Two things.

1. Doing all the requirements to become Highly Qualified doesn’t make you a good teacher. In a twisted way, in the short term, teachers who are teaching become less effective when they must pursue courses to become highly qualified because they get tired and their attention is divided: teaching school, taking courses.

“Karen could teach the phone book,” one administrator said admiringly. What she meant was that Karen is such a good teacher that she can teach anything. She doesn’t need an endorsement or to be Highly Qualified. One secondary teacher, getting her math endorsement, commented, “I certainly don’t need all this advanced math to teach my students. They don’t even know their times tables.” Teaching well has little or nothing to do with Highly Qualified requirements.

2. Testing doesn’t always measure what’s being learned. Many kids I know can take the test  and do all right, but still lack understanding or mastery of what was tested. Some kids know a great deal but don’t test well. Many of the test questions–at least in the language arts where I sometimes teach–are ambiguous. Even I could answer them a few ways. The multiple choices are difficult to decipher, and sometimes the questions are downright ridiculous.

No Child Left Behind misses the point: we are helping kids learn to think, to love learning, to love reading, to rejoice in numbers. I assure you that testing, testing, testing is counterproductive to these processes.

The teaching of art and music in our schools has taken a back seat in the drive to leave no child behind.

Since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act, classroom instructional time for art and music has been reduced by 20 percent according to the Center on Education Policy.

In addition, school budgets across the nation have reduced funding for art and music programs as well as extra-curricular activities. This is a road map for leaving us all behind.

Even in the no-frills monastic classroom of the 8th century, the English scholar Alcuin found time to include music as one of the seven liberal arts.

No doubt, our schools are under pressure to improve test scores and meet requirements of unfunded federal mandates, but have we somehow lost the essence of a well-rounded educational experience in the process?

“… Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life,” proclaimed John Keating in the Dead Poets Society. “But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Does it really make sense to cut back on art and music education?

In Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” the Pulitzer Prize winner reveals the secrets to a renaissance in education at Georgia Tech.

Mr. Friedman states that University President Wayne Clough changed Georgia Tech’s admissions policies to “focus specifically on recruiting and admitting good engineering students who also played musical instruments, sang in a chorus, or played on a team.”

The new curriculum “threads” led to alliances between computing, engineering and the arts. The emphasis was on adaptability, flexibility, teamwork and a multidisciplinary approach to learning and discovery.

Supporting the teaching of art and music in our schools enhances our children, our culture and our economy.

It has been nearly eight years since No Child Left Behind was enacted by a strong bipartisanship effort in January of 2002. The law substantially increased federal spending for education through grants to high-poverty school districts, called for a new standard of accountability for the nation’s schools through standardized testing and serious sanctions, and set in motion a sweeping effort to close the achievement gap between minority and nonminority students.  We look at what key voices are saying about what the law has accomplished in its eight years, and what that means for its uncertain future.

President Obama

There is no sign that the president wants to ditch the program – just the name.  In 2009 promotional plaques and staged schoolhouses that bared the program’s notorious name were literally torn down all over the country.  Right now most are predicting the president to increase spending, tweak the tests, and change the name, but not much more.

Education Secretary Duncan

The secretary has expressed more thoughts on the matter than his boss.  His words have subtly pushed for a change in the way the program assesses the performance of schools.  He talks of the “growth model,” which would grade schools by how much their standardized test scores improve year-to-year.  Currently the law only checks if the school’s scores meet the statewide benchmark of proficiency, and if not, the school is labeled as “failing” and risks being sanctioned.  The secretary has called for doubling the funding for the program, all of which would likely go towards improving the most high-poverty schools in the nation through the program’s Title I funds.

Duncan does agree fundamentally with the program that schools should be accountable for their performance and that standardized tests are an effective way to produce strict measurements of school performance.  Duncan has said that he wants to create some unification across the states in how expectations and standards of success are set.  Currently states individually set their own definitions of “proficiency” and “adequate yearly progress” that determine the test scores their schools need to match each year to avoid being marked as “failing.”

The GOP

The strong conservative sentiment seen pre-No Child Left Behind that the federal government has no business in telling schools what to do seems to be resurfacing quickly with the exit of President Bush and the unpopularity of the program.  The concept of accountability that resonates with President Obama and Secretary Duncan – and before them, Bush – is beginning to be labeled as “tried, but failed” in conservative circles.  The GOP will likely support major revisions in the law, if not a complete reboot.

Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch is a research professor of education at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, and she served as assistant Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. Her criticisms of the law are scathing, and she vigorously calls for it to be “killed.”  Her voice certainly resonates with many teachers and teacher groups across the country.  She interprets the changes in test scores since the program began as showing little to no real progress in math and reading scores and science scores as suffering from the program’s sole focus on math and reading.  She cites international benchmark tests as showing that our students continue to slip on the global stage.  She labels the program’s sanctions against under-performing schools ineffective and broken.

