(no subject)
Dec. 13th, 2004 04:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my_window_seat"It is finished. Into thy hands, I commend my spirit."
Translation: Kill me already, okay?
And so, my Magnum Hopeless for Poli-Sci. I give you "The Politics of Education and The No Child Left Behind Act"
Hey, I was kind - I didn't include the 5 page complete bibliography. Just the page and a half of footnotes. Whee.
The topic of education reform is far from being a recent issue. Most people don’t stop to think about it, but our public educational system was in its infancy a good 150 years before our nation was even founded, so there’s been plenty of time in which to find fault with, and more importantly, find ways to improve on, the systems we’ve created in order to educate our children. Nor do most people think about how important education is, not just to ensure that our kids will get a decent job one day, but also as a means of strengthening their ability to be effective citizens.
As early as the Greeks, the idea of education as a tool to help individuals learn how to function in and contribute to society has been a part of designing curriculum, and John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau strongly endorsed educational methods that “promoted reason, morality and individual freedom.” With this in mind, it follows that everything we do that affects the quality and content of the educational process should be carefully considered before implementation, because we’re dealing with the very roots of our democracy with every step we take. A careful study of recent legislation makes me wonder whether this is still a part of the thinking process behind those who are making decisions for the future of education, and whether the result of their actions will make our society stronger, or in fact weaken it at its very core.
To start, public education in the U.S. was something that the colonial government allowed to grow for the most part independent of governmental oversight. Education did not become compulsory until the Massachusetts Act of 1642 which stated that “parents and masters of those children apprenticed to them were responsible for their basic education and literacy,” and even that children could be removed from their homes and placed where they would get appropriate schooling if necessary. The Massachusetts Act of 1647 went on to require “establishment of elementary schools in all towns of 50 or more families and the establishment of secondary school in towns of more than 100 families,” making New England the first to formally institute education and involve it in the political process.
With the rise in the 1800s in the number of private schools, another issue of potential controversy was brought forward. The Blaine Amendment of 1875 was proposed, a measure that would have disallowed the use of state funds for “sectarian” schools. Though it was defeated by Congress, it became an issue that representatives took home to their states where it was much more widely accepted, and The Blaine Amendments adopted by individual states are credited as being one of the key factors in determining the separation of church and state. This is a point that I will come back to later, as it has direct bearing on the present direction of educational reform today.
One of the earliest problems identified with our educational system was a lack of standardization in public high schools. The National Education Association (NEA) formed in 1870 and Committee of Ten formed in 1892 were organized specifically to consolidate the already numerous organizations already in place, and to do away with the confusion resulting from so many different groups making decisions. In addition to establishing regularity to the standards and curriculum of high schools, these committees were strong supporters of the eight-year elementary term followed by a high school term of 4 years, bringing the U.S. more nearly in line with systems already much valued in European education.
With the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, education encountered its first stumbling block, and at the same time was looked at in light of how it could improve the lives of the common people of America. While the factories were keeping many children out of school because struggling families required the extra income they could bring in, the very fact that such poverty existed to force people to these lengths was taken as a sign that education was sorely needed so that more opportunities were available to the generations that followed. As this same boom in industrialization brought record numbers of immigrants to America to find work, the process of schooling them, while more challenging, also brought education to the country’s attention as a way of bringing the newcomers successfully into their citizenship.
Jumping forward to the present day, it’s pointed out regularly that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) is something that President Bush counts as one of his major achievements. On the surface, it’s a thing of beauty—the commitment to bring every child in the nation up to the appropriate grade level of proficiency in reading and math by the year 2015. Because it was initially endorsed by U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the current administration has referred to this act as a piece of bi-partisan legislation, which, if Kennedy still supported it, would surely provide a strong bridge between two parties that are presently very deeply divided. However, the Senator’s enthusiasm for the NCLBA dwindled fairly early on over concerns about the Act not being adequately funded. While he continued to support the spirit of educational reform that the act purportedly addresses, as early as 2002 Senator Kennedy observed that:
"…President Bush's budget [that covers the next academic year] provides only a 2.8 percent increase [for education] -- not even enough to keep up with inflation. He cuts funding for the new schools reform legislation by $90 million.… This is the wrong direction for schools. It's the wrong direction for students. And it's the wrong direction for the nation. It is not enough to promise reform -- we must pay for it as well."
A simple look at the structure of the NCLBA is challenging. The act itself is over 600 pages in length, and the Frequently Asked Questions document, written by House Representative John Boehner and available in PDF form on the Committee on Education and the Workforce’s (CEW) website, is itself 66 pages long. Obviously, it’s not an easy thing to boil down in short form, but its four main principles as stated in the CEW’s “Education Reform 101” presentation are:
• Accountability for Results
• Flexibility and Local Control
• Resources for Reform
• Parental Options and Responsibility
The accountability portion of this reform is meant to address the learning achievement gap between “disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers,” and specifically targets academic progress in reading and math. According to the Act, this achievement gap is first to be measured by yearly testing of students in grades 3 through 8. The results of these tests determine at what levels the students are currently at compared with where they should be, and are then used to compile “annual report cards on school performance.” The states are expected to set initial expectation levels and determine progress rates and goals to meet each following year that are known as “Adequate Yearly Progress” or AYP. The aim of the Act is to achieve “100% proficiency for all students in 12 years” starting from the Act’s benchmark date of 2002.
