A NEW STUDY from the Public Policy Institute of California predicts that a majority of the state's schools will fail to reach No Child Left Behind's impossibly high goals for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) next year. "Very soon almost every public school in California will be labeled a failure," the study's authors write.
The program mandates that schools and districts receiving Title I federal funds make satisfactory yearly improvement toward an established individual goal in math and English. A school which consistently misses its goal over several years is eventually subject to major restructuring. These efforts are costly and their success has been mixed.
The study identified many factors behind its findings but suggested that the larger problem is a system which does not account for the significant differences in challenges between schools. "Fifty percent of elementary schools with the highest share of low-income students made AYP in 2007, whereas 98 percent of elementary schools with the lowest share of low-income students made AYP," according to the PPIC.
"As a result, a school that inherits many high-achieving students but teaches them very little can be labeled a success, whereas a school that inherits many low-achieving students and teaches them a great deal can be labeled a failure," the authors write. California has a high percentage of disadvantaged students.
The situation will not likely improve given the economy and severe cutbacks and larger class sizes California's schools face next year as a result of state budget negotiations.
WHAT CAN BE DONE besides a complete overhaul of the NCLB rules? The study makes many worthwhile suggestions:
• Invest in preschool. High-quality programs can help close the achievement gap.
• Re-evaluate programs which are not working. The study points to a remedial program for students who have failed the high school exit exam as one which has been ineffective, yet the current budget allocates $73 million to it.
• New, innovative programs which work should be nurtured, piloted and implemented statewide.
• Reform school finance by replacing it with a weighted formula more closely tied to the actual costs of educating students. Schools which have more students from low socioeconomic background should naturally receive more funding, but those with higher regional costs should also receive more dollars.
While few would argue that many reforms are needed in California's education system, NCLB has had an unhealthy effect on the education community nationwide, something Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the American Federation of Teachers conference last week.
"This idea of labeling and stigmatizing schools as failures -- it is unbelievably demoralizing to faculty; it's confusing to parents."
Congratulations Marie. You finally discovered the obvious.
No child Left Behind was broken from the very premise behind it and it'll be a political football forever, doing only harm and wasting money until we finally find a way to kill it.
When Bush proposed it I just cringed -- another federal mandate that will only please bean counters. The problem NCLB tries to fix is a direct result of the increase of power of teacher's unions and state and federal education bureaucrats.
To fix it, return control of schools to the local school boards and the voters.
Oxymoron, I'm not blaming No Child Left Behind for school failure, just for adding to it. I'm sure Marie Laken would agree.
Our classrooms are not the place for anyone's grand experiments.
The public schools can't afford to take on the kind of responsibility we've given them for righting every wrong in society. They can only take so much responsibility for those who can't or won't learn or are ill prepared. To do what we're demanding today is cheating the children who can and will learn, who are prepared and ready, out of their most valuable possession, a good education.
We have forgotten that we educate our children for their benefit so they can become high functioning successful adults in an ever more complex world -- a world that is very unfriendly to the ill prepared. Instead we treat them like property of the state to be indoctrinated in every kind of political correctness, their education be damned.
Do you think it's right to burden children in grade 6 who have neither the emotional nor the intellectual ability to understand it with all the details of homosexuality? Yes, Governor Schwarzenegger signed just such a bill into law this very year requiring the subject to be taught in 6th grade. Do you know about the shooting of Larry King at his Oxnard Middle School by another student. I can't immagine this happening if the schools had not been telling students that they may be gay and better look into it and decide what they are.
This is simply foolishness. One way many of them will succeed. The other way most will fail. Which one do we want?
Return control to the local school bards. Kill off the state and federal education monstrosities before it's too late. Clip the wings of the teacher's unions before it's too late. Tell the special interests to go elsewhere. Our schools are ;not the place for experimentation. They are not the place for redress of every grievance.
Oxymoron,
I certainly don't always agree with Marie. But she doesn't delete me. My bet is that she would not like to turn schools back over to the local school boards much less put unions back in the place where they're just one more voice about education instead of the driving force. But perhaps she'll speak for herself on the issue and I won't have to guess.
Oxymoron,
You sir are out of line. Expect no support or agreement from me.
Have a nice day!
To those of us who have been saying this for years this news is hardly news. What is bothersome is that we have stood idly by, like zombies as Margaret spellings, George bush, Ed Trust, and other state-wide educational leaders have tried to cram it down our throat!
NCLB aka The Voucher Set-Up Act aka the return to the feudal serf kngdoms needs to be removed from our vocabulary and along with not re-electing ANYONE this should be our battle cry
There are 30 million people in Mexico trying to come to California - not Texas. California is broke as a result and those who perpetuate this travesty should be treated as traitors. Those who pay the most are leaving the state. This charade of "what to do" belies the abject dishonesty of the Democrat Party - the Maries and the Rick Coles of the world sit around wringing their hands but haven't the intellectual honesty to call spades spades - count the number of illegals in the public schools and see how many are left. Kick them out and I guarantee the inherent resourcefulness of their parents ( they got here illegally didn't they ? ) will solve the problem and the scores will rise miraculously - same with the 25% illegals in the Calif. prisons.Then, after they return to the schools they should have been attending all along at the Mexican government's expense, let's have tea - everything else is just plain B.S.
