Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Teacher's view on leaving children behind!
Thanks.! Er...I'd love to credit this to someone because I did not write it, but the email string was just too convoluted to figure out at 12:25 am. Anywho, more than you ever wanted to know about no child left behind....
The “No Child Left Behind” Act – A Teacher’s Opinion
I am a teacher and a member of the National Education Association. But my opinion on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act / No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) might surprise you. I think it should be abolished.
Several years before this legislation took effect, I began teaching. My favorite part of the job was inspiring students with a love of learning, getting them excited about their world and the events and ideas that have shaped it. I loved to see a student light up with the joy of discovery, feel a connection to something larger than the self, experience the satisfaction which comes with insight and newfound connectedness. This part of my job was the main reason I chose to become a teacher, but it has become nearly nonexistent since the passage of this disastrous piece of legislation.
The “No Child Left Behind” legislation mandated specific targets for schools to achieve, along with complex patterns of assessment. It has led to an all-pervasive emphasis on testing, proof of compliance, and numbers. The days are gone when teachers could teach a lesson just because the students wanted to learn about something specific, or just because the teacher had something unique to share. Now every lesson must be justified in terms of “standards” or “grade level expectations.” Every day is an exercise in acquiescence. Instead of helping students pursue their own interests as they master the essentials of a good education, they are taught that they must conform. NCLB has forced teachers and students to give up their own ideas about what is important in favor of what has been mandated. Individuality is suppressed, except as it applies to the learning styles by which students must master mandated curriculum. Creativity is dying.
Don’t misunderstand my point, because I know that standards are necessary, that there are certain things students should learn in each subject at each grade level. Standards are good. Obsession with standards is bad.
Ironically, the “No Child Left Behind” legislation has left many children behind. Have you noticed what is happening to the dropout rate? In most areas it is skyrocketing, as students who don’t fit the mold of what the government says a student should be abandon the education system altogether. I knew the problem was serious when I saw schools across the country canceling so-called vocational courses. Some students, in the days before this catastrophic bill became law, stayed in school because they loved shop class, or auto mechanics, or some other non-academic subject. But these are mostly gone now, as all the efforts and resources of the schools are being poured into one goal: compliance with academically-oriented government mandates. Instead of all children being educated, a permanent underclass is being formed. Was this the intent of the legislation?
Some students who are “improving” (according to the statistics) are casualties of this misguided effort, as well. By focusing on very specific learning goals, the school has become afflicted with a form of tunnel-vision. A mindset prevails which implies to students that there is one specific way to do everything. Even tasks as subjective as creative writing are reduced to a formula. Students who are creative without using the prescribed formula are told they are wrong, and they must change to “meet standard.” Micromanagement is the order of the day. And, another irony here, nothing is considered worthwhile unless it can be justified in terms of test scores. There is “zero tolerance” for anything other than approved topics and methods. Intolerance abounds: intolerance for different methods, opinions, intolerance for questioning of goals or methods, intolerance for those who are not like-minded.
Administrators, in fear for their jobs, have reduced teaching to checklists of topics to be taught, checklists of approved ways to teach. Variations from approved content and method are not tolerated. NCLB has reduced public education to a disjointed series of tasks to be mastered and measured.
The “No Child Left Behind” Act is essentially punitive. It would deprive schools which do not show statistical improvement in every area of funding. It would deprive non-compliant local communities of the opportunity to run the schools which their own children attend. If a teacher were to run a classroom in the same punitive manner, that teacher would be evaluated (rightfully so) as unfit.
NCLB is obsessed with statistics. Not everything in life lends itself to numerical measurement. The most idiotic thing I have ever heard a human being utter in seriousness is this: “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.” The disbelief was palpable when I realized some people actually believe this, many leaders in public education among them. Let me ask… How can you measure whether a certain math lesson will help a child be financially successful later in life? How can you measure whether a lesson in literature will help a child understand the vexing questions which have bothered him for so many adolescent years? How can you use numbers to measure whether a particularly poignant history lesson someday in the future will give a student the courage to persevere in the face of adversity? How can you measure a student’s newfound joy of learning? How can you numerically assess whether a certain teacher, class, or lesson, has helped a student grow into a better or happier person? You can’t measure that.
Is all this teaching our young people to think for themselves? Of course not. The fact is, what passes for education in public schools today is not really education at all. It is training. Education produces a well-rounded person; training produces a worker who can perform a task. Education expands the mind, enhances creativity, leads to new thoughts and unique constructs, and is very personal. Training is impersonal; it equips the student to perform an assigned function. Creativity: not needed. Thought: optional. Personalities: irrelevant. Is this really how we want our schools to function?