New York Times

Sam Dillon, an education writer for the New York Times, summarizes the law as being ineffective in closing the achievement gap after the results of the crucial National Assessment of Educational Progress, Long-Term Trends were released in April of 2009. Dillon sums up the scores as showing that both white students and minority students improved slightly, leaving the achievement gap between the two about the same size. Moreover, the performance improvements seen since No Child Left Behind was put in place generally follow the same trends observed before it came into play.

Sources

Washington Post, “GOP leaving ‘No Child’ Behind” – Link

Washington Post, “The Schoolhouse Flunks” – Link

New York Times, “‘No Child’ Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap” – Link

Ravitch, “Time to Kill ‘No Child Left Behind’” - Link (login required)

CQ Weekly, “American’s New Principal” – Login required

“Obama is, in effect, giving George W. Bush a third term in education,” said Ms. Diane Ravitch, who served as an assistant secretary of education under the first President Bush.

It is true that NCLB is complicated legislation that has become deeply woven into the fabric of public education all over the United States. Because of this, perhaps, Obama’s democratic government may not want to even try to disentangle it.

However, NCLB is bad law. It rewards all the wrong things. It uses the wrong measuring tools for determining progress. It puts such a burden on classroom teachers and their harried administrators that we all sometimes lose our grip on the most important thing: helping youngsters learn and grow up well.

Yes, there are plenty of problems for the Obama administration to address. How unfortunate that they’re not looking at this big gaffe, and by not doing so, they are continuing one of the worst wrong-headed policies from the previous administration.

There was little emphasis on education from the Obama Administration in 2009, but the policy topic will certainly receive some attention in 2010. We look at the words of President Obama and his chosen Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to get an idea of what will be done in 2010 and beyond.  

• Generally speaking, the administration says its largest focus will be centered on early childhood education and improving teacher quality.
• To improve early childhood education, the administration will primarily look to expand the Head Start program.  Head Start is a $7 billion program right now serving 900,000 preschoolers, and Obama has pledged $10 billion to it.
• To improve teacher quality, it is clear that Obama and Secretary Duncan agree that paying teachers differently based on performance would help. In his confirmation hearing, Duncan talked of “elevating the teaching profession” and to “recognize and reward excellence” in teachers.
• Another option the administration is predicted to implement in an effort to improve teacher quality is a tougher approach to under-performing schools.  Last month, an initiative was announced that will distribute $3.5 billion in grants to help turn around the nation’s lowest performing schools.  School districts apply for funds by identifying which schools they want to improve and selecting one of four models proposed by the Dept. of Education to use in order to improve (or close) the identified schools: Turnaround, Restart, School closure, and Transformation.
• The administration is certainly expected to make changes to No Child Left Behind, but there has been little said as of now.  Secretary Duncan has publicly proposed doubling the program’s funding.
• Obama and Duncan both have expressed belief in the benefits of charter schools to improve quality and promote innovation.  In his campaign, Obama pledged to double federal charter-school funding during his first term, and funding was increased from $208 million to $260 in his 2010 budget.
• The administration’s American Graduation Initiative aims to have an additional 5 million college degrees or certifications by 2020 and will cost $12 billion.  To do this, helping community colleges keep up with growing demand will be a large focus.

Sources

New York Times, “Obama Pledge Stirs Hope in Early Education” – Link

Washington Post, “To get federal funds, schools must apply stronger measures to struggling schools” – Link

Depart of Education, Press Release – Link

The White House Blog, “Investing in Education: The American Graduation Initiative” – Link

CQ Weekly, “Duncan Emphasizes Teacher Quality and Early Childhood Education” – (Login required)

CQ Weekly, “America’s New Principal” – (Login required)

No Child Left Behind, a defining initiative of President Bush, has seen both bright and dark days. In this first part of our look at the ambitious act, we give the basic background of the policy and what proponents and critics of it continue to debate.

———

The basics of No Child Left Behind

• The act was proposed by the Bush Administration immediately after taking office and was enacted on January 8, 2002. Despite early criticisms coming from teacher unions over increased testing and conservatives for the expanded role of federal government in local and state schools, the bill was passed with strong bipartisan support.
• The primary goal of the act is to close the achievement gap between white students and minority students, disabled students, and non-English speaking students. It focuses largely on improving elementary education and puts less emphasis on high schools.
• The act uses standardized testing to assess student achievement, and only reading and math skills are tested. Grades 3 through 8 are tested yearly, while high school students are tested only once.
• Schools that do not produce “adequate yearly progress” both in overall scores and in separate breakdowns of minority, disabled, and non-English speaking scores risk being forced to take measures outlined by the law.   These measures scale from offering free tutoring the school finances to the closing of schools.
• States are given the responsibility of defining “adequate yearly progress,” and this incremental progress each year should lead to students being proficient in reading and math by 2014.  States also have the task of defining what “proficient” amounts to and even to draft their own standardized tests.  Individual schools are responsible to achieve the amount of “adequate yearly progress” as defined by the state they reside in or else risk punishment.

