No Child Left Behind: Is It Doing Any Good?
We all know about the unrelenting meddling of the Neo-cons in aggressively promoting their brand of democracy to foreign nations, but when it comes to education, their meddling has gone too far. The effects of their “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) policy sounds good on the outside, but when you consider where the slogan comes from, it has no place in our children’s classroom. Yes, this is a military slogan wherein the battle cry on the field of war for a fallen comrade is “leave no man behind”, but we are talking about our children here, not fallen soldiers. They are our hope for the future and promise of a better world, not another cog in the wheel of the Neo-con army. But when you consider the source, this slogan naturally embraces the Neo-con’s hawkish mission towards all of life. This reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw recently that is typical of the whole Neo-con political philosophy — “I love guns, hate fags, and love Bush”. That about sums it up!
But we need to look under the covers of the NCLB policy and see what’s really going on. There is an organization called The Educator Roundtable whose mission is “to improve education-related legislation by amplifying the informed perspectives of professional educators; local, state and national board associations; university policy and education departments; local PTA’s; and other organizations committed to high quality public schools”. They feel so strongly that NCLB is so egregious that they have developed a petition that spells out 16 reasons why this policy should not be reauthorized by Congress. To review this petition, please go here.
As you can see, there are many educators who are against this policy and the petition summarizes their thinking. Others are being more vocal, such as, Scott Howard, former superintendent of Perry, Ohio, who said that public schools have characterized NCLB as a Russian novel…”it’s complicated, and in the end, everyone gets killed”.
But, what’s really behind NCLB no one knows for sure. But once again corporate America and right-wing political think tanks continue to control us in many ways with their lobbyists and political influence. Now they may even see the opportunity in our nation’s young. According to Tauna Rogers, special ed. teacher in New Mexico, she is suggesting that corporate America may be looking for a window of opportunity in our national school systems through privatizing. If they can paint a picture of inefficiency and outright failure of the public school system, they would put themselves in a position to rescue it. Here is what she said:
Under the heavy-handed policies of NCLB, public schools are in essence being asked to pay for and facilitate their own destruction. And in so doing, open up to corporate opportunists what is in their own words “rapidly becoming a $1 trillion industry, representing 10% of America’s GNP”.
Now, let’s go back to the petition. When you look at the petition, it spells out some of the reasons that professional educators cite as to why NCLB is failing our youth. In summary, it cites that the law’s simplistic approach to education reform wastes student potential, undermines public education, and threatens the future of our democracy. NCLB completely ignores the input and expertise of working educators, but instead relies on politicians, ideologues, isolated think tanks, and leaders of business and industry who have little or no expertise in the field of education.
When I reviewed this petition, a few things really stood out to me. One of the criticisms is that the NCLB policy requires the use of materials and procedures more likely to produce a passive, compliant workforce than creative, resilient, inquiring, critical, compassionate, and engaged members of our democracy. I feel very strongly about this point and have written an article called Our Education Sucks in which I detail my concern with the lack of critical thinking in public schools resulting in children who can’t think for themselves. But, when you look at the corporate conglomerates, they don’t want employees who can think for themselves, they just want compliant workers who don’t go against the grain and NCLB reflects this.
The petition further states that the NCLB also applies standards to discrete subjects rather than to larger goals such as insightful children, vibrant communities and a healthy democracy. It neglects the teaching of higher order thinking skills which cannot be evaluated by machines and standardized tests. But worst of all, it assumes that competition is the primary motivator of human behavior, and that market forces can cure all educational ills. This is the most obvious violation of my belief in human nature and our innate yearning for a deeper understanding of life. I feel that rote memorization and regurgitation of facts is not an education, but an assembly-line approach to mechanized knowledge. And, competition discourages students to work together and learn together to solve problems and explore life. This is where philosophy would find its place in our public schools.
But philosophy in public schools doesn’t exist today. I have also written an article about this called Can Philosophy Create Smarter Kids which supports the idea of teaching philosophy in schools that leads to a more educated and more skilled student in creativity and critical thinking. This is what we need in the world today. We need students who can think for themselves and break out of the mold of trying to solve problems from the same level of thinking that created them as Einstein would say.