The “No Child Left Behind” legislation was well-intentioned. Raising academic standards was, and is, a laudable goal. But how, and at what price? The elimination of all non-compliant curriculum, a pervasive attitude of intellectual intolerance, a generation of students who view learning as drudgery, the suppression of personalities, a productive but largely meaningless future for the next generation? The original intentions of NCLB are not being realized, and the cost of continuing down this path is too high. More students are opting out, good teachers are leaving or being pushed out of the profession, all involved are being trained to suppress their own opinions, voices, and creativity.
I concede that all these consequences are not directly created by the legislation itself. They are all, however, the product of a rigid educational culture centered on compliance and numerical proof based on flawed and limited assessments.
The “No Child Left Behind” Act does not live up to its name. It is rigidly intolerant of free thought, invasive in the forms it mandates and the micromanagement it inspires, arrogant in its promotion of a single vision of what education should be, obsessed with statistical proof, deadly to creativity, and at its heart, dehumanizing.
Please hear this teacher, and others who echo these concerns. NCLB was based on an idealistic but flawed vision. It is an experiment which has failed. Admit this, so we can move on. Do not renew this legislation. There is far too much to lose.
The “No Child Left Behind” Act – A Teacher’s Opinion
I am a teacher and a member of the National Education Association. But my opinion on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act / No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) might surprise you. I think it should be abolished.
Several years before this legislation took effect, I began teaching. My favorite part of the job was inspiring students with a love of learning, getting them excited about their world and the events and ideas that have shaped it. I loved to see a student light up with the joy of discovery, feel a connection to something larger than the self, experience the satisfaction which comes with insight and newfound connectedness. This part of my job was the main reason I chose to become a teacher, but it has become nearly nonexistent since the passage of this disastrous piece of legislation.
The “No Child Left Behind” legislation mandated specific targets for schools to achieve, along with complex patterns of assessment. It has led to an all-pervasive emphasis on testing, proof of compliance, and numbers. The days are gone when teachers could teach a lesson just because the students wanted to learn about something specific, or just because the teacher had something unique to share. Now every lesson must be justified in terms of “standards” or “grade level expectations.” Every day is an exercise in acquiescence. Instead of helping students pursue their own interests as they master the essentials of a good education, they are taught that they must conform. NCLB has forced teachers and students to give up their own ideas about what is important in favor of what has been mandated. Individuality is suppressed, except as it applies to the learning styles by which students must master mandated curriculum. Creativity is dying.
Don’t misunderstand my point, because I know that standards are necessary, that there are certain things students should learn in each subject at each grade level. Standards are good. Obsession with standards is bad.
Ironically, the “No Child Left Behind” legislation has left many children behind. Have you noticed what is happening to the dropout rate? In most areas it is skyrocketing, as students who don’t fit the mold of what the government says a student should be abandon the education system altogether. I knew the problem was serious when I saw schools across the country canceling so-called vocational courses. Some students, in the days before this catastrophic bill became law, stayed in school because they loved shop class, or auto mechanics, or some other non-academic subject. But these are mostly gone now, as all the efforts and resources of the schools are being poured into one goal: compliance with academically-oriented government mandates. Instead of all children being educated, a permanent underclass is being formed. Was this the intent of the legislation?
Some students who are “improving” (according to the statistics) are casualties of this misguided effort, as well. By focusing on very specific learning goals, the school has become afflicted with a form of tunnel-vision. A mindset prevails which implies to students that there is one specific way to do everything. Even tasks as subjective as creative writing are reduced to a formula. Students who are creative without using the prescribed formula are told they are wrong, and they must change to “meet standard.” Micromanagement is the order of the day. And, another irony here, nothing is considered worthwhile unless it can be justified in terms of test scores. There is “zero tolerance” for anything other than approved topics and methods. Intolerance abounds: intolerance for different methods, opinions, intolerance for questioning of goals or methods, intolerance for those who are not like-minded.
Administrators, in fear for their jobs, have reduced teaching to checklists of topics to be taught, checklists of approved ways to teach. Variations from approved content and method are not tolerated. NCLB has reduced public education to a disjointed series of tasks to be mastered and measured.
The “No Child Left Behind” Act is essentially punitive. It would deprive schools which do not show statistical improvement in every area of funding. It would deprive non-compliant local communities of the opportunity to run the schools which their own children attend. If a teacher were to run a classroom in the same punitive manner, that teacher would be evaluated (rightfully so) as unfit.