The arguments of supporters and opponents

• No Child Left Behind has continued to hold the support of many groups that dedicate themselves to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students.  Evidence is largely indecisive whether this gap is actually shrinking or not, but overall the gap does seem to be decreasing in grades 3 through 8, albeit at a slower pace than promised by the program.  Supporters universally refer to this finding to defend the program and argue that it is achieving its overarching goal to close the achievement gap in grades 3 through 8.
• Some policy analysts find a significant flaw in how the law determines student achievement.  Instead of gauging how much students have improved each year, the testing only determines if a benchmark has been reached or not.  A simple, hypothetical example would be that a state has determined the target proficiency for its schools to be 80 percent for a given school year.  A privileged school scored 84 percent the year before and scores 84 percent again, marking them as proficient.  A disadvantaged school had scored only 66 percent the year before and jumps up to a score of 76.  The disadvantaged school would still be deemed as not meeting “adequately yearly progress” and possibly be punished as the law outlines.
• Policy analysts also question the effectiveness of financially penalizing under-performing schools.  They argue that taking funds away from these struggling schools will only make improvement that much harder for them to achieve.
• Teacher groups continue to express concern over the threat of teachers “teaching to the test” and the increased amount of school time devoted to testing.  They also worry that many schools, pressured to meet testing benchmarks, are taking time and money away from secondary subjects such as social studies, art, music, and physical education to focus on the only two subjects tested – reading and math.
• Many states have complained about the program, and some have even implemented legislation to defend against its demands.  Some states have labeled the law as an “unfunded mandate” – a federal law that requires states to do something without supplying the funds needed to do it  - but since states have the option of entirely opting-out of the program, this is technically a false accusation.
• Historically, state and local governments have had almost complete authority over their respective schools.  Many conservatives see No Child Left Behind as an entrenchment by the federal government into an area that is best left in the hands of state and local governments.

Sources

Brookings Institute, “No Child Left Behind: How to Give It a Passing Grade” – Link

New York Times, “‘No Child’ Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap” – Link

Washington Post, “To get federal funds, schools must apply stronger measures to struggling schools” – Link

CQ Researcher, “No Child Left Behind” – (Login required)

Greta’s Note: Thank you for your interest and support for law and education, and I hope to talk to you in the new year!

Goodbye, 2009!

10. New technological innovations such as e-textbooks, tutoring software, virtual schools and distance learning, and student performance-tracking programs are helping students learn better and changing the dynamics of the student-teacher relationship.  Their widespread use, however, still lie in the future.

9. “Merit pay” and “accountability” are the buzzwords once again as state legislatures rush to eliminate barriers to link student performance and teacher evaluation in order to comply with requirements for the Race to the Top funding.

8. Chicago and other school districts around the country begin to use socio-economic data instead of race in an effort to integrate their public schools after a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that prohibited schools from using race as a factor in school assignment.

7. Education schools came under criticism, including from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, for lack of standards and rigorous methodology.

6. In a year where the courts showed much judicial restraint and deferred to the school board on education issues, the Supreme Court decided in Safford v. Redding that the strip search of a 13-year-old girl on suspicion that she had prescription-strength ibuprofen violated the Fourth Amendment.

5. Hard-hit by the economy, states across the nation cut educational funding.  Universities respond by freezing salaries, implementing hiring caps, halting construction projects, cutting services, laying off staff, and raising tuition.

4. Congress considered reform to student loans but wavers on more decisive and drastic changes to the existing structure.

3. The economic downturn drive students away from 4-year private colleges in 2009 while community colleges experienced the highest enrollment in years.  Some become so crowded that administrators devise creative ways to accommodate students, such as 2 a.m. classes.

2. NAEP scores stagnate and disappoint educators, raising fears that the U.S. will not meet achievement goals set by President Bush and No Child Left Behind.  Racial achievement gap also appears to be firmly in place.

1. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Race to the Top program that will distribute a total of $4.35 billion to states with the best school reform proposals.  Educators hope that the program would help states shape and implement wide-ranging reform measures in their public schools.

In her bold article for Education Week, “Schools Need a Culture Shift,” Betty J. Sternberg identifies “the skills and competencies needed to thrive in today’s world—teamwork, collaboration, creativity, and innovation,” and refers to “the culture of thriving, cutting-edge business environments.” So here’s the question: is the United States currently preparing its students to take on roles in the 21^st-century workforce, positions that rely on what Eric Liu and I call the ICI Continuum (Imagination à Creativity à Innovation)? Sternberg, a former commissioner of education and superintendent of schools in Connecticut, doesn’t think so. In her view, the No Child Left Behind Act has focused the attention of too many American administrators and teachers on tests and the “progress” they measure, to the exclusion of other, richer aspects of learning.

At Lincoln Center Institute, we believe that holding teachers and school leaders accountable for their students’ learning—and measuring this growth—requires multiple measurement tools. We believe in clear and focused standards, but reject standardization. We embrace accountability, but reject teaching to the test as the sole means toward that end. The goal is to make connections between methods, based on the needs of students. Let’s be bold enough to do this.

The core of Sternberg’s argument is her belief that drilling kids to perform well on state tests is a shortsighted practice because it fails to foster the qualities that really make them successful students, workers, and citizens: love of learning, the ability to work with others, the desire to solve difficult problems, and so on. “They all deserve to grow into extraordinary individuals,” she writes, “not just a record of test scores.” As a commissioner, Sternberg did help develop methods of K-12 assessment, so she knows that measurement of knowledge is necessary and can be implemented “in authentic and meaningful ways.” But, according to her, we’re moving farther away from this ideal each day.