Flexibility and local control under the Act is supposed to offer the local school districts greater authority in deciding how to use the funding provided by the federal government and in making decisions without the express approval of the U.S. Department of Education or state educational departments. States are allowed to form partnerships between school districts. I attempted to find more information about how this part of the Act functions, and my research turned up much documentation, but none that I was able to clearly understand. I intend to pursue it for my own edification, but have nothing further to offer in this area at this time.
Resources for reform refers to increases in Title I aid, teacher quality aid, reading programs, special education, and support for existing charter schools and the creation of new ones. This part of the measure also refers back to flexibility, in that there is now greater local control of how the increased funding is allocated. The requirements for receiving the additional resources provided here, as with ‘flexibility and local control’, are lengthy, complicated, and ones that, without extensive knowledge of the administrative processes of education funding, I was unable to synthesize well enough for the purposes of this paper. The concern that this brings up is obvious: if a college student devoted to this topic and spending many hours specifically focused on understanding it finds it this challenging, how must the average parent feel when trying to understand it based only on what they read in short news articles and see in brief television segments?
This leads directly to the next point of parental options and responsibility, or the part that parents are meant to take in making the act function. Given the data on how their child’s school is performing, parents are given more choices about how to handle their child’s education. If the school is listed as failing for two years in a row, the parents have the right to request a transfer to another school, with any transportation costs to be covered by the failing school. If the parent opts to keep their child in that school, and the school continues to fail for three years in a row, they are then eligible for “supplemental educational services – including tutoring, afterschool services, and summer school.” After a fourth year, a failing school “enters into corrective action by the state”, a fifth year finds the school “identified for reconstitution by the state,” and the sixth year results in “school reconstitution.”
One of the things that is most curious about the NCLBA is the way that it’s organized. The first order of business for a school targeted as ‘failing’ isn’t to immediately offer learning assistance—it’s to put them on what amounts to an ‘undesirable’ list. The second action after a school has two years of failing standards is to offer ‘school choice.’ Tutoring services that could potentially help a school needing only a gentle shove upwards to put them into the acceptable standing are only offered after a school is in its third year of not reaching its AYP – likely well after staff and parent moral have been damaged beyond repair. But because the NCLBA actually grew out of Bush’s original plan—to offer school vouchers and nothing else—perhaps it isn’t surprising that the first line of defense in this plan still resembles the voucher plan—offering parents the right to immediately send their child to another school—at the expense of the school that they are leaving behind.
Interestingly enough, from my research it appears that the best points of the NCLBA actually grew out of the campaign promises of Bush’s first adversary, Al Gore, as can be evidenced from a look back at the transcript comments of Jonathan Schnur, the founder of New Leaders for New Schools during “The Education Debate” on NewsHour in 2000:
“Al Gore has a comprehensive plan to boost the improvement of our public schools [that] insists on high standards and accountability, with real consequences for success and failure […] and then demands real change in the public schools that aren’t performing where most kids would continue to go.
Governor Bush’s plan has a low-performing school go for three years without additional investments, without additional change. And at the end of the three years, some parents could use a voucher to go to another school, but never demands change in the school where most kids will continue to attend. Al Gore insists on change and accountability in the school. He invests in improving reforms in low-performing schools, like class size, like taking proven before models like Success for All to help improve achievement. And if after one year the school hasn’t improved, he then has plans to ensure that teachers get professional development they need and low-performing teachers get quick improvement or removed in a fast but fair way.
Two years after no significant improvement, the school is shut down and reopened with an outstanding new principal with a track record and experienced teachers to come help to turn the school around. […] He has got a comprehensive plan to boost teacher quality, insisting on testing for all new teachers, as well as recruiting one million outstanding new teachers, especially for the schools that need them the most in shorted subject areas like math and science. […] So Gore’s plan is heavier on accountability and invests more – if it’s apportioned to surplus – to make sure our kids get the help they need to succeed.”
And so it would appear that, uncredited, Al Gore contributed to the addition of many of best parts of the plan—tailored back to fit Mr. Bush’s preferred scheduling of events and trimmed to suit Mr. Bush’s own personal agenda, a topic of interest that I will also come back to later with some possible explanations of his true purpose for the NCBLA.
As mentioned earlier, the Blaine Amendments passed by some states were intended to prevent federal money from being allocated to private schools as a way of keeping clear lines between church and state. However, while private and parochial schools, in fact all schools not directly receiving federal funds, are not required to meet the NCLBA standards, these schools become more available to parents through ‘educational choice’ if their school district falls far enough behind—a way in which those same federal funds can find their way to these private institutions. This looks good—more choices for parents!—while at the same time is less costly than broad-based reforms that could improve an entire school, or even a whole school district. In this way, the very standards that are meant to bring progress to education could be seen as measures that indirectly erode the local control that the NCLBA says that it wants us to have. Schools that need the funding the most stand the chance of losing it for failing to meet standards or find the prospect of turning it aside less galling than fighting an unwinnable battle, one that they don’t have the resources needed (tutoring programs for the students) to fight the challenges they face until it is too late.
Within the last few weeks the House Education Committee of Virginia gave strong consideration to a bill that would have opted their state out of the Act, basing their concerns on the fact that the testing procedures “[rely] on multiple choice questions that often give a false sense of a students’ abilities” and arguing for “a revised format [focused] on writing, problem solving and critical thinking.” The bill, while obviously intended for the best welfare of the students, would have meant that Virginia would be denied millions in education funds from the federal government. It was defeated in a vote of 11 out of 17 – but will be considered, perhaps in some modified form, next year. In Vermont, three schools districts have already given up their federal funds through the NCBLA, as have three in Connecticut —a pretty penny saved, with students who will be paying the price in diminished returns on their own educational investments.
