the grade nearly doubled, rising from 76 in 2006 to 146 this year.
Education experts say school systems nationwide are experiencing similar increases. Each year, it is tougher for schools to meet standards, because states raise performance targets as they move toward the goal of having every child proficient in reading and math by 2014.
In Maryland, for instance, the number of elementary and middle schools targeted for academic improvement because of low test scores rose this year from 167 to 176, the largest total since the No Child law was enacted in 2002.
"The crunch is starting to be felt," said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive of the D.C.-based Center on Education Policy. "There's more tests, and there's a higher bar. The game is getting more challenging."
The experience of Northern Virginia, and the question of whether student performance on standardized tests should be the sole measure of a school's success, is expected to play a significant role this fall as lawmakers debate reauthorization of the federal law. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), House education committee chairman, has called for additional measures, such as graduation rates or the number of students passing Advanced Placement exams, to be included in the ratings.
Michele Menapace, president of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs, said parents who are not familiar with the intricacies of the federal law might question principals and school officials about the county's ratings.
"I don't think people will be up in arms, but I think there will be questions asked," Menapace said. "There has been a great deal of confusion. All they see is that their school didn't make AYP, and they don't understand all the testing groups."
Fairfax County School Superintendent Jack D. Dale said he is not concerned about the label.
"What I hear from the community is, AYP information has become meaningless," Dale said. "Our parents want to know how kids are doing on a broad spectrum of assessments."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2402125_pf.html
08/28/2007
Wrong answer on testing
By: Times Editorial Staff
Here we go again.
http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab5.cf...65197&rfi=6
Last week, Fairfax County got the word that many of its schools were "failing" academically due to their inability to meet academic benchmarks under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Excuse me, but isn't this the same school system that sends more than 90 percent of its graduates off to college? Isn't this the school system that ranks among the nation's leaders in numbers of AP and IB courses taken? Isn't this the school system that saw a dozen of its schools ranked among the country's top 100 in at least one national study?
The answer, in all three cases, is yes.
Fairfax County schools, as any college admissions director can confirm, are outstanding.
The No Child Left Behind Act, on the other hand, isn't held in such high esteem.
The law's escalating goals of 100 percent graduation and 100 percent pass rates on tests are noble, even laudable. But these goals are unrealistic, and the failure of a school to meet all the law's benchmarks means that school is tagged as failing.
In Fairfax County's case, 68 schools came up short because students with a limited grasp of English were asked to read and write at an unrealistic level. First-generation students from more than 100 countries attended class in Fairfax County last year. Just about all of them are bright, curious and talented kids. That said, the vast majority will have trouble distinguishing 'their' and 'there' or 'effect' from 'affect' for at least a year or two.
Imagine an American fourth-grader taking a reading test in Portugese four months after moving to Brazil. The results wouldn't be pretty.
Some of America's schools are broken and our students (and teachers) need to be held to high standards, but Draconian laws and policy from the federal government are not the solution.
Wrong answer on testing
By: Times Editorial Staff
Here we go again.
http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab5.cf...65197&rfi=6
Last week, Fairfax County got the word that many of its schools were "failing" academically due to their inability to meet academic benchmarks under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Excuse me, but isn't this the same school system that sends more than 90 percent of its graduates off to college? Isn't this the school system that ranks among the nation's leaders in numbers of AP and IB courses taken? Isn't this the school system that saw a dozen of its schools ranked among the country's top 100 in at least one national study?
The answer, in all three cases, is yes.
Fairfax County schools, as any college admissions director can confirm, are outstanding.
The No Child Left Behind Act, on the other hand, isn't held in such high esteem.
The law's escalating goals of 100 percent graduation and 100 percent pass rates on tests are noble, even laudable. But these goals are unrealistic, and the failure of a school to meet all the law's benchmarks means that school is tagged as failing.
In Fairfax County's case, 68 schools came up short because students with a limited grasp of English were asked to read and write at an unrealistic level. First-generation students from more than 100 countries attended class in Fairfax County last year. Just about all of them are bright, curious and talented kids. That said, the vast majority will have trouble distinguishing 'their' and 'there' or 'effect' from 'affect' for at least a year or two.
