Good News, Bad News
In the swirl of media coverage around the NAEP scores and NCLB (”childrens do learn,” anyone?), Lawrence Hardy of the American School Board Journal takes a moment to reflect about “nattering negativism” — including his own.
It’s a nice bit of soul-searching. Public education has been a dog the media’s been kicking for so long, it’s hard to imagine unabashedly positive headlines. We’re talking public ed on the grand scale, of course, not the occasional heart-tugging feature celebrating the successes of one school and its photogenic, cherubic children.
Of course, bad news sells better than just about anything good, so don’t be so hard on yourself, Mr. Hardy. It’s the nature of the media and its consumers to crave the dire, the disastrous, the disappointing. Maybe we’re all glass-half-empty at heart.
Still, public education is a complex enterprise percolating with good and bad news at any given moment. A little soul-searching in our approach to it is worthwhile.
One Comment on “Good News, Bad News”
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October 7, 2007 at 10:16 am
While the concept of NCLB is a great idea, the policies and laws created to achieve its goal is flawed. I am a parent of a 4th grader who throughout her school career has been an A or B student. Most recently, her school principal informed me that my child needed additional help to improve in her weak areas. It happened to be science. This would not be a problem if her report cards from last year and this year did not reflect A student grades. In compliance with the NCLB - Education Accountability Act, if a student should not perform well on the state standardized test, the school is required to implement a education plan to help the child improve.
Here’s the conflict:
The student report cards indicated that she is doing very well in science, but her test score on the standardized exam was below average.
As a parent, I refused to sign off in the education plan which would place my child in remedial science (remember - her report cards indicated that she is a A/B student). She will be removed from her class to attend this case, thereby causing her to miss to whatever level subject that is going to be instructed at that time, thereby causing her a 2nd detriment.
If the NCLB is to help promote learning, why then if is child should have a bad test day or if her test scores conflict with the test score, a further evaluation into the conflict be assessed. I can’t explain to a 9 year old, that although she is getting good grades in science and will be on the honor roll that she has to go back to easy science to help her improve her science test score.
Am I crazy???? Or am I missing some fundamental component in the logic of the plan?