NCLB is obsessed with statistics. Not everything in life lends itself to numerical measurement. The most idiotic thing I have ever heard a human being utter in seriousness is this: “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.” The disbelief was palpable when I realized some people actually believe this, many leaders in public education among them. Let me ask… How can you measure whether a certain math lesson will help a child be financially successful later in life? How can you measure whether a lesson in literature will help a child understand the vexing questions which have bothered him for so many adolescent years? How can you use numbers to measure whether a particularly poignant history lesson someday in the future will give a student the courage to persevere in the face of adversity? How can you measure a student’s newfound joy of learning? How can you numerically assess whether a certain teacher, class, or lesson, has helped a student grow into a better or happier person? You can’t measure that.
Is all this teaching our young people to think for themselves? Of course not. The fact is, what passes for education in public schools today is not really education at all. It is training. Education produces a well-rounded person; training produces a worker who can perform a task. Education expands the mind, enhances creativity, leads to new thoughts and unique constructs, and is very personal. Training is impersonal; it equips the student to perform an assigned function. Creativity: not needed. Thought: optional. Personalities: irrelevant. Is this really how we want our schools to function?
The “No Child Left Behind” legislation was well-intentioned. Raising academic standards was, and is, a laudable goal. But how, and at what price? The elimination of all non-compliant curriculum, a pervasive attitude of intellectual intolerance, a generation of students who view learning as drudgery, the suppression of personalities, a productive but largely meaningless future for the next generation? The original intentions of NCLB are not being realized, and the cost of continuing down this path is too high. More students are opting out, good teachers are leaving or being pushed out of the profession, all involved are being trained to suppress their own opinions, voices, and creativity.
I concede that all these consequences are not directly created by the legislation itself. They are all, however, the product of a rigid educational culture centered on compliance and numerical proof based on flawed and limited assessments.
The “No Child Left Behind” Act does not live up to its name. It is rigidly intolerant of free thought, invasive in the forms it mandates and the micromanagement it inspires, arrogant in its promotion of a single vision of what education should be, obsessed with statistical proof, deadly to creativity, and at its heart, dehumanizing.
Please hear this teacher, and others who echo these concerns. NCLB was based on an idealistic but flawed vision. It is an experiment which has failed. Admit this, so we can move on. Do not renew this legislation. There is far too much to lose.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Health Care Wealth Care Schmealth Care Plan
Ok just a quick word on W’s health plan. The basics: Tax breaks ($7500 for individual and $15,000 for family) purchases of coverage through the employer or as an individual. Not bad. The plan proposes to even the playing field between employer plans, which are tax protected, and individual-open-market coverage for the self-employed, which provide no tax protection. Good.
But here is a question, If you don’t have a job, and thus no employer provide health care or individual coverage plan, will you get a tax break? No. Further, lets just say that you have a job, (Wal-Mart) and the employer works you 36.5 hours a week, just enough so that your aren’t eligible for the meager benefits; will you get a tax break? No. So, who really benefits, and what does this plan do for those who can afford or don’t have health insurance? Not-a-thing!
Where does there money come to pay for the tax breaks in W’s health care plan? Well, some of it comes from the fact that the benefit “income” would be considered taxable income. Other sources of money include proposed cuts in funding to public hospitals (like harbor view) that provide services to those who currently have no job, and thus no benefits. Does this sound familiar? Take money away for a public institution and give it to a private institution. The theory is that private application of service is always better. Hello! How many times do we need to stroll down the corporate history lane to know that this just isn’t true? Think Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Various Airlines pension raiding and just recently Huling Brothers auto sales.
So, the plan is really just more of the same; public funding of private service providers for a slice of the population. What W should have said was, it is socially responsible to provide medical care for all of our citizens. However, W’s plan does not address this concept. It’s just a revamped, bi-partisan stamped fluff piece that does nothing to substantively address the real problems of health care in the United States.
But here is a question, If you don’t have a job, and thus no employer provide health care or individual coverage plan, will you get a tax break? No. Further, lets just say that you have a job, (Wal-Mart) and the employer works you 36.5 hours a week, just enough so that your aren’t eligible for the meager benefits; will you get a tax break? No. So, who really benefits, and what does this plan do for those who can afford or don’t have health insurance? Not-a-thing!
Where does there money come to pay for the tax breaks in W’s health care plan? Well, some of it comes from the fact that the benefit “income” would be considered taxable income. Other sources of money include proposed cuts in funding to public hospitals (like harbor view) that provide services to those who currently have no job, and thus no benefits. Does this sound familiar? Take money away for a public institution and give it to a private institution. The theory is that private application of service is always better. Hello! How many times do we need to stroll down the corporate history lane to know that this just isn’t true? Think Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Various Airlines pension raiding and just recently Huling Brothers auto sales.