Imagine an American fourth-grader taking a reading test in Portugese four months after moving to Brazil. The results wouldn't be pretty.
Some of America's schools are broken and our students (and teachers) need to be held to high standards, but Draconian laws and policy from the federal government are not the solution.
Granted, standardized testing does offer a common basis for measuring student performance whether on a statewide or a national basis --- but it does not prepare students for participation in society --- it leaves out a lot of critical thinking development which are absolutely necessary to becoming problem solving contributors.
FREE PRESS EDITORIAL
No funding left behind
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...ION01/708190525
It's time for Congress to fix the deficiencies of No Child Left Behind program
August 19, 2007
Five years ago, when the Bush administration enacted its sweeping No Child Left Behind Act, one critical ingredient was left behind: money.
And to this day, inadequate funding remains the great -- and potentially fatal -- flaw in the president's otherwise noble education reform plan.
Advertisement
So with the act set to expire in September, Congress ought not press the renewal button without fixing the funding flaw and addressing two other key shortcomings: States and teachers need more flexibility in the way they measure performance; and school districts around the country need help recruiting, training and keeping good teachers.
Raise the investment
Raising the academic achievement level in schools has to start with a raise in the nation's investment. By some estimates, NCLB has endured a cumulative funding shortfall of $70.9 billion since its inception.
At least 70 bills have been introduced in Congress calling for improvements to NCLB. But they are little more than ink on paper without a staunch commitment from Congress and the Bush administration that NCLB's will be funded smarter this time. The Striving Readers Act, for instance, is a Republican initiative that would award $1 billion a year to help states and districts improve literacy rates in grades 4-12.
That price tag might seem hefty, but it's worth the investment, considering NCLB's requirement that all students attending public schools be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Without the money, that deadline is grossly unrealistic.
Gains have to be demonstrated in a range of categories, including race, poverty and special needs. Failure to improve in any one category, repeatedly, can jeopardize a school's ability to remain open. In Michigan, 544 schools are listed as failing to meet NCLB's academic standards. The number is down from previous years, but it's unlikely to decline more significantly without changes to the standards themselves.
More ways to grade success
President George W. Bush himself has said that states and teachers need a greater variety of ways to show they're performing. Congress should make him adhere to those words.
One simple way for NCLB to be more flexible would be to allow states and school districts to show how students perform academically over time. Annual test scores are valuable but they cannot be the only permissible measure of progress for students who have demonstrable deficits. Students who do not speak English, as well as those who live in poverty, tend to come to class with the greatest deficits and the most limited access to tutoring and testing preparation. Come test time, they are the most unlikely to do well, despite the fact that some show genuine ability in the classroom.
Giving teachers alternative ways to show the abilities of these students, as well as those in special education classes, only makes sense.
Congress has gone part of the way by introducing bills in both the Senate and House. But it must find the consensus to make academic measures such as longitudinal student assessments and individual achievement reports for the most struggling students equally acceptable in demonstrating accountability.
Show support for teachers
Teachers are the linchpins in any successful education effort. They're the keepers of the knowledge, and their skill at transferring information to students must be as valued as, if not more than, a test.
If Congress just passed two of the more than half dozen bills on the table aimed at strengthening teaching resources, it would signal to teachers that they have not been forgotten in America's rush to test.
One would set aside $3.4 billion to recruit and train new teachers. The other measure would establish $50 million in annual competitive
grants that states could use as salary bonuses for teachers who commit three years to rural districts.
Five years of backlash over NCLB's flaws should illustrate to Congress, and the Bush administration, why more funding, greater flexibility and stronger support for teachers have to be the top priorities in NCLB's reauthorization.
FREE PRESS EDITORIAL
No funding left behind
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...ION01/708190525
It's time for Congress to fix the deficiencies of No Child Left Behind program
August 19, 2007
Five years ago, when the Bush administration enacted its sweeping No Child Left Behind Act, one critical ingredient was left behind: money.
And to this day, inadequate funding remains the great -- and potentially fatal -- flaw in the president's otherwise noble education reform plan.
Advertisement
So with the act set to expire in September, Congress ought not press the renewal button without fixing the funding flaw and addressing two other key shortcomings: States and teachers need more flexibility in the way they measure performance; and school districts around the country need help recruiting, training and keeping good teachers.
