Always searching for inspiration…

With all of the articles that have flooded my Google Reader account dealing with the controversial subject of the No Child Left Behind legislature, this one from the Washington Post offering almost a satiric perspective, interested me the most. Several who are for this legislature argue that those who oppose it are trying to shield our young minds from the reality of competition the world has to offer. But as explained by the author of this piece, the superintendent of Fairfax County, Virginia (which has a well testing district) does not consider this to be an issue. Rather he feels his duty as an educator is to stand up for what he believes is most important which does not include telling students above their shoulders “you must complete” this test. As future English instructors, I feel many of us can learn from his example though we may not be superintendents.

The federal approach to No Child Left Behind is what you might expect from an administration whose response to a failing strategy in Iraq is to throw good bodies after maimed ones. “We need to stay the course,” Raymond Simon, the U.S. deputy secretary of education, told The Washington Post’s Amit Paley. “The mission is doable, and we don’t need to back off that right now.”

Right now Jack Dale (the superintendent) is battling the U.S. Government with the support of many other districts, in order to at least change the part of the legislation that requires students born in a different country take the same annual test that everyone else does. Dale refuses to test these students because he understands the impossibility of them doing well. He agrees students from families which are not native speakers but who were born in this country should be tested but at a third grade level. The government’s response included removing 17 million dollars of funding from the district.

No Child Left Behind is built on a mirage. At some point that’s always just over the horizon, the law assumes, all children in the nation will miraculously read and compute at grade level, simply because they have been tested and tested and tested again. The theory is that somehow, when told the exact number of children who are lagging in achievement, teachers will agree to render the magic that they have thus far withheld and — poof! — those kids will become smart, cooperative and productive.

As we get closer to that utopia, it’s becoming ever more clear that Some Children Remain Behind and that, gadzooks, Not Every Child Is the Same. Oh, and this: Staking everything on a test doesn’t produce a flowering of inspired teaching, but rather what Dale, a former math teacher, calls an “obsessive focus on tests.”

But Dale, a former math teacher himself, is frustrated with almost the “robotic” answer he keeps getting in return. He explains many teachers are losing their ability to become those who inspire students but are obsessed with making sure students pass a test. One test which determines funding, jobs, reputation, etc. In other words, students are being plucked from the opportunity of having an education which is not solely based around mechanics but how to read and write in a more mature, cognitive way. In addition, those who cannot possibly perform as well are being singled completely out of an education at all. Like previously stated, the government expects children will suddenly over time reform to this regime like curriculum and become better students but I can imagine there are many actual teachers who would disagree.

No Child Left Behind is built on a lie. Not every kid will go to college, no matter what you do. So you can either lower the standards enough to pretend that everyone is succeeding, or give up on the lie.

But the feds won’t talk about that; they just repeat “Stay the course,” and any school system that balks is threatened with punishment.

“I’ve been warned that to speak frankly in this area is not wise personally or professionally,” Dale says. But he’s speaking anyway, because, as a good teacher, he knows that “we don’t succeed well when we go punitive. You need standards, but they should be aspirational; it needs to be about incentives, not punishment.”

Regardless, Jack Dale continues fighting for changes hoping to gain more flexibility for schools which are deemed “failures” according to standards. I agree with the author and this superintendent as it is expressed in the article that not every child is meant to go to college and you cannot force them. The best we can do as instructors is to try to inspire as many as we can to ensure well-developed minds who will want to go to college. As always one cannot get every student, but a good teacher will try. By lowering these standards, the government would be giving many more students the opportunity to succeed, rather than scaring them away totally.

In Fairfax’s ‘No Child’ Fight, A Refusal to Leave Children Behind

by Marc Fisher

The Washington Post

March 22, 2007

Complete Article