So, the plan is really just more of the same; public funding of private service providers for a slice of the population. What W should have said was, it is socially responsible to provide medical care for all of our citizens. However, W’s plan does not address this concept. It’s just a revamped, bi-partisan stamped fluff piece that does nothing to substantively address the real problems of health care in the United States.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
State of the Union and Stuff
Health insurance
Tax cuts for folks who enroll in company health care plans. $7500 for individuals and $15,000 for families. The catch is that the employer would be able to use the health benefit as a taxable income.
Immigration
Not much here since nobody is getting elected.
Education
We need it and there will be lip service in the form of the not child left behind program. However, keep in mind that the no child left behind program was designed to, as blogger Gerald Bracy puts it, “NCLB would funnel large sums of public funds into the private sector through vouchers, transfer much control of public education to private companies, and to reduce or destroy the influence of two Democratic power bases, the teachers unions.”
Taxes
NO NEW Taxes… wait that was another Bush. This one will want to make permanent the current tax cuts, I.E. keep the uber rich flush with money and give the rest of us those why-do-I-even-bother type tax cuts.
Environment
Blah Blah Blah. From what I’ve read, Bush plans to outlines steps to reduce the emissions of green house gasses and “pay” big business in the form of tax credits to do the right thing.
Iraq
I predict a policy of staying the course and the tried and true tactic of scary terrorism as justification for anything and everything.
Energy
How about this, real tax incentives for the consumer to drive energy efficient cars, real budgets for companies to develop real technology which will reduce foreign oil dependency, real change in our development paradigm and a funding source the comes from the same crisis mentality that allows the US to spend 360 billion thus far in a failed attempt at war.
Tax cuts for folks who enroll in company health care plans. $7500 for individuals and $15,000 for families. The catch is that the employer would be able to use the health benefit as a taxable income.
Immigration
Not much here since nobody is getting elected.
Education
We need it and there will be lip service in the form of the not child left behind program. However, keep in mind that the no child left behind program was designed to, as blogger Gerald Bracy puts it, “NCLB would funnel large sums of public funds into the private sector through vouchers, transfer much control of public education to private companies, and to reduce or destroy the influence of two Democratic power bases, the teachers unions.”
Taxes
NO NEW Taxes… wait that was another Bush. This one will want to make permanent the current tax cuts, I.E. keep the uber rich flush with money and give the rest of us those why-do-I-even-bother type tax cuts.
Environment
Blah Blah Blah. From what I’ve read, Bush plans to outlines steps to reduce the emissions of green house gasses and “pay” big business in the form of tax credits to do the right thing.
Iraq
I predict a policy of staying the course and the tried and true tactic of scary terrorism as justification for anything and everything.
Energy
How about this, real tax incentives for the consumer to drive energy efficient cars, real budgets for companies to develop real technology which will reduce foreign oil dependency, real change in our development paradigm and a funding source the comes from the same crisis mentality that allows the US to spend 360 billion thus far in a failed attempt at war.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Union Schmunion
I was going to write a big diatribe about the plight of the worker in the face of corporate greed, fleecing of pensions and unreasonable management. However, I decided against that in favor of just reminding people that in the working world, the time you spend on the clock at whatever job it is you choose (or are stuck in) is your life.
You are trading your life for a paycheck and hopefully some life experience.
My question, Is it a fair trade?
Friday, January 05, 2007
Blow me
I happen to be walking the streets of Seattle today in the mitts of gust, which felt like 40-50mph. Forecasters were predicting high winds and the horizontal rain soaking my pants confirmed it. Seattle was experiencing another windstorm. I wonder, thought, how it is that people actually thing an umbrella will function in these conditions? The city maintained garbage can on the corner of second and pike in front of the Nordstrom Rack was actually overflowing with busted bumbershoots. I personally saw no less that one half dozen umbrellas turn inside out in the forceful winds. One poor little old lady opened a large golf umbrella on the edge of Westlake center only to have it torn from her feeble hands by a sturdy gust. I didn't chase it down for her. However I did help another little old lady struggling to cross second while navigating the wet and wild streets with a walker. In all the wind I don't know that she heard me ask her if she needed help. That may be why she cursed me once we reached other side of the street. Oh well. I'm now home safely. I just hope my roof doesn't blow off or that I don't wake up in Kansas.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
hello
It has been a while. Pixie car was stolen. That whole Christmas/holiday thing went down and I skied a bunch.
Chat later.
Chat later.
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