Raise the investment
Raising the academic achievement level in schools has to start with a raise in the nation's investment. By some estimates, NCLB has endured a cumulative funding shortfall of $70.9 billion since its inception.
At least 70 bills have been introduced in Congress calling for improvements to NCLB. But they are little more than ink on paper without a staunch commitment from Congress and the Bush administration that NCLB's will be funded smarter this time. The Striving Readers Act, for instance, is a Republican initiative that would award $1 billion a year to help states and districts improve literacy rates in grades 4-12.
That price tag might seem hefty, but it's worth the investment, considering NCLB's requirement that all students attending public schools be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Without the money, that deadline is grossly unrealistic.
Gains have to be demonstrated in a range of categories, including race, poverty and special needs. Failure to improve in any one category, repeatedly, can jeopardize a school's ability to remain open. In Michigan, 544 schools are listed as failing to meet NCLB's academic standards. The number is down from previous years, but it's unlikely to decline more significantly without changes to the standards themselves.
More ways to grade success
President George W. Bush himself has said that states and teachers need a greater variety of ways to show they're performing. Congress should make him adhere to those words.
One simple way for NCLB to be more flexible would be to allow states and school districts to show how students perform academically over time. Annual test scores are valuable but they cannot be the only permissible measure of progress for students who have demonstrable deficits. Students who do not speak English, as well as those who live in poverty, tend to come to class with the greatest deficits and the most limited access to tutoring and testing preparation. Come test time, they are the most unlikely to do well, despite the fact that some show genuine ability in the classroom.
Giving teachers alternative ways to show the abilities of these students, as well as those in special education classes, only makes sense.
Congress has gone part of the way by introducing bills in both the Senate and House. But it must find the consensus to make academic measures such as longitudinal student assessments and individual achievement reports for the most struggling students equally acceptable in demonstrating accountability.
Show support for teachers
Teachers are the linchpins in any successful education effort. They're the keepers of the knowledge, and their skill at transferring information to students must be as valued as, if not more than, a test.
If Congress just passed two of the more than half dozen bills on the table aimed at strengthening teaching resources, it would signal to teachers that they have not been forgotten in America's rush to test.
One would set aside $3.4 billion to recruit and train new teachers. The other measure would establish $50 million in annual competitive
grants that states could use as salary bonuses for teachers who commit three years to rural districts.
Five years of backlash over NCLB's flaws should illustrate to Congress, and the Bush administration, why more funding, greater flexibility and stronger support for teachers have to be the top priorities in NCLB's reauthorization.
Standardized tests, when used professionally, are very usefull and non-toxic tools for comparing average academic performance over time and across situations. Whenever teaching to the tests
occurs, we are using tax money to support unethical behavior of educators and a tremendous
disservice to students. Administration of the NCLB Act practically guarantees that this unethical
behavior will be widespread. It is simply another manifestitation of the hyprocracy in our society that is becomming the norm. The problem is much greater, however, than the philosophical, professional and technical inadequacies of NCLB. The problem is that there could exist a National
Law defining educational practise at the community level. While Educational Services are delivered,
managed and mostly paid for at the local level, the only source of new funds to improve education
has been the Grants Management Program operated by the US Department of Education, which gets little oversight from Congress. The program has become continuously more corrupt and incompetent
since Reagan's Administration (with a little improvement during the Clinton Administration) which was quickly washed out by the Bush II Administration. All federal funds supporting the Educational bureaucracy in Washington and paying for the socalled competive grants going to special initiatives
of the bureaucracy should be sent directly to the States in the form of Block Grants, with more support to the Justice Department to police discrimination at the State and community levels. IMO
occurs, we are using tax money to support unethical behavior of educators and a tremendous
disservice to students. Administration of the NCLB Act practically guarantees that this unethical
behavior will be widespread. It is simply another manifestitation of the hyprocracy in our society that is becomming the norm. The problem is much greater, however, than the philosophical, professional and technical inadequacies of NCLB. The problem is that there could exist a National
Law defining educational practise at the community level. While Educational Services are delivered,
managed and mostly paid for at the local level, the only source of new funds to improve education
has been the Grants Management Program operated by the US Department of Education, which gets little oversight from Congress. The program has become continuously more corrupt and incompetent
since Reagan's Administration (with a little improvement during the Clinton Administration) which was quickly washed out by the Bush II Administration. All federal funds supporting the Educational bureaucracy in Washington and paying for the socalled competive grants going to special initiatives
of the bureaucracy should be sent directly to the States in the form of Block Grants, with more support to the Justice Department to police discrimination at the State and community levels. IMO
At my school in Florida, whenever teachers complain about having to "teach to the test," we are told from the District level that we should be teaching the Sunshine State Standards and that if we are doing that, the students will be ready for the test. As someone who has been involved with this test since the "field testing" days, I can assure you that if a child cannot communicate through writing, he/she cannot pass the reading test. There is also a great deal of writing on the math test and science test.