Another serious question to consider is why this act fails to address the fact that there are new students arriving in this country and entering our school systems every day – students whose reading comprehension abilities are expected to be tested and factored in after one year of residence – when trained educators note that it takes “about four to seven years to teach a child a new language, so meeting the federal goals will be nearly impossible” It is this very issue that is leading the Coachella Valley Unified School District in California to consider suing the state and federal governments for holding them accountable for what they believe are unfair and unrealistic targets of achievement. The Reading School District in Pennsylvania has already filed a suit, stating that their low-performance rating stems from a large number of students who, due to low English capability, are unable to even read the test. Reading School District lost their case. They are planning to appeal.
Also of concern is the specific and narrow focus on just two subjects out of the entire educational mix—reading and math—worrying many across the country, including teachers, parents and school administrators, about the diminishing level of effort being spent in teaching social studies. Margaret Altoff, a supervisor in social studies for the Colorado Springs School District observed that “time, resources, and teachers, particularly in elementary schools, are being increased for math and reading, in direct correlation to cuts in other areas of the curriculum, particularly social studies.” Although it’s true that reading and math are foundation subjects, and a strong understanding of these can only help improve performance in social studies, it’s long been an acknowledged certainty that in times when money is scarce, the first things that are trimmed back in the typical academic setting are the arts, humanities, music instruction, and even history and physical education. And because many states are facing budget crisis, the prospect of losing precious federal dollars by not meeting the required standards of the NCLBA has some school districts focusing the bulk of their energies on meeting the reading and math bar, and in many cases, porking up the programs in these two areas at the expense of other, untested ones.
On the local front, while the aim to put qualified teachers in every classroom is admirable, the standards for “adequate qualification” are so rigid and one-dimensional in scope that they fail to recognize experience in lieu of certification, “even if teachers have more than 25 years of teaching experience.” Here in New Mexico, Education Secretary Veronica C. Garcia is worried that this stipulation, as well as the provision requiring teachers to be certified in every area that they teach, may cause teachers to be squeezed out of positions in rural districts, where the need is greatest, and where teachers are often expected to teach a variety of subjects. New guidelines released by the U.S. Dept. of Education in March indicated a positive response to addressing these concerns by allowing three years for teachers who teach more than one subject to meet the law’s requirements. However, along with this good news came the not-so-good news—the new requirement adds that the school districts must assume financial responsibility for the professional development of the teachers affected, and these guidelines still do nothing to address the disparity in salaries between rural teachers and their city counterparts, who average 86 cents to every dollar that teachers in non-rural areas earn, making recruitment and retention of qualified teachers a continuing problem, and adding to the contention of many that the NCBLA represents a series of unfunded mandates that will continue to be brushed aside.
With the point of unfunded mandates introduced, we come to the conspiracy theory portion of this paper, where I attempt to tie all of these different areas of concern together with a healthy dash of conjecture and more than a little cynicism. In the oft-misquoted words of Margo Channing in “All About Eve,” I caution my readers: “fasten your seatbelts—it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”
The most startling discovery I made while researching this paper is one that I was only able to find a single source for. Given that the information comes from a disgruntled educator, it might be easy to dismiss his claims—except for the fact that his lawsuit with the Houston Independent School District in April was settled for “an undisclosed amount,” strongly suggesting that his claims, and subsequent theories, have potential merit. Robert Kimball was the assistant principal of Sharpstown Senior School in Houston, Texas in 2002, a time when that state was in the national spotlight for being the home of educational reforms instituted by Rod Paige, the former Superintendent of Schools for the area. When Sharpstown, a district with a large population of low-income and minority students, reported a drop-out rate of zero percent, Kimball was alarmed by what he believed to be wildly inaccurate information: “We go from 1,000 freshman to 300 seniors with no dropouts. Amazing!” After receiving no response from the principal, Mr. Kimball approached the local media. Because Mr. Paige by this time occupied a much more high-profile position as the 7th U.S. Secretary of Education, the story quickly went national. As a result of the ensuing controversy, Kimball was transferred and demoted twice, and he then filed the lawsuit mentioned above.
As a former high-school drop-out who managed to later return to his education, all the way through to a doctorate of education from the University of Houston, Mr. Kimball was not one who could stand by and indirectly condone what he felt to be institutionalized racism and a blatant attempt to falsify information. Mr. Kimball’s view of the reasons for the under-reporting is straightforward, and chilling in its implications:
“Secretary Paige bears responsibility for Houston Schools cooking the books when he was the superintendent and for the continuation of his policies after he departed the district. He wanted Houston's school district to look like it had performed a miracle in order to make the candidate George W. Bush look better during his run for the White House. As a reward for his deceptive practices, he was made the Secretary of Education. The Bush/Paige team has done more harm to public education than any other administration in the past 50 years. They have developed policies to cause public education to fail. The purpose of these polices is to privatize public education.”
That last sentence rings serious alarm bells, and I submit that the future of education in America is now headed in a direction that will marginalize ethnic and low-income communities under the guise of “closing the achievement gap,” while at the same time—double bonus!—turning a profit in the process.
