No Child Left Behind means No Child gets Ahead. For the most part, a terrible thing. I didn’t want to argue this point as I don’t have the time but NCLB insures the dumbing down of American school children.
Hi V,
The purpose of the video is not trying to teach them reading but for educational purposes only. I don’t want to show them movies all the time, plus my school deosn’t allow it anyhow.
Thank you for your reply, I will use some of your other ideas. The idea with reading the script, I’ve done that already and it works great!!
Joesax, I think if you are really interested in all of this survey’s criticisms about the tests, you should really take a look at the tests themselves and the penalties for not reaching AYP (adequate yearly progress). I will try to later post some links to sample tests so you can judge for yourself.Tommy, glad to be of some help.
[quote=“v”]Joesax, I think if you are really interested in all of this survey’s criticisms about the tests, you should really take a look at the tests themselves and the penalties for not reaching AYP (adequate yearly progress). I will try to later post some links to sample tests so you can judge for yourself.Tommy, glad to be of some help.[/quote]V, I’d be interested to have a look at the tests if you have time to find the links.
However, I think that the survey related to the NCLB policies as a whole, not just the tests. Some teachers feel that they are prevented from catering to kids’ individual needs and abilities, as DB said:[quote=“Durins Bane”]No Child Left Behind means No Child gets Ahead. For the most part, a terrible thing. I didn’t want to argue this point as I don’t have the time but NCLB insures the dumbing down of American school children.[/quote]
It’s interesting to hear this viewpoint from this source because DB is anything but a “wishy-washy liberal”, as I believe critics of the NCLB are sometimes characterised.
I don’t think the National Curriculum in the UK goes as far as the NCLB. However, it started from similar aims – central government being concerned at under achievement and perhaps a certain lack of accountability on the part of local authorities. However, it has also been criticised for similar reasons to those directed at NCLB: Lack of flexibility – one-size-fits-no-one-really – as well as greatly increased paperwork and bureacracy.
joesax said: However, I think that the survey related to the NCLB policies as a whole, not just the tests. Some teachers feel that they are prevented from catering to kids’ individual needs and abilities,
v says: This highlighted phrase makes no sense to me. In order to teach ANYTHING you need to focus on how to get that across to the individual student. Do you think I teach my students who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities the same way I do other students?
Joesax continued: as DB said:[quote=“Durins Bane”]No Child Left Behind means No Child gets Ahead. For the most part, a terrible thing. I didn’t want to argue this point as I don’t have the time but NCLB insures the dumbing down of American school children.[/quote]
It’s interesting to hear this viewpoint from this source because DB is anything but a “wishy-washy liberal”, as I believe critics of the NCLB are sometimes characterised.
v says: I don’t care if DB is a liberal or conservative, his post had zero reasoning power behind it, so I disregarded his post, as you should. Wait until he comes back with some supporting arguments before referencing him.
joesax said: I don’t think the National Curriculum in the UK goes as far as the NCLB. However, it started from similar aims – central government being concerned at under achievement and perhaps a certain lack of accountability on the part of local authorities. However, it has also been criticised for similar reasons to those directed at NCLB: Lack of flexibility – one-size-fits-no-one-really – as well as greatly increased paperwork and bureacracy.[/quote]
v says: most people would opt for less pressure on the job rather than more. NCLB ratchets up that pressure. Another concrete gain from NCLB: before it was more common to try to get immigrant (ESL) students tested for learning disabilities. Did they really have an inborn disability? Many times they didn’t. Teachers just didn’t know how to deal with them, especially because the teachers couldn’t communicate with the parents easily. Most ESL students would get low scores on the test because of their LANGUAGE disability, not a learning disability- so it was easy to put them in low classes away from the general school population. Now that ALL students have to be accounted for under NCLB, there is no longer an adbvantage to shoving these students (or students who are discipline problems) into classes for students with learning disabilities. Now it’s better to keep as many students as possible in the mainstream classes so that the pace of learning will be faster than in the spec education classes. As for the students who have REAL learning disabilities- they can’t retain info and have a low IQ- how are they going to reach proficiency along with the rest of the general student population? I don’t know- as I said, expecting them to do so is unrealistic and is a valid criticism of NCLB. BUT, isn’t it sooo important that students are not just being dumped into these low classes because teachers can’t deal with them? ( I should add that teachers who couldn’t deal with ESL students get more support in my district now. Also, the teachers who DID NOT WANT TO MAKE THE EFFORT to deal with ESL students now have their feet to the fire.) Now the students who really need these spec ed classes are in those classes and the students who before would have been thrown in those classes are getting the support they need to succeed in a mainstream class- at least that is how NCLB is playing out in my school district.
oops
Interesting views from v and joesax.
v raises some very good points.