As a teacher I do not mind the standards and I do not mind the tests. I think they are both valuable in providing focus and finetuning the direction of instruction. My beef with NCLB as it is applied in Florida is how the scores for an individual sub group effects a school's performance. If a child enrolls in my school today and he is the child of a migrant worker and he speakes no English, he will be taking the FCAT in March and how he/she performs will count. That is ludicrous.
When speaking of gifted students, I can attest that they are being left behind in a lot of cases in Florida, because the majority of our school grade comes from "gains" in reading and math in the lowest 25% of the student population. Guess where all of your resources are going?
There are a lot of problems with the law and it needs to be fine tuned.
As a teacher I do not mind the standards and I do not mind the tests. I think they are both valuable in providing focus and finetuning the direction of instruction. My beef with NCLB as it is applied in Florida is how the scores for an individual sub group effects a school's performance. If a child enrolls in my school today and he is the child of a migrant worker and he speakes no English, he will be taking the FCAT in March and how he/she performs will count. That is ludicrous.
When speaking of gifted students, I can attest that they are being left behind in a lot of cases in Florida, because the majority of our school grade comes from "gains" in reading and math in the lowest 25% of the student population. Guess where all of your resources are going?
There are a lot of problems with the law and it needs to be fine tuned.
QUOTE(TammyJo58 @ Aug 29 2007, 08:34 PM)
At my school in Florida, whenever teachers complain about having to "teach to the test," we are told from the District level that we should be teaching the Sunshine State Standards and that if we are doing that, the students will be ready for the test. As someone who has been involved with this test since the "field testing" days, I can assure you that if a child cannot communicate through writing, he/she cannot pass the reading test. There is also a great deal of writing on the math test and science test.
As a teacher I do not mind the standards and I do not mind the tests. I think they are both valuable in providing focus and finetuning the direction of instruction. My beef with NCLB as it is applied in Florida is how the scores for an individual sub group effects a school's performance. If a child enrolls in my school today and he is the child of a migrant worker and he speakes no English, he will be taking the FCAT in March and how he/she performs will count. That is ludicrous.
When speaking of gifted students, I can attest that they are being left behind in a lot of cases in Florida, because the majority of our school grade comes from "gains" in reading and math in the lowest 25% of the student population. Guess where all of your resources are going?
There are a lot of problems with the law and it needs to be fine tuned.
As a teacher I do not mind the standards and I do not mind the tests. I think they are both valuable in providing focus and finetuning the direction of instruction. My beef with NCLB as it is applied in Florida is how the scores for an individual sub group effects a school's performance. If a child enrolls in my school today and he is the child of a migrant worker and he speakes no English, he will be taking the FCAT in March and how he/she performs will count. That is ludicrous.
When speaking of gifted students, I can attest that they are being left behind in a lot of cases in Florida, because the majority of our school grade comes from "gains" in reading and math in the lowest 25% of the student population. Guess where all of your resources are going?
There are a lot of problems with the law and it needs to be fine tuned.
I think it needs to be fine tuned right out the window. The law is nothing like it started out. Even if it
were adequately funded (not even close) it would still be the wrong approach.
Most education bills at the Federal and State level are underfunded. They are excellent at "mandating" programs without attaching funding in their budgets. This passes the cost to the local school districts.