It isn’t going out on a limb to say that the President is a friend of business. While I was unable to find direct links between any specific organizations lobbying the White House for exclusive contracts to provide the ‘supplemental services’ called for in the NCLBA, the list of companies lining up to do the honors includes the national tutorial services of Kaplan K12 Learning Services, Sylvan Learning, the Huntington Learning Centers, and the Princeton Review—and that’s just for one Cleveland school district. As it’s also a risk-free assertion to say that the President makes claim to strong spiritual convictions—it may not be much riskier to observe that he would like to see the gap between church and state as narrow as the targeted achievement gap, if one considers that the NCBLA specifically names, not just “private business” but also “faith- and community-based organizations” as eligible providers of supplemental services—effectively overturning the aims of the Blaine Amendments to keep federal funds out of “sectarian” pocketbooks. Damn the separation between church and state, damn the difference between public good and profit—full speed ahead with the business of education.
Looking at the education system from the perspective of the business model, more of the NCLBA’s pieces fall into place to form a disturbing picture. Disciplinary actions for under-performing school are much less costly than providing them with the full amount of funding needed to put the aforementioned supplementary services in place in time to bolster confidence in a school’s staff in the parents of the children attending it. Further weakening an ‘undesirable’ schools ability to meet its standards is the cost drain of providing transportation to the students fleeing to ‘better’ schools and the loss of funding from significant decreases in school population. When it’s under the banner of providing parents with choices it’s difficult to argue—but it can be argued that this is a good way to gradually siphon funds away from underperforming schools—the ones that can usually be found in areas of greater economic need—the ones who are less likely to have a voter base that supports this administration and are generally less empowered to fight it. High poverty areas, areas with a larger concentration of immigrant and ethnic populations, rural areas—areas with less profit potential and fewer votes are looking more and more like the road kill on the highway of the NCBLA.
This isn’t where our educational system started. These aren’t the roots that will build the foundations of a “good society”—these are the practices of an administration that favors a Darwinian approach, one that winnows out the weakest and saves the spoils for the strong. From a man who feels that God himself wanted him to fill the office of the Presidency, this kind of behavior is even more out of keeping with what one might look for in a man of Christian character—and the No Child Left Behind Act feels like anything but “an act of God.”
Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
--------
Friedman, Ian C. “Education Reform.” New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2004: 6.
Delisio, Ellen R. “Paige, Kennedy on No Child Left Behind Act.” Education World 5 May 2002. 29 Nov. 2004 <http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/issues309.shtml>.
House Education and Workforce Committee. “Education Reform 101.” Undated; approximated date Spring 2002. PDF Document. 1 Nov. 2004 <http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/107th/education/nclb/edreform101.pdf>.
“The Education Debate.” Online NewsHour. Host Ray Suarez. 20 Sept. 2000. PBS Online. 12 Oct. 2004 <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/educate_9-20.html>.
“Effort to reform No Child Left Behind Act a good start.” TimesCommunity.com 16 Nov. 2004. 21 Nov. 2004 <http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab5.cfm?newsid=13382570&brd=2553&pag=461&dept_id=506101&rfi=6>.
“Several states consider dropping out of the president’s No Child Left Behind Act.” All Things Considered. Hosts Melissa Block and Robert Siegel. National Public Radio. 2 Feb. 2004. eLibrary. Albuquerque TVI, Albuquerque, NM. 23 Nov. 2004
Almond, Andrea. “Flood of Lawsuits Expected Against No Child Left Behind Act.” Associated Press. The Mercury News. 9 Oct. 2004. 20 Nov. 2004 <http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/10049220.htm>.
Friel, Brian. “Don’t know much about history: Education.” National Journal 2 August 2004. eLibrary. Albuquerque TVI, Albuquerque, NM. 23 Nov. 2004
Contreras, Russell. “Bush’s Re-Election Means No Child Left Behind Act Will Stick Around.” Albuquerque Journal 7 Nov. 2004. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://www.abqjournal.com/education/255621education11-07-04.htm>.
Rural School and Community Trust. “New ‘No Child Left Behind’ Guidelines Respond to Rural School Struggles to Hire Highly Qualified Teachers: Pay Gap for Rural Teachers, Unfunded Mandates Are Still a Concern, Says Advocacy Group” Press Release, 15 March 2004. 8 Dec. 2004 <http://www.ruraledu.org/newsroom/nclb_highly_qualified_teachers.htm>.
Capellaro, Catherine. “Blowing the Whistle on The Texas Miracle.” Rethinking Schools Online Fall 2004. 7 Dec. 2004 <http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_01/tex191.shtml>.
Casserly, Michael. “Driving Change: a progress report on urban school districts’ efforts to execute the mandates of No Child Left Behind.” Education Next Summer 2004 v4 i3: 32 (6). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale Group Database. Albuquerque TVI, Albuquerque, NM. 23 Nov. 2004 <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.
Me go die now.
::thud::
[EDIT: For those who don't want to read the entire 12 pages - which will be most of you, I'm assuming - here's my favorite bit - the conclusion, natch:
"This isn’t where our educational system started. These aren’t the roots that will build the foundations of a “good society”—these are the practices of an administration that favors a Darwinian approach, one that winnows out the weakest and saves the spoils for the strong. From a man who feels that God himself wanted him to fill the office of the Presidency, this kind of behavior is even more out of keeping with what one might look for in a man of Christian character—and the No Child Left Behind Act feels like anything but “an act of God.”"
Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. ]
HAH.
Translation: Kill me already, okay?
And so, my Magnum Hopeless for Poli-Sci. I give you "The Politics of Education and The No Child Left Behind Act"
Hey, I was kind - I didn't include the 5 page complete bibliography. Just the page and a half of footnotes. Whee.
The topic of education reform is far from being a recent issue. Most people don’t stop to think about it, but our public educational system was in its infancy a good 150 years before our nation was even founded, so there’s been plenty of time in which to find fault with, and more importantly, find ways to improve on, the systems we’ve created in order to educate our children. Nor do most people think about how important education is, not just to ensure that our kids will get a decent job one day, but also as a means of strengthening their ability to be effective citizens.
As early as the Greeks, the idea of education as a tool to help individuals learn how to function in and contribute to society has been a part of designing curriculum, and John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau strongly endorsed educational methods that “promoted reason, morality and individual freedom.” With this in mind, it follows that everything we do that affects the quality and content of the educational process should be carefully considered before implementation, because we’re dealing with the very roots of our democracy with every step we take. A careful study of recent legislation makes me wonder whether this is still a part of the thinking process behind those who are making decisions for the future of education, and whether the result of their actions will make our society stronger, or in fact weaken it at its very core.
To start, public education in the U.S. was something that the colonial government allowed to grow for the most part independent of governmental oversight. Education did not become compulsory until the Massachusetts Act of 1642 which stated that “parents and masters of those children apprenticed to them were responsible for their basic education and literacy,” and even that children could be removed from their homes and placed where they would get appropriate schooling if necessary. The Massachusetts Act of 1647 went on to require “establishment of elementary schools in all towns of 50 or more families and the establishment of secondary school in towns of more than 100 families,” making New England the first to formally institute education and involve it in the political process.
With the rise in the 1800s in the number of private schools, another issue of potential controversy was brought forward. The Blaine Amendment of 1875 was proposed, a measure that would have disallowed the use of state funds for “sectarian” schools. Though it was defeated by Congress, it became an issue that representatives took home to their states where it was much more widely accepted, and The Blaine Amendments adopted by individual states are credited as being one of the key factors in determining the separation of church and state. This is a point that I will come back to later, as it has direct bearing on the present direction of educational reform today.
One of the earliest problems identified with our educational system was a lack of standardization in public high schools. The National Education Association (NEA) formed in 1870 and Committee of Ten formed in 1892 were organized specifically to consolidate the already numerous organizations already in place, and to do away with the confusion resulting from so many different groups making decisions. In addition to establishing regularity to the standards and curriculum of high schools, these committees were strong supporters of the eight-year elementary term followed by a high school term of 4 years, bringing the U.S. more nearly in line with systems already much valued in European education.
With the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, education encountered its first stumbling block, and at the same time was looked at in light of how it could improve the lives of the common people of America. While the factories were keeping many children out of school because struggling families required the extra income they could bring in, the very fact that such poverty existed to force people to these lengths was taken as a sign that education was sorely needed so that more opportunities were available to the generations that followed. As this same boom in industrialization brought record numbers of immigrants to America to find work, the process of schooling them, while more challenging, also brought education to the country’s attention as a way of bringing the newcomers successfully into their citizenship.
Jumping forward to the present day, it’s pointed out regularly that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) is something that President Bush counts as one of his major achievements. On the surface, it’s a thing of beauty—the commitment to bring every child in the nation up to the appropriate grade level of proficiency in reading and math by the year 2015. Because it was initially endorsed by U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the current administration has referred to this act as a piece of bi-partisan legislation, which, if Kennedy still supported it, would surely provide a strong bridge between two parties that are presently very deeply divided. However, the Senator’s enthusiasm for the NCLBA dwindled fairly early on over concerns about the Act not being adequately funded. While he continued to support the spirit of educational reform that the act purportedly addresses, as early as 2002 Senator Kennedy observed that:
"…President Bush's budget [that covers the next academic year] provides only a 2.8 percent increase [for education] -- not even enough to keep up with inflation. He cuts funding for the new schools reform legislation by $90 million.… This is the wrong direction for schools. It's the wrong direction for students. And it's the wrong direction for the nation. It is not enough to promise reform -- we must pay for it as well."
A simple look at the structure of the NCLBA is challenging. The act itself is over 600 pages in length, and the Frequently Asked Questions document, written by House Representative John Boehner and available in PDF form on the Committee on Education and the Workforce’s (CEW) website, is itself 66 pages long. Obviously, it’s not an easy thing to boil down in short form, but its four main principles as stated in the CEW’s “Education Reform 101” presentation are:
• Accountability for Results
• Flexibility and Local Control
• Resources for Reform
• Parental Options and Responsibility
The accountability portion of this reform is meant to address the learning achievement gap between “disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers,” and specifically targets academic progress in reading and math. According to the Act, this achievement gap is first to be measured by yearly testing of students in grades 3 through 8. The results of these tests determine at what levels the students are currently at compared with where they should be, and are then used to compile “annual report cards on school performance.” The states are expected to set initial expectation levels and determine progress rates and goals to meet each following year that are known as “Adequate Yearly Progress” or AYP. The aim of the Act is to achieve “100% proficiency for all students in 12 years” starting from the Act’s benchmark date of 2002.