Try googling pictures of inter city schools in the USA. Won’t get true pictures and many of the schools can’t track their students. That is where NCLB might work best. The Chicago school system is a mess. Schools down South are having classes conducted in bathrooms.
There is also the problem of a “white flight” from poorer districts. I work in a great district but would I send my own kids there? No, never. I have 7th graders as parents…12-14 year old as a mom?
I have a class of 28 6th grade students and only 2 of them speak English at home. Out of the 26 NNS population I would say that perhaps 5 have two parents at home. Some students I have no idea where they live. No phone, no family support…nothing. I have students coming to school hungry…so much so they are feeling faint.
I went from working 4 hours a day at a six figure salary to this? I must be some kind of idiot.
I can’t teach Art or Science because they are not listed on 6th grade standards. I teach academic language and science during ESL time because I can’t during regular school time.
Fact: 50% of all new teachers (after spending 15,000 to be certified) leave teaching within their first five years.
DB said: I can’t teach Art or Science because they are not listed on 6th grade standards. I teach academic language and science during ESL time because I can’t during regular school time.
v says: Science may become one of the tested areas later. Edit: Science is tested on the NJ state test. But don’t you think that the kids have to have basic literacy and math skills first before anything else? Sometimes because of scheduling problems, I used to have to pull out ESL kids from Music or Art class. Some of those teachers would get mad, but my point was that they need to first learn basic, foundational skills so that they have a chance of earning a good living and being good citizens. Also, the literacy section of the NJ state test, called the NJASK if you want to google sample items, has all different kinds of passages on it- including expository/informational ones used to convey Science concepts. You mean your state literacy test only has narrative (story-telling) passages? And what were you doing in Taiwan earning 6 figures? I had a buxiban with my husband for 3 years and we made enough $$ to pay for a nice 2-story house with a good basement and 2 second hand cars for cash. Now we both have new cars and zero debt- no car payments, mortgage, nothing. Also we have 2 children who get the prefunctory piano lessons, we send $ back to Taiwan, and my mom lives with us in her own addition for which we pay all utilities. But one of the main reasons my husband married me was because I’m cheap (cough cough)- I mean FRUGAL 
Browse some of the sample test items, and then tell me what you think.
Whoring myself. Ever see me in a thong with lotion poured all over myself? 
You owe ten bucks just for talking to me on-line.
uh-oh, I smell a pinnochio!!! It’s ok, I’m used to dispensing forgiveness on this site. Why not go back to Taiwan? I didn’t because of my mom and because where I am now is better for my children.
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jd, what are you doing butting in? He’s one of the guys I had to dispense forgiveness to!!
I posted sample test items for you comment and no comments? How can people criticize the tests when they aren’t willing to take a look at them?
I posted sample test items for you comment and no comments? How can people criticize the tests when they aren’t willing to take a look at them?
Perhaps because the test questions in themselves are irrelevant. :s
[quote=“v”]I posted sample test items for you comment and no comments? How can people criticize the tests when they aren’t willing to take a look at them?[/quote]Thanks for posting the sample test items. I’ve been looking at them over the last couple of days. I hate jumping to conclusions on things so gave myself a little time to mull over both the tests and the broader issues that you raised.
In and of themselves, the tests seem reasonable. However, I’m still concerned about the context in which they feature and the uses to which they are put.
[quote=“v”]joesax said: However, I think that the survey related to the NCLB policies as a whole, not just the tests. Some teachers feel that they are prevented from catering to kids’ individual needs and abilities,
v says: This highlighted phrase makes no sense to me. In order to teach ANYTHING you need to focus on how to get that across to the individual student.[/quote]Quite. It seems that some teachers feel they are prevented from teaching much at all. But maybe “prevented” is putting it a bit strong. Perhaps “hindered” would be more accurate.
[quote]Do you think I teach my students who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities the same way I do other students?[/quote]No. I’m sure you do a very good job. And I don’t assume that you’re one of the teachers who feels hindered by the NCLB. But going from the survey I linked above, quite a few teachers do. What do you think about this? Are between eighty and ninety-nine percent of Vermont teachers work-shy, with no professional integrity? Or could they have legitimate gripes, or at least valid alternative viewpoints?