QUOTE(rla @ Aug 29 2007, 10:50 AM)
Standardized tests, when used professionally, are very usefull and non-toxic tools for comparing average academic performance over time and across situations. Whenever teaching to the tests
occurs, we are using tax money to support unethical behavior of educators and a tremendous
disservice to students. Administration of the NCLB Act practically guarantees that this unethical
behavior will be widespread. It is simply another manifestitation of the hyprocracy in our society that is becomming the norm. The problem is much greater, however, than the philosophical, professional and technical inadequacies of NCLB. The problem is that there could exist a National
Law defining educational practise at the community level. While Educational Services are delivered,
managed and mostly paid for at the local level, the only source of new funds to improve education
has been the Grants Management Program operated by the US Department of Education, which gets little oversight from Congress. The program has become continuously more corrupt and incompetent
since Reagan's Administration (with a little improvement during the Clinton Administration) which was quickly washed out by the Bush II Administration. All federal funds supporting the Educational bureaucracy in Washington and paying for the socalled competive grants going to special initiatives
of the bureaucracy should be sent directly to the States in the form of Block Grants, with more support to the Justice Department to police discrimination at the State and community levels. IMO
occurs, we are using tax money to support unethical behavior of educators and a tremendous
disservice to students. Administration of the NCLB Act practically guarantees that this unethical
behavior will be widespread. It is simply another manifestitation of the hyprocracy in our society that is becomming the norm. The problem is much greater, however, than the philosophical, professional and technical inadequacies of NCLB. The problem is that there could exist a National
Law defining educational practise at the community level. While Educational Services are delivered,
managed and mostly paid for at the local level, the only source of new funds to improve education
has been the Grants Management Program operated by the US Department of Education, which gets little oversight from Congress. The program has become continuously more corrupt and incompetent
since Reagan's Administration (with a little improvement during the Clinton Administration) which was quickly washed out by the Bush II Administration. All federal funds supporting the Educational bureaucracy in Washington and paying for the socalled competive grants going to special initiatives
of the bureaucracy should be sent directly to the States in the form of Block Grants, with more support to the Justice Department to police discrimination at the State and community levels. IMO
I bring these issues up again because I believe it is critical for the public to consider this
structural problem in our system which waste resources and make it impossible to improve education.
rla:
I think you'll find little disagreement on this board...
I think you'll find little disagreement on this board...
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Aug 31 2007, 11:25 AM)
rla:
I think you'll find little disagreement on this board...
I think you'll find little disagreement on this board...
I agree. My concern is how to get people speaking up and out about it.
Ah, do something more than just talking about it...
Hmmm. That is the dilemma that has plagued all mature democracies.
After the initial push that provides free speech --- and other civil liberties regarding free expression ---how do we confront the need to continue a robust dialogue and a civil engagement...
Good luck...
Actually, this should not prove as hard as one might think because it --- like many other issues --- is a security issue.
Our national security depends on our ability to better educate and prepare our workforce to meet the growing demands of an increasingly diverse and global economy. If we do not take the steps to meet these needs we will suffer an educational deficit that will make us vulnerable to those societies like Russia and China which continue to encourage and demand academic excellence and promote those who demonstrate such achievement to where their needs can best be utilized by the state.
Granted these are regimes that are communist/authoritarian --- but it is a shame that the patriotism that might have driven such achievement in the past --- or even the desire for money --- is not inspiring our children to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of academic excellence.
Hmmm. That is the dilemma that has plagued all mature democracies.
After the initial push that provides free speech --- and other civil liberties regarding free expression ---how do we confront the need to continue a robust dialogue and a civil engagement...
Good luck...
Actually, this should not prove as hard as one might think because it --- like many other issues --- is a security issue.
Our national security depends on our ability to better educate and prepare our workforce to meet the growing demands of an increasingly diverse and global economy. If we do not take the steps to meet these needs we will suffer an educational deficit that will make us vulnerable to those societies like Russia and China which continue to encourage and demand academic excellence and promote those who demonstrate such achievement to where their needs can best be utilized by the state.
Granted these are regimes that are communist/authoritarian --- but it is a shame that the patriotism that might have driven such achievement in the past --- or even the desire for money --- is not inspiring our children to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of academic excellence.
