Potty Talk
Props to Michael Swickard for the metaphor of the week, if not the entire reauthorization: NCLB as an overturned outhouse, trapping schools inside.
A stretch? Swickard makes the comparison like this: Outhouse tipping “was about control. Boys pushed outhouses over on the door side so the person inside was trapped until his or her shouts were answered.”
Likewise, “NCLB traps schools with political, rather than educational, solutions to concerns about school effectiveness.”
Okay, maybe it’s not the most elegant metaphor, but it’s definitely, uh, colorful.
A weekly columnist on Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics, Swickard uses his own experiences in the classroom to explain the factors beyond the classroom that affect student outcomes.
“NCLB is about control in an area where not even parents have control,” he writes. “Schools cannot make students learn, even if their jobs are at stake. Teachers know this; politicians do not.”
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