Are you a “No Child Left Behind” LOSER?
You are, unless you’re:
An educational-test publishing company
A lobbyist for an educational-test publishing company
A business-as-usual, follow-the-leadership U.S. Congressman (taking money, extravagant
perks, and committee promotions from these companies, lobbyists, and party leaders)
These folks are lining their pockets with our hard-earned tax dollars, leaving teachers, parents, students, and school administrators to pick up the pieces.
We’re from the Federal Government and We’re Here to Help…
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires states and local school districts to use expensive standardized tests to achieve specific, federally-mandated (and often unrealistic) education “goals”.
Paying for NCLB’s standardized tests has increased costs to schools dramatically—also increasing the time (and sacrificed school subjects) needed to teach to the tests. Even if school districts could find the extra money, it wouldn’t go where it’s really needed.
NCLB has changed the goal of education from preparing children for life to simply passing tests. Sadly, even with all this spending and testing, progress has been minimal, if that. Parents and teachers are rightfully frustrated.
Government for Sale
But guess who loves NCLB—the educational-test publishing industry, which is dominated by four companies: Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing, and Pearson Educational Measurement. Three of these are divisions of much larger, multinational corporations.
These companies exist to make profits, not to improve education. They know how to rake in these profitable testing contracts: lobby, lobby, lobby. Bruce Hunter of the American Association of School Administrators said, “I’ve been lobbying on education issues since 1982, but the test publishers have been active at a level I’ve never seen before. At every hearing, every discussion, the big test publishers are always present with at least one lobbyist, sometimes more.”
The testing tail is wagging the educational dog—and the process is straining school budgets and failing students.
Solution
There’s no single, easy method to improve education. But one giant step forward would be to replace our lobbying-compromised congressional representatives. We need to break the cycle of buying votes with big-money campaign donations so we can redirect funds towards reducing class sizes and increasing teacher salaries. We need new congressional leaders who can and will say no to lobbyists and yes to greater local control and accountability in education.
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:53 am
John,
I agree with you 100% on this. I hate NCLB and think it is stupid.
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I don’t know the specifics of No Child Left Behind, but as a young man who remembers quite clearly his not too distant years of public education, I have to say I agree and can testify to the fact that organized testing is useless, pointless, and aimless. It’s a fallacy that testing is vital to education.
Testing promotes one thing and one thing only: memorization. I studied Spanish for 7 years. Starting in middle-school, through to AP Spanish in my Junior year of High School, and then a semester in college. I always studied, I always passed, and in fact did quite well. Would you like to know how much Spanish I know? None, I can’t understand it except in a very basic way when reading text, I can’t write it and I can’t follow a spoken conversation. Are my teachers to blame? No, they taught me what I needed to know to pass tests and exams, which was all they could do with what limited time they had. They did their jobs, I passed the tests. The problem? Tests are useless except, as John notes, for the people who MAKE them. It’s sad but true. It’s become a world where cirriculum is design AROUND formal tests… they literally shape the education our children received, based on the tests they choose. Meaning your child doesn’t learn things essential to function in the real world. No, they learn things essential to passing the tests the state has chosen. States choose tests, shape their cirriculum around those tests, because they want students to pass. The more students pass, the better the school looks. The better schools look, the more funding they receive. Like everything else, even the education of our children is now “big business”. I think it’s pathetic.
There is only one truly reliable educational method, in my opinion, and that is hands on in a stable and consistent environment related to and focused on a specific ability/subject, etc. I got into college, and it was like entering a whole new world. I studied film, and you know how I learned how to shoot film? My professor showed us how the cameras work, put us in groups, and told us to make films. I learned more in a single semester of college than I did in my entire educational career up to that point. I wish we could devise a means to implement this method at all levels of education. It would change the future of our country.
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Here’s my idea…study whatever Georgia is doing and craft policy around the exact opposite of that.
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Or Kansas.
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Gimme:
Dont know if this will help answer your question but it does break down a 778 billion failure:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/wm1406.cfm
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 pm
All I can say is WOW.
March 24th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Gimmie
Very good post! We also most be honest that all kids are not meant to go to college. Nothing is wrong with vocational education. Also we cannot discount the important role a parent plays. There are many times my wife and I are tired yet we still focus on the kids needs!
March 31st, 2007 at 10:58 am
[…] Are you a “No Child Left Behind” LOSER? […]
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
[…] This is just one more example of the corruption behind No CHILD LEFT BEHIND that has elected officials like Kathy Cox reporting to lobbyist instead of the best interest of our children! Do you think we should re-authorize No Child Left Behind? How big of an issue will this be in 08? FOXNEWS-WASHINGTON — A federal investigator looking into allegations of conflict of interest and mismanagement in a $1 billion-a-year Education Department reading program said Friday he has made criminal referrals to the Justice Department. […]
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
I HAVE BEEN IN RIGHT TO LIFE WORK FOR THREE DECADES AND LONGER.
DO NOT TELL ME ABOUT CHILDREN
WE KILLED MILLIONS OF THEM VIA ABORTION ALL NEAT AND LEGAL LIKE
AND WE THINK GOD IS NOT ANGRY?
THEN WE ARE STUPID.
JO
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
WE ARE DEFINATELY STUPID ARROGANT AND UNSAVED.