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Sep 4 2007, 09:52 AM)
Ah, do something more than just talking about it...
Hmmm. That is the dilemma that has plagued all mature democracies.
After the initial push that provides free speech --- and other civil liberties regarding free expression ---how do we confront the need to continue a robust dialogue and a civil engagement...
Good luck...
Actually, this should not prove as hard as one might think because it --- like many other issues --- is a security issue.
Our national security depends on our ability to better educate and prepare our workforce to meet the growing demands of an increasingly diverse and global economy. If we do not take the steps to meet these needs we will suffer an educational deficit that will make us vulnerable to those societies like Russia and China which continue to encourage and demand academic excellence and promote those who demonstrate such achievement to where their needs can best be utilized by the state.
Granted these are regimes that are communist/authoritarian --- but it is a shame that the patriotism that might have driven such achievement in the past --- or even the desire for money --- is not inspiring our children to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of academic excellence.
Hmmm. That is the dilemma that has plagued all mature democracies.
After the initial push that provides free speech --- and other civil liberties regarding free expression ---how do we confront the need to continue a robust dialogue and a civil engagement...
Good luck...
Actually, this should not prove as hard as one might think because it --- like many other issues --- is a security issue.
Our national security depends on our ability to better educate and prepare our workforce to meet the growing demands of an increasingly diverse and global economy. If we do not take the steps to meet these needs we will suffer an educational deficit that will make us vulnerable to those societies like Russia and China which continue to encourage and demand academic excellence and promote those who demonstrate such achievement to where their needs can best be utilized by the state.
Granted these are regimes that are communist/authoritarian --- but it is a shame that the patriotism that might have driven such achievement in the past --- or even the desire for money --- is not inspiring our children to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of academic excellence.
Taz, just about every one is in favor of good education in the abstract. I spent most of my professional career at the federal grants troof. I have observed how the Grant's Management
has become more and more corrupt and incompent over the years. And even worse, how the
system has been expanded from education and human services to the Defense Department
and other major spenders of Federal Tax Dollars. As long as this big rip off is kept out of
sight there will be no general improvement in education. There is currently no system for bringing about improvement except in a few rich locales with unusually competent local leadership.
So the whole idea of using block grants does not work?
If that's the case, I think we're in bigger trouble than I thought.
We know NCBL does not work --- if block grants cannot be counted on to work relying on state government...we're up a crick without a paddle I think since there is no other alternative except more federal bureaucracy to have the schools apply directly for assistance to the feds which would be a mess since it would result in even more disparate distribution.
If that's the case, I think we're in bigger trouble than I thought.
We know NCBL does not work --- if block grants cannot be counted on to work relying on state government...we're up a crick without a paddle I think since there is no other alternative except more federal bureaucracy to have the schools apply directly for assistance to the feds which would be a mess since it would result in even more disparate distribution.
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Sep 5 2007, 08:41 AM)
So the whole idea of using block grants does not work?
If that's the case, I think we're in bigger trouble than I thought.
We know NCBL does not work --- if block grants cannot be counted on to work relying on state government...we're up a crick without a paddle I think since there is no other alternative except more federal bureaucracy to have the schools apply directly for assistance to the feds which would be a mess since it would result in even more disparate distribution.
If that's the case, I think we're in bigger trouble than I thought.
We know NCBL does not work --- if block grants cannot be counted on to work relying on state government...we're up a crick without a paddle I think since there is no other alternative except more federal bureaucracy to have the schools apply directly for assistance to the feds which would be a mess since it would result in even more disparate distribution.
I am advocating changing the current Grant's management system to a Block Grant system
to the States allowing the individual State Departments of Education to utilize the funds as they
see fit, within the framework of State laws, regulations and educational policy. In a different world,
this was Ronald Raegan's proposal to close the US Office of Education and send the funds directly to the states. This would have been a regressive move in 1980. At this time, however, the various
State level education departments have surpassed the federal office of education in professionalism
and expertese. They have a good liason with the teacher preparation Universities and the various
Professional Organizations that Teachers belong to. The US Office of Education, under the direct
control of the President and his appointees has become a political boondoggle for micromanaging
educational services which can only be delivered at the community level. It is time for the
Democrats to recycle Reagan's proposal that he almost got passed.