D'Ohbama just revoked the right of D.C. kids to have vouchers. The Catholic schools continue to graduate literate students with real vocabularies - the public schools are the ruination of this country.
Posts from Oxymoron deleted for objectionable content.
No kidding.....stop this and all the other junk in schools...and go back to reading writing and math
First all the states need to convince the Feds that is program has been flawed since day one. Most of the teachers I have spoken to really dislike the whole concept of NCLB. It has to go. It stifles imagination for both teachers and students. It does not allow for the individual's ability to learn ( example: some do not get certain math at 4th grade but understand it well in 5th) which often times leads to resentment of the student by the teacher. Often the student is labeled either slow, or uncooperative. Nothing good comes of this program. NCLB keeps teachers teaching "the test" from day one until the end of the year. Where are the imaginative projects, the on school grounds field trips, the recess time. I'll tell you, it's eaten up by teaching the "test". Really it's time for NCLB to go go go.
I taught part time in the evening division at Pierce College for 17 years. It was hard to tell what individual teachers thought of No Child Left Behind but the unions wanted nothing quite so much as to fix it. It offers them another way to increase their power and they locked onto it with a death grip.
Unfortunately it can't be fixed.
Our public schools could be fixed though if enough of us are willing to make big enough waves where it counts, at the polls on Election Day. But as I said above, even a governor who should have known better sold us out. It'll be a tough fight.
It's frankly very difficult for me to follow this string of comments, since obviously something has been deleted that many are referring to. I can say only this. I have been tutuoring the kids in our schools for many years now. I tutor mostly third graders. I have never found a child who did not want to learn. I have found some who were unable to comprehend what was offered them at the time that it was supposed to be what they were suppposed to be able to learn. I have been fortunate enough to be able to help some to grasp what their education system said they should be able to learn at this particular stage of their education. In other cases, I have often seen great progress made, though admittedly not sufficient for the "system" to acknowledge them as where they are supposed to be relative to some standards. I do not disagree with the standards. I just know that progress can not always be perfect, but it is progress nonetheless. I have seen great progress. Let us do nothing that undermines that potential. I do not think the school system is perfect. Far from it. On the other hand, I do think our teachers do a pretty good job of trying to educate our youth. I think they need a lot more help, and I don't think that help is always money. I wish a lot more folks would volunteer their time to get down in the trenches with our teachers and work with these kids one on one. Not only is that tremendously rewarding on a personal level, it makes a huge difference in whether kids achieve to their maximum potential. I am a witness. I know how it works. It only takes an hour or two a week, but you can make a real difference. Try it.
Neal Andrews
Neal,
Thanks for taking the time to help young people. I appreciate your comments that you have never met a kid that didn't want to learn. If we all had that attitude it would be very helpful. How did you first get involved?
The best teacher I had didn't mind doing the things that wasn't her business. If a parent didn't like a question she had in regards to educating one of her students the child got kicked out of the school. She knew us inside and out. She loved outside testing. We were like her race horses and she loved to get us out on the track.
A public school can’t do that. It’s not their place and the union won’t allow it but unfortunately that’s what it takes.
I am amazed at how many people bash the teacher's unions. I would challenge them to go their websites and see what they are doing on behalf of children. www.cta.org www.nea.org Newspapers vilify teacher's unions, but they are writing for major corporations. Many of these corporations want to privatize schools which the union's are opposed to. Those who are poor and middle class will be hurt if schools are privatized. Please look at both sides before those that vilify the teacher's unions speak. Look at the issues that California Teachers Association and National Educators Association are working on. You may not like all of them, but you will see that the unions are not the enemy. To make sound, intelligent decisions, one must look at all sides.
re:above
Teachers and all public employees shouldn't be allowed to have unions....
Public employee unions are the ones driving up taxes here in california...as state and local budgets have doubled in last ten years....yes they are taking twice as much tax money today as they did ten years ago.....
Public employee unions like CTA and SEIU favor amnesty for illegals...which is treason
It's my understanding the President has never promised to eliminate No Child Left Behind, just fund it and change the assessment and accountability structure, so that the law is not overly punitive toward school districts.
So far, we've seen some increases in funding to help districts stabilize budgets in the stimulus bill, but have not seen comprehensive changes to the direction accountability will take in the future in NCLB.
There was a pretty interesting article in the LA Times yesterday entitled, "Obama chides California for not using test scores to evaluate teachers" where Obama warns California will miss out on stimulus money because we don't use test scores to evaluate teacher performance. (Link Provided)
Further, I am particularly interested in implementation and measurement regarding "Race to the Top" Grants and Secretary of Education Arne's four areas of reforms. From the Department of Education website, "The goals are to improve standards and tests, the effectiveness of teachers, data to inform educators’ decisions, and low-performing schools." (www.ed.gov)
So far, it appears the stimulus money is the primary mechanism the administration is using to push federal education accountability reform, not direct NCLB legislative changes.
It remains to be seen from this administration what they will push specifically regarding comprehensive action on the NCLB accountability structure, but I imagine there will be some Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) changes coming in the second year prior to the midterms.
For those hoping NCLB will be repealed, I hate to disappoint, but there is no doubt that No Child Left Behind will remain in some form or another in the future. In fact, the stimulus money appears to be further strengthening NCLB's commitment to teacher accountability, not weakening it.