[quote]v says: most people would opt for less pressure on the job rather than more. NCLB ratchets up that pressure. Another concrete gain from NCLB: before it was more common to try to get immigrant (ESL) students tested for learning disabilities. Did they really have an inborn disability? Many times they didn’t. Teachers just didn’t know how to deal with them, especially because the teachers couldn’t communicate with the parents easily. Most ESL students would get low scores on the test because of their LANGUAGE disability, not a learning disability- so it was easy to put them in low classes away from the general school population. Now that ALL students have to be accounted for under NCLB, there is no longer an adbvantage to shoving these students (or students who are discipline problems) into classes for students with learning disabilities. Now it’s better to keep as many students as possible in the mainstream classes so that the pace of learning will be faster than in the spec education classes.[/quote]Is it just a choice between low level classes or mainstream classes? How about bilingual education for a year or two at the beginning?
What do you think of Stephen Krashen’s view that bilingual education accelerates English development, that many of the criticisms of it are based on faulty statistics, and that language immersion often ends up as non-comprehensible submersion?
sdkrashen.com/articles/krashen_intro.pdf
sdkrashen.com/articles/krashen_immersion.pdf
sdkrashen.com/articles/prop227/index.html
sdkrashen.com/articles/arizona/index.html
(Krashen sometimes gets a little too political and dogmatic for my liking. However, I think the linked articles provide plenty of ground for discussing the evidence and the issues, and I hope we can ignore any big or small “P” politics).
[quote]As for the students who have REAL learning disabilities- they can’t retain info and have a low IQ- how are they going to reach proficiency along with the rest of the general student population? I don’t know- as I said, expecting them to do so is unrealistic and is a valid criticism of NCLB. BUT, isn’t it sooo important that students are not just being dumped into these low classes because teachers can’t deal with them?[/quote]So are students with learning difficulties usually kept in mainstream classes? Is that the best solution? Surely having them in separate classes, at least for some of the time, would speed things up for them? Of course if they are simply dumped into low-level classes and forgotten, that’s no good. But I’m not convinced that putting them into mainstream classes all the time is the best solution either.
Another point that people often raise is that NCLB is not sufficient to raise educational standards. Poor teaching/teacher management is just one of many possible causes of low achievement. Underfunding of school libraries could be another. And I think the big ones are social issues such as poverty and single parent families. I’m not saying there is an easy solution. But expecting NCLB to fix educational problems without looking at some of the other underlying issues would be unrealistic.
JOESAX SAID: Thanks for posting the sample test items. I’ve been looking at them over the last couple of days. I hate jumping to conclusions on things so gave myself a little time to mull over both the tests and the broader issues that you raised.
v says: it is gratifying to have a discussion with someone who takes the time to ponder things and give a thoughtful answer.
JS said: In and of themselves, the tests seem reasonable.
v says: actually, not only are the test items reasonable, compared to what is taught at the same grades for math and science in other countries, what American students are expected to master is not rigorous at all.
JS said: However, I’m still concerned about the context in which they feature and the uses to which they are put.
v says: didn’t quite catch your meaning here.
joesax said: However, I think that the survey related to the NCLB policies as a whole, not just the tests. Some teachers feel that they are prevented from catering to kids’ individual needs and abilities,
v says: This highlighted phrase makes no sense to me. In order to teach ANYTHING you need to focus on how to get that across to the individual student.[/quote]
js said: Quite. It seems that some teachers feel they are prevented from teaching much at all. But maybe “prevented” is putting it a bit strong. Perhaps “hindered” would be more accurate.
v says: ‘hindered’? That is too general a phrase. Yeah, NCLB makes their job harder because before we could dump the real problem kids in spec ed where no one was paying attention to them, and the teacher would teach to the ‘middle’, which meant that the top kids were OK, but bored, the middle level kids were best off, and the lower kids who weren’t low enough for spec ed still were struggling more and more with each passing year unless they had parents behind them.
js said: What do you think about this? Are between eighty and ninety-nine percent of Vermont teachers work-shy, with no professional integrity? Or could they have legitimate gripes, or at least valid alternative viewpoints?