Flexibility and local control under the Act is supposed to offer the local school districts greater authority in deciding how to use the funding provided by the federal government and in making decisions without the express approval of the U.S. Department of Education or state educational departments. States are allowed to form partnerships between school districts. I attempted to find more information about how this part of the Act functions, and my research turned up much documentation, but none that I was able to clearly understand. I intend to pursue it for my own edification, but have nothing further to offer in this area at this time.
Resources for reform refers to increases in Title I aid, teacher quality aid, reading programs, special education, and support for existing charter schools and the creation of new ones. This part of the measure also refers back to flexibility, in that there is now greater local control of how the increased funding is allocated. The requirements for receiving the additional resources provided here, as with ‘flexibility and local control’, are lengthy, complicated, and ones that, without extensive knowledge of the administrative processes of education funding, I was unable to synthesize well enough for the purposes of this paper. The concern that this brings up is obvious: if a college student devoted to this topic and spending many hours specifically focused on understanding it finds it this challenging, how must the average parent feel when trying to understand it based only on what they read in short news articles and see in brief television segments?
This leads directly to the next point of parental options and responsibility, or the part that parents are meant to take in making the act function. Given the data on how their child’s school is performing, parents are given more choices about how to handle their child’s education. If the school is listed as failing for two years in a row, the parents have the right to request a transfer to another school, with any transportation costs to be covered by the failing school. If the parent opts to keep their child in that school, and the school continues to fail for three years in a row, they are then eligible for “supplemental educational services – including tutoring, afterschool services, and summer school.” After a fourth year, a failing school “enters into corrective action by the state”, a fifth year finds the school “identified for reconstitution by the state,” and the sixth year results in “school reconstitution.”
One of the things that is most curious about the NCLBA is the way that it’s organized. The first order of business for a school targeted as ‘failing’ isn’t to immediately offer learning assistance—it’s to put them on what amounts to an ‘undesirable’ list. The second action after a school has two years of failing standards is to offer ‘school choice.’ Tutoring services that could potentially help a school needing only a gentle shove upwards to put them into the acceptable standing are only offered after a school is in its third year of not reaching its AYP – likely well after staff and parent moral have been damaged beyond repair. But because the NCLBA actually grew out of Bush’s original plan—to offer school vouchers and nothing else—perhaps it isn’t surprising that the first line of defense in this plan still resembles the voucher plan—offering parents the right to immediately send their child to another school—at the expense of the school that they are leaving behind.
Interestingly enough, from my research it appears that the best points of the NCLBA actually grew out of the campaign promises of Bush’s first adversary, Al Gore, as can be evidenced from a look back at the transcript comments of Jonathan Schnur, the founder of New Leaders for New Schools during “The Education Debate” on NewsHour in 2000:
“Al Gore has a comprehensive plan to boost the improvement of our public schools [that] insists on high standards and accountability, with real consequences for success and failure […] and then demands real change in the public schools that aren’t performing where most kids would continue to go.
Governor Bush’s plan has a low-performing school go for three years without additional investments, without additional change. And at the end of the three years, some parents could use a voucher to go to another school, but never demands change in the school where most kids will continue to attend. Al Gore insists on change and accountability in the school. He invests in improving reforms in low-performing schools, like class size, like taking proven before models like Success for All to help improve achievement. And if after one year the school hasn’t improved, he then has plans to ensure that teachers get professional development they need and low-performing teachers get quick improvement or removed in a fast but fair way.
Two years after no significant improvement, the school is shut down and reopened with an outstanding new principal with a track record and experienced teachers to come help to turn the school around. […] He has got a comprehensive plan to boost teacher quality, insisting on testing for all new teachers, as well as recruiting one million outstanding new teachers, especially for the schools that need them the most in shorted subject areas like math and science. […] So Gore’s plan is heavier on accountability and invests more – if it’s apportioned to surplus – to make sure our kids get the help they need to succeed.”
And so it would appear that, uncredited, Al Gore contributed to the addition of many of best parts of the plan—tailored back to fit Mr. Bush’s preferred scheduling of events and trimmed to suit Mr. Bush’s own personal agenda, a topic of interest that I will also come back to later with some possible explanations of his true purpose for the NCBLA.
As mentioned earlier, the Blaine Amendments passed by some states were intended to prevent federal money from being allocated to private schools as a way of keeping clear lines between church and state. However, while private and parochial schools, in fact all schools not directly receiving federal funds, are not required to meet the NCLBA standards, these schools become more available to parents through ‘educational choice’ if their school district falls far enough behind—a way in which those same federal funds can find their way to these private institutions. This looks good—more choices for parents!—while at the same time is less costly than broad-based reforms that could improve an entire school, or even a whole school district. In this way, the very standards that are meant to bring progress to education could be seen as measures that indirectly erode the local control that the NCLBA says that it wants us to have. Schools that need the funding the most stand the chance of losing it for failing to meet standards or find the prospect of turning it aside less galling than fighting an unwinnable battle, one that they don’t have the resources needed (tutoring programs for the students) to fight the challenges they face until it is too late.
Within the last few weeks the House Education Committee of Virginia gave strong consideration to a bill that would have opted their state out of the Act, basing their concerns on the fact that the testing procedures “[rely] on multiple choice questions that often give a false sense of a students’ abilities” and arguing for “a revised format [focused] on writing, problem solving and critical thinking.” The bill, while obviously intended for the best welfare of the students, would have meant that Virginia would be denied millions in education funds from the federal government. It was defeated in a vote of 11 out of 17 – but will be considered, perhaps in some modified form, next year. In Vermont, three schools districts have already given up their federal funds through the NCBLA, as have three in Connecticut —a pretty penny saved, with students who will be paying the price in diminished returns on their own educational investments.