We at LCI have our own idea of what imaginative learning looks like; for more information, visit our Web site at www.lcinstitute.org. What is your vision of imaginative learning? And how do you think we can spread it throughout our schools in order to produce both happier, more engaged students and a stronger, more competitive America?

Georgia’s State Superintendent of Schools, Kathy Cox, released the December 2009/January 2010 newsletter. It included a list of the 17 schools that moved-off the NCLB ’Needs improvement’ list, as well as a summary of Georgia’s performance on the 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The assessment, administered every 2 years, compares academic performance of 4th and 8th grade students across the country in areas such as Math and Reading. With the exception of the SAT and ACT, it is the closet thing we have to a national assessment. I believe I may have blogged about this topic before but I feel it’s important to revisit it because I have a problem with people presenting data without using full disclosure.

One thing we need to keep in mind is that the national average is just that: An average of scores from all 4th and 8th graders across the country. I did not find the word average anywhere in the article; I read it four times.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show great improvement in Georgia.

Let’s analyze the data to see exactly what determines ‘great’ as opposed to say ‘good’ or no improvement at all. Data for AYP *subgroups is listed below.

4th Grade Performance Math (2003 to 2009>6 year period>4 administrations)

• GA (All Students) 230-236; +6 points >1.5 gain/admin
• Nation (All Students) 234-239;+5 points >1.25 gain/admin
• GA (Free & Reduced Lunch) 219-225 +6 points >1.5 gain/admin
• Nation (Free & Reduced Lunch) 222-228; +6 points >1.5 gain/admin
• GA (Black Students) 217-221; +4 points > 1.0 gain/admin
• Nation (Black Students) 216-222; +6 points > 1.5 gain/admin
• GA (Hispanic Students) 201-212; +11 points > 2.75 gain/admin
• Nation (Hispanic Students) 199-204; +5 points > 1.25 gain/admin

The article stated that Georgia is “…leading the nation in improving student achievement,” (Cox, 2009). For some reason the performance of Students with Disabilities (SWD) and English Language Learners (ELL) were omitted from the newsletter, so I decided to check the NAEP site for those numbers.

GA ELL Population

• 2009 > 220
• 2007 > 212
• 2005 > 208
• 2003 > 208

Nation’s ELL Population

• 2009 > 218
• 2007 > 217
• 2005 > 216
• 2003 > 214

GA Students with Disabilities Population

• 2009 > 215
• 2007 > 219
• 2005 > 218
• 2003 > 209

Nation’s Students with Disabilities Population

• 2009 > 220
• 2007 > 220
• 2005 > 218
• 2003 > 214

Although Georgia’s ELL population performed higher than the national average for 2009, performance in other years has been considerably lower, with 2 years of no growth at all. The scores of the SWD group have been on the decline for the past three administrations, while the national average scores have improved. Perhaps that explains why those two groups were omitted from the newsletter. Just a thought. If anyone is interested, I will probably (meaning definitely) do a state-by-state comparison of each subgroup and compile some sort of ranking for each. I will likely start with SWD since I am a former Special Education teacher.

Thanks for reading!

 *AYP subgroups=those groups of students identified as having a ‘gap’ in their achievement compared to White, Asian, and economically advantaged students: Blacks, Hispanics, Students with Disabilities (SWD), and English Language Learners (ELL).

Check out this NPR interview with author Beth Fertig. Are you sitting down? Fertig “says that as many as 20 percent of American adults may be functionally illiterate. They may recognize letters and words, but can’t read directions on a bus sign or a medicine bottle, read or write a letter, or hold most any job. Her new book, Why cant U teach me 2 read, follows three young New Yorkers who legally challenged the New York City public schools for failing to teach them how to read — and won. Host Scott Simon talks to Fertig about her book.”

Read/Listen more

The bus had a brightly colored advertisement on it which caught my attention. It was the School District of Philadelphia advertising for students to attend our public schools. Of course advertisements need a celebrity, so our CEO Dr. Arlene Ackerman has her face attached to the advertisement. This is how we spend taxpayer money in the NCLB environment.

The school being advertised was one of our top magnet schools. The school has no problem attracting students and turns down many who wish to attend. Auditions may be required for acceptance.

It’s not that way at a school in North Philadelphia, where a principal addresses students by their state assessed category. Hey you, “below basic” calls the principal, come over here “boy.”

Yes in this NCLB world where students are nothing more than test scores, students are addressed as below basic or worse. And if Below Basic commits an infraction, he/she gets suspended because in the principal’s words, “they add no value to the school.”

Last week a young man was suspended, then transferred. After being provoked by the principal, he took a swing at the principal and was transferred out of the school. Good for the principal, he got rid of a student who added no value to his school. He’s that much closer to making AYP.

Advertising for students,  removing students who damage your enterprises reputation, is nothing but a rational action to meet the requirements of an irrational policy.

