No Child Left Behind--If You Trip The Leaders

“No Child Left Behind” is coming under some very negative scrutiny these days. George Wills, in this week’s “Newsweek”, quotes the new Secretary of Education (Arne Duncan) as saying, “We have been lying to students and their parents”.
Secretary Duncan cites the fact that we have been dumbing down our educational requirements in order to be sure that everyone passes—that no one is left behind. I’m inclined to agree—after eight years of substitute teaching and, before that, several years teaching at a junior college.
What comes to mind is Emily—my seventeen-year-old neighbor. I met her four years ago, right after she moved in. She had been homeschooled up to that point by a mother who has successfully gone back to medical school. I first noticed how polite Emily was—astonishing in a teenager today.
We got to talking and I learned she was reading through the works of Shakespeare just for fun. Her parents put her in a decent suburban high school after eighth grade. I often substitute in that school so I kept track of her. She, of course, went on to Advanced Placement (AP) English. That’s where you get college credit for high school courses. They are supposed to be rigorous.
One day I asked her what books she was reading in her AP class. I was astounded at how short the list was. She was at that moment reading Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. It’s a very short book. Based on my high school experience in English (1950s), I expected that her class would be given the book on Friday and be expected to have read all or most of it by Monday.
To my increasing astonishment, she reported week after week that they were still plowing through “Animal Farm”. (She had finished it and had moved on to other reading—she’s a weird kid who likes to read. Believe me, in today’s schools, that IS weird!)
We didn’t have AP courses in my high school, but we did one whale of a lot more reading, wrote more and longer papers, did more research and, I believe, learned a lot more. Kids today are losing the vast heritage of their English language. That is tragic—and very, very dumbed down.
When I have taught elementary math, I have discovered that most kids have never learned their “times tables” (memorization of rote facts is out of favor I’m told). I don’t care if they’re learning Chicago Math or some other new variety—they become totally lost when trying to do a difficult problem like seven times eight without a calculator. Whoa. I was memorizing times tables by age six.
Then there are the “teacher qualification” provisions of “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB). I know a teacher who began teaching video production twenty-five years ago. There were no courses for him then. He did his own reading, bought a lot of his own equipment and got the school to set up a large, well-equipped lab. The class was hugely popular, with people lining up to take it.
Then came NCLB. What?!? No courses in video production?!? He was reassigned to teach math in Middle School—for which he had once taken the proper college courses. They hired a very recent art school graduate who had taken an actual course in video production. I had the opportunity to sub for him and, next year, for her. I got a pretty good eye view of what both knew.
When she discovered that she was expected to teach video production at an advanced level (and that her processor had taken his own equipment home with him) she got sick a lot. (I subbed, remember?) Next year she fled back to Detroit to teach art—which she did know about.
Today, the class as the first man taught it, is neither offered nor mentioned. His former lab is broken up into two standard classrooms. I’ve seen it happen to history teachers who had done lots and lots of their own reading and who knew their history—but had neglected to major in it. One man I’m thinking of is teaching something else, replaced by a younger person who knows half as much.
Then there’s the requirement under NCLB that the learning challenged (we used to say “retarded” and we recognized that they really could NOT do advanced math or standard academic courses) must be given the same tests as students with no special difficulties.
Two results. One, the requirements for “normal” students have to be dumbed down for the challenged kids to have any chance at all. Two, the low scores of the challenged students can absolutely kill test results for an entire district. That can inflict further monetary pain on districts that already do not have enough resources.
Okay, so send in the State to take it over. You haven’t changed the kids or their problems.
The whole law has turned out to be a well-intentioned mess—the kind the road to Hell is paved with. We may have to break down and admit to ourselves that some kids are actually smarter, have better backgrounds, have more motivating parents and homes. And some do not.
We may not be able to make up for every lack in school. (SOME amount of time has to be left to encourage the really bright kids to go on and make the most of themselves—for all our sakes.) Vocational training shouldn’t be seen as a defeat.
There are people out there who make very good livings repairing cars, plumbing and doing all manner of manual work—especially if they have the opportunity to be trained for it. If my car runs well when he’s through, I really don’t care if the mechanic took four years of math and read “To Kill A Mockingbird.”
Some kids can’t do it. More of them don’t WANT to—and they’ll fight so hard not to that they will make your life as a teacher sheer hell if you try to force them (listen to the chatter in a teacher’s lunch room).
We have to find something productive in life for them to do. We’ll all benefit.
But Emily, who has spent three years in class with kids who can’t and won’t isn’t the same Emily she used to be—or could have been. THAT is a real tragedy.