Another serious question to consider is why this act fails to address the fact that there are new students arriving in this country and entering our school systems every day – students whose reading comprehension abilities are expected to be tested and factored in after one year of residence – when trained educators note that it takes “about four to seven years to teach a child a new language, so meeting the federal goals will be nearly impossible” It is this very issue that is leading the Coachella Valley Unified School District in California to consider suing the state and federal governments for holding them accountable for what they believe are unfair and unrealistic targets of achievement. The Reading School District in Pennsylvania has already filed a suit, stating that their low-performance rating stems from a large number of students who, due to low English capability, are unable to even read the test. Reading School District lost their case. They are planning to appeal.
Also of concern is the specific and narrow focus on just two subjects out of the entire educational mix—reading and math—worrying many across the country, including teachers, parents and school administrators, about the diminishing level of effort being spent in teaching social studies. Margaret Altoff, a supervisor in social studies for the Colorado Springs School District observed that “time, resources, and teachers, particularly in elementary schools, are being increased for math and reading, in direct correlation to cuts in other areas of the curriculum, particularly social studies.” Although it’s true that reading and math are foundation subjects, and a strong understanding of these can only help improve performance in social studies, it’s long been an acknowledged certainty that in times when money is scarce, the first things that are trimmed back in the typical academic setting are the arts, humanities, music instruction, and even history and physical education. And because many states are facing budget crisis, the prospect of losing precious federal dollars by not meeting the required standards of the NCLBA has some school districts focusing the bulk of their energies on meeting the reading and math bar, and in many cases, porking up the programs in these two areas at the expense of other, untested ones.
On the local front, while the aim to put qualified teachers in every classroom is admirable, the standards for “adequate qualification” are so rigid and one-dimensional in scope that they fail to recognize experience in lieu of certification, “even if teachers have more than 25 years of teaching experience.” Here in New Mexico, Education Secretary Veronica C. Garcia is worried that this stipulation, as well as the provision requiring teachers to be certified in every area that they teach, may cause teachers to be squeezed out of positions in rural districts, where the need is greatest, and where teachers are often expected to teach a variety of subjects. New guidelines released by the U.S. Dept. of Education in March indicated a positive response to addressing these concerns by allowing three years for teachers who teach more than one subject to meet the law’s requirements. However, along with this good news came the not-so-good news—the new requirement adds that the school districts must assume financial responsibility for the professional development of the teachers affected, and these guidelines still do nothing to address the disparity in salaries between rural teachers and their city counterparts, who average 86 cents to every dollar that teachers in non-rural areas earn, making recruitment and retention of qualified teachers a continuing problem, and adding to the contention of many that the NCBLA represents a series of unfunded mandates that will continue to be brushed aside.
With the point of unfunded mandates introduced, we come to the conspiracy theory portion of this paper, where I attempt to tie all of these different areas of concern together with a healthy dash of conjecture and more than a little cynicism. In the oft-misquoted words of Margo Channing in “All About Eve,” I caution my readers: “fasten your seatbelts—it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”
The most startling discovery I made while researching this paper is one that I was only able to find a single source for. Given that the information comes from a disgruntled educator, it might be easy to dismiss his claims—except for the fact that his lawsuit with the Houston Independent School District in April was settled for “an undisclosed amount,” strongly suggesting that his claims, and subsequent theories, have potential merit. Robert Kimball was the assistant principal of Sharpstown Senior School in Houston, Texas in 2002, a time when that state was in the national spotlight for being the home of educational reforms instituted by Rod Paige, the former Superintendent of Schools for the area. When Sharpstown, a district with a large population of low-income and minority students, reported a drop-out rate of zero percent, Kimball was alarmed by what he believed to be wildly inaccurate information: “We go from 1,000 freshman to 300 seniors with no dropouts. Amazing!” After receiving no response from the principal, Mr. Kimball approached the local media. Because Mr. Paige by this time occupied a much more high-profile position as the 7th U.S. Secretary of Education, the story quickly went national. As a result of the ensuing controversy, Kimball was transferred and demoted twice, and he then filed the lawsuit mentioned above.
As a former high-school drop-out who managed to later return to his education, all the way through to a doctorate of education from the University of Houston, Mr. Kimball was not one who could stand by and indirectly condone what he felt to be institutionalized racism and a blatant attempt to falsify information. Mr. Kimball’s view of the reasons for the under-reporting is straightforward, and chilling in its implications:
“Secretary Paige bears responsibility for Houston Schools cooking the books when he was the superintendent and for the continuation of his policies after he departed the district. He wanted Houston's school district to look like it had performed a miracle in order to make the candidate George W. Bush look better during his run for the White House. As a reward for his deceptive practices, he was made the Secretary of Education. The Bush/Paige team has done more harm to public education than any other administration in the past 50 years. They have developed policies to cause public education to fail. The purpose of these polices is to privatize public education.”
That last sentence rings serious alarm bells, and I submit that the future of education in America is now headed in a direction that will marginalize ethnic and low-income communities under the guise of “closing the achievement gap,” while at the same time—double bonus!—turning a profit in the process.