I have a “restricted endorsement for necessarily small schools” in Art. That means that I can’t teach Art in juvenile corrections. I have been moved to the alternative high school this year, where I can teach art with my endorsement, but in lockup, I can’t teach Art because I’m not highly qualified.

What does it take for me to become highly qualified? I need to take the Praxis exam. Problem is, a couple of years ago, I sat on a committee to tweak the Art Praxis exam for my state, and so I am disqualified from taking it for five years from that time. I suppose I can get that restriction waived, but the whole situation is ludicrous.

Highly qualified? I’m a splendid art teacher. My students make super art.

The day I found all this out, I left my classroom and saw Misti working in the commons area. She was struggling mightily with algebra problems. They were not-too-difficult equation problems. I looked over them and said, “Just put the number guys on one side and the letter guys on the other side. You know how to change them positive and negative if they cross the equal mark?”

“Yes,” she said.

“OK. Just put the number guys on one side and the letter guys on the other side, changing positive and negative as needed, and then do the problem.”

“OOOOOHHHH,” says Misti. She gets it and she’s off.

Well, I’m not Highly Qualified in Math. I’m not qualified at all.

Highly Qualified means nothing when it comes to good teaching. It’s another misstep of No Child Left Behind that creates ridiculous situations that can place really good teachers at a silly disadvantage.

One side of NCLB:

It was once said, “The important thing about a problem is not its solution, but the strength we gain in finding the solution”. No Child Left Behind may not be the solution for all the problems with the American education system, but the resolution today asks us whether we have become stronger and improved our achievement while searching for the solution. No Child Left Behind has improved academic achievement as shown by testing, higher quality teachers, and the academic programs it has instituted.

No Child Left Behind has greatly increased test scores.

NCLB has increased test scores on both government tests and non-government administered objective tests. A US News and World Report article of July 16^th, 2007 stated that, in states with significant data, the yearly rate of improvement increased by 25% after NCLB. The overall increased rate of improvement means that because of NCLB, our students are learning faster than ever before.

Outside of government tests, MSNBC reported on August 29^th, 2006, it was announced the class of 2006 had posted the biggest score increase in 20 years on the ACT exam. The article went on to say that the ACT is generally more focused on material covered in high school classes than the SAT.

These findings were supported by a study published by The Center on Education Policy in July 2008. The study says that the US has seen 121 instances of moderate to large gains in the past six years and only 11 declines. This study is very important because it shows us both the gains and losses. Clearly, on a variety of tests, NCLB has caused improved academic achievement.

No Child Left Behind has greatly improved America’s teachers, which has led to greater student achievement.

A study conducted by the Educational Testing Service of December 2007 reported that the policies of No Child Left Behind have contributed to a stronger cohort of individuals seeking teacher certification.

“Among prospective teachers, the proportion of those with high GPAs increased while the proportion of those with lower GPAs declined…Thus, by this measure, we are witnessing a dramatic improvement in the quality of the teacher pool.”

William L. Sanders, Senior Research Fellow with the University of North Carolina has found that low-achieving students gain an average of 14 percentile points with the least effective teachers. By contrast, the most effective teachers produce average gains of 53 percentile points with low-achieving students. There is no doubt regarding the importance of teachers, and there is no doubt that No Child Left behind has greatly improved teacher quality.

Also, NCLB’s requirement for teachers to be certified has increased achievement. According to the fifty-state Schools and Achievement Survey:

“Quantitative analyses indicate that measures of teacher preparation and certification are by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics, both before and after controlling for student poverty and language status”

NCLB has led to the institution of programs that have drastically improved student achievement

a) No Child Left Behind has led to the institution of Reading First

According to the US Department of Education in 2008, Reading First is the largest federal reading initiative ever undertaken in the United States. As of the ‘05/’06 school year more than 5,600 had participated in the program and had served about 1.8 million students. Of those students who participated, 97% reported improved reading scores.

b) No Child Left Behind allows any student in an underperforming schools to transfer to better schools

According to the US Department of Education, December 2008, more than 120,000 students to advantage of the program in the 2006-2007 school year alone.  This provision is very important in improving achievement because it gives students in search of better schools the chance to attend a school that provides them a better education

c) No Child Left Behind give all qualifying students tutoring, free of charge, in order to improve their academic achievement

The DOE reported in December 2008 that more than 530,000 students received free tutoring or after-school help under NCLB in 2006-07. Since then, the department has continued to attempt to increase the number of students receiving free help.

In conclusion, because of better performance, better teachers, and better achieving disabled students, my partner and I strongly affirm today’s resolution. We cannot ask ourselves whether we have found a solution, but rather we must look at what we have achieved on our search for it.

My second long-term story left ink marks on fingers today. If you don’t live in Columbia, you can read it here. While on the Columbia Missourian, you can read other stories I wrote this semester, which are found at the bottom of the sidebar, like this one about No Child Left Behind in more detail.

This most recent story is about Columbia’s only alternative school and the silly cycle it must go through now because it doesn’t exactly fit into NCLB’s conception of education. I do know it’s complicated. It’s been in the editing process since Thanksgiving Break. It’s been through copyediting three times. It’s just a really confusing issue. Like most thing bureaucratic, it’s complicated.