We have to fight for our children to be provided with an education that inspires not retires thought, and a curriculum that nurtures not stifles creativity. Please read the petition, and if you are as convinced as I am that this is not how you want our future leaders of America to be educated, then please sign it. Let your Congress men and women know that you are against reauthorizing this policy. Our future is depending on us caring enough to stop the Neo-cons ideas of an education that spits out test-takers and assembly-line robots. Take a look at the petition and tell me what you think.
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New Scientist
The Onion
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Associated Press
Instead of NCLB, I suggest NTLB as in No Teacher Left Behind.
Hey Stan,
I just got your e-mail from cerebral. I am not the real Kilgore Trout, Kilgore was a fictional character although he was based on Theodore Sturgeon. I was looking for a pen name to use online and remembered one of my favorite authors Kurt Vonnegut. His description of Trout “his prose was frightful, only his ideas were good” led me to use this name. I am well aware of the faults in my writing. I am terrible at basic grammar, but I enjoy it so I write anyway. As for the several hundred Kilgore books, those may be the ones written by various authors in honor of Trout, but really in honor of Kurt Vonnegut.
I am actually a 24 year old guy from Upstate New York, you can call me Tim, I tell people I was named after Tim the enchanter in monty python and the search for the holy grail but my mother assures me its not the case.
Oh and its pretty tough to insult me, If I don’t respond quickly its probably because I didn’t have access to a computer or I simply didn’t have time. Thanks for thinkin’ of me.
Kilgore Tim Trout, who gets your Kilgore Trout royalties?
Get this, Kilgore T. Trout — This gimmick I worked out some time ago will help your writing, especially novels. In writing a line or a keyboard line, once you pause — the writing gets hard and hard and hard as you pause, stop, pause to think Then, curses! WRITING BLOCK…. My Fast-Writing Guide has a $1 price on it to satisfy copyright. You must have a sales price visible on something to be legal during a court fight. It’s the copyright law. But, Kilgore, it is free for your use. And it works! Good luck.
Stan Nodvik’s Fast-Writing Guide
//sp?// = Misspelled word?
//ww// = wrong word.
//nr// = needs research.
//√F// = check fact.
//√S// = check source.
//rw// = re-write.
//nc// = not clear.
//fg// = fix grammar.
//sw?// = stronger word?
———————————————————
ˆfold along dotted lineˆ
Fast-Writing Guide
HOW-TO-DO-IT: Write in pace with your mind as you compose. Make inner thinking = outer writing. One-to-one. Never stop the main flow. Insert within text the above icons to mark problems according to this guide during your non-stop writing. Later, much later, when done with flow of words and ideas, go back to each icon and treat that marker accordingly as you polish your first draft of work. For your speciality, if needed, create and add addtional marker-icons with brief minders to this guide.
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Copyright © 2006 by Stan Nodvik, Price: $1
Hey Kilgore, I asked for your opinion in a comment to “Video — Ever Wonder What..?” and still am interested in what you have to say about home sabotage (is it treason?). You will find it under the HUMOR category, with the film clip of two U.S. Soldiers, the 31st one down from the top.
–Stan
Hey, Hey, Kilgore Trout — you are missing out on a presence on the World Wide Web. Your writing work on blogs and other print is lost somewhere in the huge googled name of Kilgore Trout. I suggest you start anew (it’s a resume, stupid) by using something llke Kilgore Tout. Kilgore T. Trout will only funnel into the Kilgore Trout reservoir. Yeah, you turn up your nose now. BUT, HOWEVER, MOREOVER, how are you going to interest film directors/book publishers/playright producers to even READ your mss. 3 years down the line? You could also use your own birth name from now on. //Pick a number; pick a name. Python Tim sounds good//
Hey Kilgore or Python Tim — Money from writing can be in your pocket or bank account. Don’t be intimidated by bad grammer//sp?// or a vocational school-type of education; you’ve got idea-guts and //not can// will succeed!