QUOTE(rla @ Sep 5 2007, 09:35 AM)
I am advocating changing the current Grant's management system to a Block Grant system
to the States allowing the individual State Departments of Education to utilize the funds as they
see fit, within the framework of State laws, regulations and educational policy. In a different world,
this was Ronald Raegan's proposal to close the US Office of Education and send the funds directly to the states. This would have been a regressive move in 1980. At this time, however, the various
State level education departments have surpassed the federal office of education in professionalism
and expertese. They have a good liason with the teacher preparation Universities and the various
Professional Organizations that Teachers belong to. The US Office of Education, under the direct
control of the President and his appointees has become a political boondoggle for micromanaging
educational services which can only be delivered at the community level. It is time for the
Democrats to recycle Reagan's proposal that he almost got passed.
to the States allowing the individual State Departments of Education to utilize the funds as they
see fit, within the framework of State laws, regulations and educational policy. In a different world,
this was Ronald Raegan's proposal to close the US Office of Education and send the funds directly to the states. This would have been a regressive move in 1980. At this time, however, the various
State level education departments have surpassed the federal office of education in professionalism
and expertese. They have a good liason with the teacher preparation Universities and the various
Professional Organizations that Teachers belong to. The US Office of Education, under the direct
control of the President and his appointees has become a political boondoggle for micromanaging
educational services which can only be delivered at the community level. It is time for the
Democrats to recycle Reagan's proposal that he almost got passed.
Except for changing our aggressive foreign policy and ending the waging of war against Muslim countries in the middle east, there is no greater problem facing our Country than the need to improve the quantity and quality of Education. Yet there has been no indebth discussion of this
issue in the presidential campaign and not very much on this political board though a few people have tried to get a discussion going. As a group, let's try to dig into this issue in a sustained way.
I think we could make a difference.
I think we can absolutely agree on that.
I think the biggest problem is that our society is inclined toward laziness.
We promote leisure activities and that is why everyone wants to live in America -- the good life --- the life of leisure.
BUt kids got the idea that they don't want to put in the time and work to earn a pension to retire on --- they want to enjoy life now --- they don't want to learn and spend their time stuck in a book --- or a laboratory or elsewhere getting an education...they want to do other stuff and have fun.
I think the biggest problem is that our society is inclined toward laziness.
We promote leisure activities and that is why everyone wants to live in America -- the good life --- the life of leisure.
BUt kids got the idea that they don't want to put in the time and work to earn a pension to retire on --- they want to enjoy life now --- they don't want to learn and spend their time stuck in a book --- or a laboratory or elsewhere getting an education...they want to do other stuff and have fun.
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Sep 18 2007, 02:56 PM)
I think we can absolutely agree on that.
I think the biggest problem is that our society is inclined toward laziness.
We promote leisure activities and that is why everyone wants to live in America -- the good life --- the life of leisure.
BUt kids got the idea that they don't want to put in the time and work to earn a pension to retire on --- they want to enjoy life now --- they don't want to learn and spend their time stuck in a book --- or a laboratory or elsewhere getting an education...they want to do other stuff and have fun.
I think the biggest problem is that our society is inclined toward laziness.
We promote leisure activities and that is why everyone wants to live in America -- the good life --- the life of leisure.
BUt kids got the idea that they don't want to put in the time and work to earn a pension to retire on --- they want to enjoy life now --- they don't want to learn and spend their time stuck in a book --- or a laboratory or elsewhere getting an education...they want to do other stuff and have fun.
Do you think this is a case of evolutionary regression and our genes are no longer any good or is it a Social Learning Problem where we have failed to Organize ourselves in ways to facilitate Community Development, Family Development, Personal Development and National Development within the
Organization of Nations?
Try looking up the book "Why mommy is a Democrat"
I have tried to link, but I am not good at it.
This is an easy to read book for all ages.
I have tried to link, but I am not good at it.
This is an easy to read book for all ages.
You know what is the dribbling you know whats, Pelosi being passed out as representing the most liberal of liberals...Left Wing, she is...
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