I’m a little dismayed that no one will be able to understand it if even the copyeditors don’t understand it. But, then again, the copyeditors read tons of copy and look for mistakes, whereas the typical reader consumes a few stories a day.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Feel free to be harsh. I’m changing how I handle criticism, so I’m ready for it.

Also, if you want a laugh, take a listen to me on The Beat, the radio show where reporters are interviewed about their stories. Eric Durban, the host, said my story was the hardest to understand, but the most interesting he’s done. I’m getting that a lot. We’ll see.

PSA-Linds

Artist’s Statement- PSA

I chose to address the issue of insufficient arts education in the schools in my public service announcement. I am passionate about arts and learning so this topic interested me. It is my hope that this piece will bring its audience to realize and address the issue of insufficient arts education in the schools.

My goal is not to demand that people hear me and follow out my plans, but rather, that they will be inspired and motivated by the piece and use my creative prompting to formulate their own ideas about advancing arts education in their localities.

My intended audience is mainly parents of children who are engaged in primary education. My audience will hopefully include school board members and invested parents who are committed to ensuring the best possible education for their children. I also think, as a byproduct, it would be beneficial if students heard this and it got them thinking about, and maybe even excited about, the arts in their schools.

I utilize music and children’s voices in this piece, in an attempt to strike an emotional cord in my listeners. The music I chose is Fur Elise, by Beethoven, which adds credibility to the piece as well as an element of ethos. For those who are more hesitant to embrace the import of arts education, I added information about the positive effect that arts education has on the more “credible” or “traditional” subjects, and even on the emotional and neurological well being of the child. I included statistics and research to give the piece authority and accuracy in an appeal to logos.

In a PSA, a few well-placed words are insufficient; they also must be technically accurate. Your listener has to be convinced that what you are saying is worth listening to, and then you have to motivate them to actually do something about it. And it is not just about the words. Music and/or sound effects are almost always used, and they cannot just add interest, they have to add relevant interest and enhance the piece rather than unintentionally distract the listener, clutter up the piece, or drown out the speech.

During the recording process, some technicalities must be adhered to. The tone of voice needs to be appropriate for the subject material, the room cannot be echoey, the mouth needs to be the correct distance from the microphone so there are not any awkward sound variations, the cadence of the speech should be correct, the speech at once should not be too rushed or drag along and every word requires the correct emphasis. All of these things will invariably require several recording attempts before the optimum resolution is achieved. For my PSA, I began recording in a monotone, but I quickly realized that neither my voice nor the material I was addressing leant themselves to that approach. Putting inflection, emotion, and authority into my voice resulted in the correct tone for the piece.

The editing and layering of sounds is the most difficult aspect of composing a PSA. Audio-editing programs are confusing, do not exactly work 100% like they should, and randomly delete your projects. Every track must be edited to perfection separately and then layered together and aligned correctly with the other tracks. It also needs to be taken into consideration that the tracks may sound different on different speakers or headphones.

Working out the technicalities of a PSA to the optimum resolution is the most difficult part. The most meaningful aspect is definitely the subject matter. Anytime an author is passionate about something and invested in her subject, the composition is rarely a complete failure. One of the most rewarding parts of composing this piece for me was being able to incorporate music and words, evoking both the logical and the emotional.

As far as my own PSA, achieving cohesiveness through the technical aesthetics of the piece was the most difficult and frustrating part of the process. My peers and professor listened to my rough drafts several times and gave me many helpful tips and suggestions. Editing is just as crucial for a PSA as for any other kind of writing, if not more so. Other people will always notice things that I overlook, and it gives me an idea of how my intended audience will receive my PSA and if it will get my message across the way I want it to. In the end, I was able to iron out the technical aspects as I became more comfortable working with the audio editing software, and I ultimately achieved a concise and effective script, resulting in a fluid audio composition.

Another point of my PSA that required much revision and outside input was the script. I began with way too much information. It was bulky, confusing, and going in several different directions. In the end, I learned that less is often more- more easy to understand, keep the audience’s attention, and get the point across. Even after paring down the script, there were parts of the script that were actually offensive and politically incorrect (i.e., calling underprivileged children “unreachable”). This was not something I realized, and I am thankful that my peers were able to see this and point it out to me.

I think my PSA would be well suited for a distribution channel such as NPR, or another similar radio station.

Up early – getting Husband out the door, nursing Daughter, etc. So I had lots done before sunrise, and had a moment to stand and watch it happen.

A hard freeze had settled over the valley last night, and where the sun rays first hit, steam rose into the air.

This is several hard freezes by now – here’s to hoping it might knock back the ticks a bit. Our county is one of the worst areas in the state. Also one of the worst for copperheads, and I dearly hope those have gone to ground for the winter, too.

Lovely place to raise a kid, though. She’ll have to learn to balance her foreground and background vision – watch out for snakes and ticks, but remember to keep an eye out for sunrises and full moons.