All you have to do is learn to use the Fast-Writing Guide I submitted as a comment today under “No Child Left Behind….” You can sense when something’s not right beyond a funny-looking//ww// word. So write till your heart are//FG// content. The next step is to find someone like a retired Engish language teacher to be your copy editor for a couple of bucks or in exchange for car tune-ups or dual-exhaust pipes. Vavoom! They do the corrections only, period//make sure he/she understands they are only correcting prose//not a co-writer//get it in writing, a few sentences on paper with what’s been exchanged for their services with yours//RW////
Use the icons to touch a word or last word that may be intutively//sp?// wrong because by using computer spell-check, places in doubt for corrections will pop up. This may not work with your brand of spell-check.
Kilgore or Python Tim, that’s all there is to it. Start with ms. submissions to the auto (which you know about) magazine markets. One market at a time. Find markets at the newstand. Keep a copy. Double-space; letter-size paper; pica type is 250 words per page; elite type: 300. Really, I like Python Tim; once anyone sees that name they’ll never forget it.
More things: don’t use your birth name on your mss if you want your pen name to stand alone//NC//. But you must apply for a ficitious//sp?// name startment or a DBA — Doing Business As — Tim Shucks in New York state or your hometown or closest city) statement//you’re waste time and losing money that you could have as a check at home or in your post office box in a month and soon be out shopping for a computer//go Apple// If your ms. is rejected, send it out immediately to another auto market.
If you wish, don’t put your social security number on your ms. as some editors require. Get a tax ID number//√F// instead that can be used for this and tax filings//NR//. This number//√S// can also be used for the bank’s requirement to obtain an account. All banks now refuse to cash third party checks. And the DBA or fictious//sp?// name statement will suffice for legal postal requirements if you want a p.o. box//NR//. That’s it — that’s all there is to starting a writing career today, Kilgore/Tim, and getting paid.
who said I want a writing career? I mean thank you very much for the big confidence boost but I write for fun, I’ve never really considered writing for money. Same with the blogs, I write on other people and I run my own. I don’t even have a counter on my site because I realized that when I had one I suddenly cared how many people came to my site each day, and the reality is it doesn’t matter. I do what I do because I like to, if other people like what I write and want to read it well all the better but for now its just a hobby. Again thanks for the ego boost.
I am giving some thought to the name change though…
Thanks for the slap, KT and/or PT. Nice. But only one slap?
HOWEVER, you must learn how to slap. Study old French movies. It’s a slap to the left cheek, then follow up fast with a slap to the right cheek. Not French kissing, French slapping! Maybe I should have used boxing as an example. Okay. More like a 1-2 stab to the midsection. BUT slapping a man is the worst insult possible if done properly. Great when you use a verbal leather glove; get it wet first, then you foreplay //not sex//here used as a verb// with disarming pre-chatter.
By the way, APPLE will start broadcasting old movies and old TV shows starting in November. Not pod casts. Broadcast! It may be on the new Apple iPhone coming out in June. Maybe, I don’t know. Probably thru iTunes. I promote Apple computers, but their tech service sucks. The last 4 or 5 times I hung up on Apple techs and solved the problems on my iMac myself. Last time the tech wouldn’t even talk to me unless I gave him my computer’s serial number. This ass wanted me to pick up the whole computer to give him the serial number on the iMac’s bottom. Oh yeah, and then drop my expensive computer. Crash! –That was the sound of my phone being slammed down. What an echo! I hope the ass had an ear-ache/sp?/ all day. MOREOVER, at least with you, only one cheek stings.
Hey, Tim, just kidding but please work on a 1-2 double-insult for the next tilme.
I’m sorry Pat, we hijacked your post. It was good stuff about a flawed system. Our public education is critical to our survival as a nation. The cheesy old line of our children are the future is true. I don’t know enough about the problems or the options to make any suggestions but hopefully those who have answers will be heard. Unfortunately its seems hard for our government to hear any voices that aren’t accompanied by large checks so until some fundamentals change small advances are about as much as we can hope for. I hate to sound like a pessimist, I try to be optimistic but sometimes I get bitter when you do all you can and nothing happens. Hopefully some major changes are enacted to make our education system something to be admired throughout the world. I love the bumper sticker/saying,
“it will be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”
Hey, Kilgore you are so right about the big checks business. It’s funny how it is so outright blatant today. I was watching C-span today (yeah, I know, I don’t have a life) and there was voting on a bill that would overturn Bush’s executive order to prohibit the public from accessing presidential work documents.