It isn’t going out on a limb to say that the President is a friend of business. While I was unable to find direct links between any specific organizations lobbying the White House for exclusive contracts to provide the ‘supplemental services’ called for in the NCLBA, the list of companies lining up to do the honors includes the national tutorial services of Kaplan K12 Learning Services, Sylvan Learning, the Huntington Learning Centers, and the Princeton Review—and that’s just for one Cleveland school district. As it’s also a risk-free assertion to say that the President makes claim to strong spiritual convictions—it may not be much riskier to observe that he would like to see the gap between church and state as narrow as the targeted achievement gap, if one considers that the NCBLA specifically names, not just “private business” but also “faith- and community-based organizations” as eligible providers of supplemental services—effectively overturning the aims of the Blaine Amendments to keep federal funds out of “sectarian” pocketbooks. Damn the separation between church and state, damn the difference between public good and profit—full speed ahead with the business of education.
Looking at the education system from the perspective of the business model, more of the NCLBA’s pieces fall into place to form a disturbing picture. Disciplinary actions for under-performing school are much less costly than providing them with the full amount of funding needed to put the aforementioned supplementary services in place in time to bolster confidence in a school’s staff in the parents of the children attending it. Further weakening an ‘undesirable’ schools ability to meet its standards is the cost drain of providing transportation to the students fleeing to ‘better’ schools and the loss of funding from significant decreases in school population. When it’s under the banner of providing parents with choices it’s difficult to argue—but it can be argued that this is a good way to gradually siphon funds away from underperforming schools—the ones that can usually be found in areas of greater economic need—the ones who are less likely to have a voter base that supports this administration and are generally less empowered to fight it. High poverty areas, areas with a larger concentration of immigrant and ethnic populations, rural areas—areas with less profit potential and fewer votes are looking more and more like the road kill on the highway of the NCBLA.
This isn’t where our educational system started. These aren’t the roots that will build the foundations of a “good society”—these are the practices of an administration that favors a Darwinian approach, one that winnows out the weakest and saves the spoils for the strong. From a man who feels that God himself wanted him to fill the office of the Presidency, this kind of behavior is even more out of keeping with what one might look for in a man of Christian character—and the No Child Left Behind Act feels like anything but “an act of God.”
Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
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Friedman, Ian C. “Education Reform.” New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2004: 6.
Delisio, Ellen R. “Paige, Kennedy on No Child Left Behind Act.” Education World 5 May 2002. 29 Nov. 2004 <http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/issues309.shtml>.
House Education and Workforce Committee. “Education Reform 101.” Undated; approximated date Spring 2002. PDF Document. 1 Nov. 2004 <http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/107th/education/nclb/edreform101.pdf>.
“The Education Debate.” Online NewsHour. Host Ray Suarez. 20 Sept. 2000. PBS Online. 12 Oct. 2004 <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/educate_9-20.html>.
“Effort to reform No Child Left Behind Act a good start.” TimesCommunity.com 16 Nov. 2004. 21 Nov. 2004 <http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab5.cfm?newsid=13382570&brd=2553&pag=461&dept_id=506101&rfi=6>.
“Several states consider dropping out of the president’s No Child Left Behind Act.” All Things Considered. Hosts Melissa Block and Robert Siegel. National Public Radio. 2 Feb. 2004. eLibrary. Albuquerque TVI, Albuquerque, NM. 23 Nov. 2004
Almond, Andrea. “Flood of Lawsuits Expected Against No Child Left Behind Act.” Associated Press. The Mercury News. 9 Oct. 2004. 20 Nov. 2004 <http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/10049220.htm>.
Friel, Brian. “Don’t know much about history: Education.” National Journal 2 August 2004. eLibrary. Albuquerque TVI, Albuquerque, NM. 23 Nov. 2004
Contreras, Russell. “Bush’s Re-Election Means No Child Left Behind Act Will Stick Around.” Albuquerque Journal 7 Nov. 2004. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://www.abqjournal.com/education/255621education11-07-04.htm>.
Rural School and Community Trust. “New ‘No Child Left Behind’ Guidelines Respond to Rural School Struggles to Hire Highly Qualified Teachers: Pay Gap for Rural Teachers, Unfunded Mandates Are Still a Concern, Says Advocacy Group” Press Release, 15 March 2004. 8 Dec. 2004 <http://www.ruraledu.org/newsroom/nclb_highly_qualified_teachers.htm>.
Capellaro, Catherine. “Blowing the Whistle on The Texas Miracle.” Rethinking Schools Online Fall 2004. 7 Dec. 2004 <http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_01/tex191.shtml>.
Casserly, Michael. “Driving Change: a progress report on urban school districts’ efforts to execute the mandates of No Child Left Behind.” Education Next Summer 2004 v4 i3: 32 (6). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale Group Database. Albuquerque TVI, Albuquerque, NM. 23 Nov. 2004 <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.
Me go die now.
::thud::
[EDIT: For those who don't want to read the entire 12 pages - which will be most of you, I'm assuming - here's my favorite bit - the conclusion, natch:
"This isn’t where our educational system started. These aren’t the roots that will build the foundations of a “good society”—these are the practices of an administration that favors a Darwinian approach, one that winnows out the weakest and saves the spoils for the strong. From a man who feels that God himself wanted him to fill the office of the Presidency, this kind of behavior is even more out of keeping with what one might look for in a man of Christian character—and the No Child Left Behind Act feels like anything but “an act of God.”"
Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. ]
HAH.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 11:47 pm (UTC)You're telling me?
It's my friggin' final term paper.