v says: Like I said, for the true learning disabled kids, there is a legit gripe. But I don’t think the majority of the teachers surveyed were spec ed teachers. You can see from the test items that the level of knowledge/skill expected from kids isn’t all that high. If we can’t get our students to this kind of watered down standard, heaven help us in the new knowledge economy. The pressure is on and mainstream anti-intellectual,calling the smart kids geeks and eggheads American culture is not up to it. A lot of parents feel sports are more important than studies. Some feel like they did OK without killing themselves over homework, so why should they push their kids. Some feel that education is 100% the teacher’s job to the point where they don’t even monitor to see if their kids have completed their homework. Others are just fuck-up parents with all sorts of theirown personal problems. In the face of this kind of culture marches in NCLB. Teachers can’t do it alone. In a room full of kids of differing abilities, they absolutely need the parents working with their struggling kids at home. For my own kids, I myself check over almost every piece of homework, I go over every test mistake with them 95% of the time. This is crucial since skills build on each other- they must understand why they got something wrong before they go on to something new. The teachers try their best, but a lot of struggling kids tune out in a big group- they need their parents or older siblings or tutors to go over things one on one. Many parents are too tired to bother. Its like the burden of changing the culture has fallen on the teachers’ shoulders. But the teachers themselves are often the problem. The union protects their jobs with so much money behind them to pay lawyer’s fees that financially districts can’t afford to go up against the union to take out tenured teachers who are obviously poor teachers. Do you know of any anti-union teachers’ groups? There aren’t any that I know of.
v said: most people would opt for less pressure on the job rather than more. NCLB ratchets up that pressure. Another concrete gain from NCLB: before it was more common to try to get immigrant (ESL) students tested for learning disabilities. Did they really have an inborn disability? Many times they didn’t. Teachers just didn’t know how to deal with them, especially because the teachers couldn’t communicate with the parents easily. Most ESL students would get low scores on the test because of their LANGUAGE disability, not a learning disability- so it was easy to put them in low classes away from the general school population. Now that ALL students have to be accounted for under NCLB, there is no longer an adbvantage to shoving these students (or students who are discipline problems) into classes for students with learning disabilities. Now it’s better to keep as many students as possible in the mainstream classes so that the pace of learning will be faster than in the spec education classes.
js said: Is it just a choice between low level classes or mainstream classes? How about bilingual education for a year or two at the beginning?
What do you think of Stephen Krashen’s view that bilingual education accelerates English development, that many of the criticisms of it are based on faulty statistics, and that language immersion often ends up as non-comprehensible submersion?
v says: even if bilingual ed were the best solution, it isn’t practical. Should my district hire a teacher, even part time, for 3 Pashto speaking students? We have like 200 different languages spoken in my district. With my middle school kids, I use a translation website along with getting my meaning across in other ways. There are successful ways to teach ESL students without resorting to any translation, but it involves the teachers learning a new way to teach using a lot more visuals- most teachers don’t want to change and since they have practically guaranteed employment with tenure and the union backing them, they don’t have any consequences for not changing- except for the threats posed by NCLB sanctions.
js said: So are students with learning difficulties usually kept in mainstream classes? Is that the best solution? Surely having them in separate classes, at least for some of the time, would speed things up for them? Of course if they are simply dumped into low-level classes and forgotten, that’s no good. But I’m not convinced that putting them into mainstream classes all the time is the best solution either.
v says: there are differing solutions depending on the severity of the disability. Some students, like my nephew with a kind of autism, go to a totally separate school. I don’t think NCLB applies to that school, but I’m not sure. Some students are ‘self-contained’- always in a special class with a mix of kids of different grades and abilities, and some students are mainstreamed for certain subjects and not others. Kashen called spec ed the dumping ground for kids we don’t know how to reach- and I think that is true.
js said: Another point that people often raise is that NCLB is not sufficient to raise educational standards. Poor teaching/teacher management is just one of many possible causes of low achievement. Underfunding of school libraries could be another. And I think the big ones are social issues such as poverty and single parent families. I’m not saying there is an easy solution. But expecting NCLB to fix educational problems without looking at some of the other underlying issues would be unrealistic.[/quote]
v says: yes, poor teaching is a reason, especially since the union won’t let us get rid of poor teachers. As for poverty- you see some immigrant families where the kids are searching in the school trash cans for scrap paper. They don’t have a bedroom- one sleeps on a cot in the kitchen, another sleeps on the sofa in the living room- but they are working as hard as they can, helping each other, pestering the teacher and their American friends for help. They come from parents or a culture where education is highly prized. Or it is by the sheer force of their own character that they push themselves to work up to their full potential. So poverty makes it harder, but not impossible, to succeed in America. America’s biggest problem is not valuing education- not working hard enough. And having parents who shift their responsibilites off to someone else. And not just the parents. I believe the extended family should pitch in to help each other- that is rare I think. When I was a young girl- from birth to 7, it was my Russian grandmother who nurtured me. She gave me a sense of value because of the attention she lavished on me. I only had her until 7, but it was enough to last a lifetime. Older brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins don’t realize how much they are needed in the lives of their younger family members.
So, NCLB is hard on teachers because now they are at the forefront of a needed cultural shift where education must be taken seriously so that US citizens are not relegated to minimum wage service jobs.