And to listen for coyotes. They’ve been driving the dogs crazy lately at night. And it seems like the fox mommy has denned down over across the street again, so she can poach from my compost pile.

Yes, the schools out here are on the verge of disaccreditation under No Child Left Behind. But still.

F.W. Taylor

LEARNING OUTCOMES: THE ABSURD BECOMES LOGICAL

This is the title of a topical and important new paper by John J. Crocitti, Professor of History, San Diego Mesa College which is now available at The Flow of Ideas web site.

As Professor Crocitti notes:

“Ultimately, the drive towards SLO [Student Learning Outcomes] constitutes an effort by politicians, business people, opportunist professors and bureaucrats to deskill and control academic labor in the manner that management applied Taylorism to industrial labor during the early twentieth century”

The article can be viewed at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=contributions&sub=Learning%20Outcomes

Glenn Rikowski

What this boils down to is arts education advocacy, also a new initiative at Performing Arts Workshop. For decades we have touted the importance of arts education in the classroom, but the impact seemed limited to our region. Recently we chose to broaden the focus of our work from the every day little changes we see in the classroom to institutional changes in the way arts education is defined, funded, and spoken about. The Obama Policy statement shares this goal, but what does this actually mean for arts education nationwide? While the Workshop advocates for the arts from a platform based on valuable life skills and critical thinking, the Obama Policy document argues in favor of higher test scores in non-art subjects. This is a larger issue where, due to the continuing time crunch of the school day, teaching art can only be justified if it has statistically viable affects on other subjects. But we don’t teach Science only because it enhances Math skills and we don’t teach History only because it helps with English. We teach these subjects because they are part and parcel of a well-rounded education in which art has always had a place. Falling into the art-is-okay-only-if-it-helps-with-standardized-testing trap has dire consequences as the main argument for arts education.

Testing is not the end-all be-all answer for our suffering education system. The nation has had firsthand knowledge of this through 8+ years of No Child Left Behind. Benchmarks for improvement are important for assessing students in a broad sense, but relying on test results to give us a detailed picture of a students’ individual learning is dangerous. Each student is different and deserves an education focused on their strengths and needs. By contrast, the arts education experience is individualized. At the Workshop, teaching artists adjust their curriculum plans based on the desires, needs, and pace of the students. Education systems with no flexibility intrinsically fail the students that they are trying to serve.

By using academic achievement as the main argument for arts education, it appears to be the main goal as well, and our current system evaluates academic achievement goals through test scores. Teaching to a test does not raise life skills, critical thinking, or joy in education. If we look only at test scores to evaluate the success or failure of arts education, the dynamic aspect of arts learning and the real life skills gained during that experience are ignored. The value of the art-making experience lives well beyond a 95% score in math. A student may never remember what he or she scored or even the topic of a test, but they will remember the teaching artist who taught them that they too have the power to create. The arts are about being different, the arts are about personal expression and what makes us individuals. Testing is about the same answer for every question.

The Obama Arts Policy Platform is certainly a beautiful idea. Its message heralds a new era of arts education that has the potential to “reinvigorate the kind of creativity and innovation that has made this country great,” “nourish our children’s creative skills” and “encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education” so that the arts are “a central part of effective teaching and learning.” This is an arts education dream. But if Barack Obama truly believes that, “the arts embody the American spirit of self-definition,” then he needs to re-think the rationale behind his support for the “creative economy” and how these ideas will be implemented. Will public/private partnerships continue to be mired in bureaucracy and limited to funding tied to economic growth? Or will art based education finally come into its own with innovation based on art’s inherent creativity? Will teaching artists be given a living wage, work in their own community, and the creative freedom to be agents of change? Or will they be forced into the “teach the test” box in which our overworked teachers currently find themselves? President Obama, it is up to you.

John Dewey said, “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not a preparation for life, education is life itself.”

And that, my dears and darlings (which is what I call my junior-high art students), is why No Child Left Behind is just wrong.

No Child Left Behind purports to measure something real, but test scores are only illusion. They are not real; they are a contrived moment where stress-drenched children sitting in uncomfortable chairs attempt to understand oblique prose manufactured by test-writers who maybe never knew a child in their lives.

Think I’m exaggerating? I am a long-time professional writer as well as a teacher. I read–a great deal. What I am telling you is that I’m smart and well-educated, day after day, all my long life. Yet when I open those language-arts tests designed for junior-high and high-school students, some of the questions are so strangely phrased that I can’t understand them myself, much less choose one of the multiple-choice answers, any two or three of which could be understood to be correct.

And math! I like math myself, yet when I crack open one of the math tests, I hyperventilate. Part of the reason is that the tests are designed to make everyone fail at some point; no one can answer everything correctly. How’s that for brilliant pedagogy-via-test-taking: make everyone fail.

It’s not a good way to help our dears and darlings find their way to a rich life of education. No, it’s a direct route to helping them hate the process. Nobody likes to fail. Who can blame kids for turning from the books to the video games, where at least they can progress and excel!

Kids spend their fragile and fleeting childhood years in our care–in our schools, in our classrooms. I propose that we design these classrooms be places of deep, rich learning a la Dewey–not factories for turning out test scores.