It seems any person in their right mind would be for this bill to keep the presidents accountable and transparent. This was something that was passed after the Watergate scandal and you can see why. Well, George W. didn’t like it so he came up with his executive order than overturned it, so he can keep all his secrets secret.
Now Congress is trying to get his executive order overturned that overturned the original law. And guess who voted against it? Yeah, right Republicans. About half the Republicans voted against it. What planet do they live on? Why would any Congressman vote to allow the president to keep secrets from the public? And I’m not talking about classified information. It all just amazes me.
And, this is the same party who knows how to educate our children?
I’m sorry Pat, we hijacked your post. It was good stuff about a flawed system,” says Kilgore Trout. Thank you, Kilgore, for being the gentleman I’m not. Maybe I don’t look up enough when I’m writing. Don’t know where I am at. Sorry too, Pat, for I’m the first one that went off the topic course on this vital concern. I suggest we should lower the voting age to 9 or 10 years old. The kids know what’s lacking in their classrooms, school buildings, and in their education courses.
There is a warped peer attitude that forces a student to choose between having friends and doing top-notch academic performance. It’s one or the other. No and.
I know from personal experience. When I was a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh I never considered anything like that. My major was physics and at the end of the first semester came finals. Your grade would be ranked down from the highest and marked accordingly. I came to class for the final with my slide-rule //a bunch of sticks tied together that you slid back and forth: a primitive scientific calculator// Only one question on the test. I aced it — got 100. I made about 50 enemies and no friends the next meeting when the grades were given. Much of the class had to drop out because they were zilched by me.
I never saw those guys again, even at writing classes and workshops at Adult Night School at Pitt. Thank Gawk!
Can’t we establish pride in giving children lessons, tests and grades. Equate academic performance to basketball, football, track and field and give out academic, varsity leltter sweaters and jackets. It’s a matter of peer embarassment. Been there, had that done to me.
I agree, I have had many friends that gave me a hard time for my advanced vocabulary. They would tell me, “Why don’t you talk normal?” What the hell is that… talk normal?
I’ll agree with that at school, but for some reason I don’t find it as true in the real world. It makes sense that jobs would encourage intelligence but I mean hanging out with my punk friends or my buddy that was kicked out of his house at age 16, was homeless for a bit, and has done time in jail (guy has good stories). It may be partially due to my rather inept vocabulary but I’ve always been good at simplifying statements so that people with no background in the subject can understand. I was once complimented by the previously mentioned friend about the way I speak, which was kinda funny especially when about 4 other people in the room then chimed in with agreement.
Of course the compliment went roughly like this, “yo like, I think its cool how you talk like all proper an shit.”
oh of course if the class is graded on a bell curve then yeah everyone hates the kid who aces the test.
[…] blog4brains 1.2 » No Child Left Behind: Is It Doing Any Good? (tags: NCLB) […]
NCLB is up for possible reauthorization in 2007. I do not know where it stands now, but there are possible outcomes: 1) local states control and 2) Set National goals, 3) as-is and 4) forget it! plus, and so forth.
I am not taking a stand, I’m just bringing it up for your interest and discussion. There’s plenty of comments below the above article by Unum to re-consider.
Background:
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110), commonly known as NCLB, is a United States federal law that was passed in the House of Representatives on May 23, 2001[1] and signed on January 8, 2002, that reauthorized a number of federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts and schools, as well as providing parents more flexibility in choosing which schools their children will attend. Additionally, it promoted an increased focus on reading and reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).
Up for possible reauthorization in 2007, a new Congress is considering major revisions, as one group of 50 Republican senators and representatives introduced legislation in March 2007 to provide states much greater freedom from NCLB’s controls and punishments.
-above from Wkipedia.
Following is a recent news story to consider:
http://www.examiner.com/a-960192~Adopting_national_standards_will_help_No_Child_Left_Behind.html
Any new input?
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