No, No, No

The Burlington Free Press editorializestoday that NCLB focuses too much on punishing students and schools when it should be emphasizing improvement.
“No Child Left Behind gets it wrong from the first word, ‘No.’ That word says that failing schools will be punished rather than receive help to become better,” the editorial states.
Inevitably then, the public fixates on [...]

Business Schooled

It’s always an exercise in patience to listen to free-market ed reformers toss out examples from the corporate world as easy, off-the-shelf solutions for “the problem” of public education. Bonuses work in the pharmaceutical marketing industry, they should work for teachers! Fire a principal if her school’s test scores don’t improve, just like a mutual fund manager with a sagging [...]

All This NCLB Aggravation Ain’t Satisfactioning Me

The Salt Lake Tribunereports today on a study that says, in gauging teachers, parents are more interested in student satisfaction than achievement. “NCLB might be missing what many parents want most,” the Tribune writes.
The study looked at teacher characteristics in cases where parents could pick their kid’s teacher. Parents were more likely to pick the teacher with a high [...]

Post-Mortem II: It’s a Marketing Problem

Was NCLB reauthorization a victim of poor marketing?
Eduflackseems to think that’s the reason an education reform “that works” got jammed up in Congress. He offers an “early outline of what an NCLB marketing plan needs to focus on” for another try at getting the law revised and renewed — with such steps as goal setting, message development, and [...]

NCLB Reauthorization, the Post-Mortem

Stan Karp at Rethinking Schools (via ZNet)has a thought-provoking piece on our brave new world of a renewed, not reauthorized NCLB. Among his predictions: 

Thousands more schools will be sanctioned for failing to make adequate yearly progress. The number identified for the law’s more drastic sanctions, including “restructuring” and closure, will far exceed the capacity to respond [...]

Thank You for the Music

The latest argument against narrowing the curriculum to the subjects tested under NCLB comes via a Harris Interactive poll, which links studying music in school to success later in life.
The poll found that among individuals making more than $150,000 a year, 83 percent had participated in music in school. The poll also links music education to pursuit [...]

Enough with the Testing

As we march along toward the end of the year with reauthorization bogged down, let’s not lose sight of some of the critical improvements that NCLB needs to make it through the next round.
For one, the mania for standardized testing. Yes, it’s an easy-to-understand measurement of “success” for the uninitiated, but nearly six years into [...]

The Special Ed Dilemma

The Chicago Tribune ponders how special ed students should be assessed under NCLB. According to a state report card issued this week, nearly a third of the Illinois schools that failed to make AYP this year — nearly 300 schools – failed solely because of special ed students’ scores.
There’s a microcosm of NCLB issues in the article: the overemphasis [...]

Taking a Stand

On Tuesday, Wisconsin teacher David Wasserman refused to administer the state standardized test to his eighth graders, because he morally objects to the No Child Left Behind law.
Threatened with termination, today he’ll be administering the test, the AP reported. But his point is made.
“Wasserman said he believes the test uses questions that are disconnected from what [...]