Charters Schools fail because they have abandoned the concept they were created for. Charter Schools were conceived to fill a niche role, to provide a service public schools weren’t designed to perform.

An example of a real Charter School is Arise Academy. Arise Academy only takes students who are or were in the foster care system. Many of these children have emotional scars preventing them from succeeding in a traditional school. The majority of children in foster care end up in prison. Arise Academy has been created to stem that prison pipeline and help these children recreate their lives in a positive manner.

Too many charter schools only seek children whose parents are involved, who behave well, and whose test scores are acceptable enough to raise the esteem of the school. The truth is that if every public school in Philadelphia were turned into a Charter School the dropout rate and the test scores would not change. Philadelphia already is successful at educating the children that the majority of Charter Schools take in. Indeed the highest achieving schools in the tri-state region surrounding Philadelphia are all Philadelphia Public Schools. Masterman, Central, Cappa, Carver, Northeast Science, Bodine I.B., do more than compete. Heck, one of our toughest schools, West Philadelphia, has beaten MIT in solar car competitions on several occasions. Another one, Overbrook, has won the state mock trial competition more than once in recent years. They do it with the same students the Charter Schools are recruiting.

Charter Schools such as Arise Academy are a benefit to education. To many other Charter Schools are in the education business to profit off the current environment created by NCLB. The purpose of NCLB was not to fix education, but to destroy public education and the unions. NCLB may be successful in doing that, but it won’t be successful in changing education or improving it for the children who need it most, the children who Charter Schools don’t take in. So what happens in 2014 when public schools close and Charter Schools refuse admission to the children who are too expensive for Charter Schools to educate?

Since President George W. Bush passed “No Child Left Behind,” his wide-sweeping education reform, schools have been subjected to rigorous screening and grading that, while noble in intent, has numerous shortfalls.  The most notable, especially here in Ohio with our sizable minority populations, is the fact that schools are punished for below-par academic performance from students with disabilities and whose primary language is not English.

Such was the case in Lebanon and Kettering City Schools, as reported here today.  Senate Bill 167 takes great strides to correct some of the “No Child Let Behind” flaws.  In the case of Kettering, Lebanon and all other school districts here in Ohio, this new legislation will allow schools whose adequate yearly progress (AYP) is already maxed out to be immune from negative ratings given when minority and disabled students cannot meet the same standards of most other students.

The bill was passed in the Senate 32-1 with Senator Eric Kearney, D-Cincinnati, voting the sole “nay” out of objection to the whole ratings premise.  The bill took two months to pass through the Senate and now moves on to the House for their consideration.

Danielle Steele’s novels are automatically superior to Leo Tolstoy’s novels, right? That must be so if you adopt the logic of a common contemporary Republican talking point: Big documents are automatically inferior to short documents.

Increasingly, it seems Republican pols and pundits love to criticize legislative proposals by citing the SIZE of the package. For instance, they are forever scoffing at the number of pages, pounds and words included in Democrats’ health reform proposals. They imply that anything that can’t be read during a bathroom break should be considered a toilet paper substitute.

While the logic of that simplistic argument is obviously silly –- for instance, the disasterous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was much shorter than the wildly successful legislation that created the GI Bill — it’s also important to not lose sight of the breathtaking hypocrisy of the argument.

After all, opencongress.org recently pointed out that five of the ten largest bills in American history were introduced by Republicans. The No Child Left Behind bill, fathered by Republican Speaker John Boehner, was 274,559 words at birth. And the Bush tax cuts legislation was also a tome. Worse yet, some of the words in these bills were rumored to be polysyllabic.

And really folks, so what? Both Republicans’ and Democrats’ bills are large and complex because — guess what? — they are addressing large and complex issues.

Why the Republican obsession with their partners’ size? The tobacco industry’s PR wizards of yesteryear privately confided that the primary product they were selling was DOUBT rather than cigarettes. That is, they had to make medical science seem so complex that non-scientists remained in doubt. Similary, Republicans’ focus on health reform girth is all about peddling doubt about life under a reformed system. Because when doubt sells, the status quo lives on.

- Loveland

I keep flipping through my calendar but I can’t find it: national ‘Education has suddenly become a mess’ day. Is it on your calendars? Apparently, it’s a holiday that only politicians, talking heads, and anyone who has never been involved in Education celebrate. Since the Obama Administration announced the Race to the Top competitive funding initiative, everyone has chimed-in on what’s wrong with Education and what needs to be done. This latest Wall Street Journal op-ed piece got my dander up today, simply because we have reached the point of politico-overload. Do these nuevo-Education experts know that No Child Left Behind was authorized in 2001 to address the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students, as well as the gap between minority and non-minority students? Probably not. Do they realize that we are asking for trouble if the government signs over million dollar checks to states that have repeatedly failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress without the midnight-hour ’safe harbor’ crutches? Probably not. Do they realize that in order to even begin to touch the surface of the Education crisis, we need to have a major change in leadership? Probably not. But I digress. If you can close the achievement gap with RttT funds dangling in front of you, why can’t you do the same without it?