peglem
10-28-2006, 06:22 PM
I decided to start a new thread for this since it is essentially a separate topic from Mili's IEP meeting and because this will be long.
No Child Left Behind is federally mandated standards of educational competencies. Each state Dept. of Ed has to create a program to comply w/ NCLB. Failure to fully comply can result in withdrawal of federal funding, even though no additional funding was provided to implement programs.
In practical terms-It "scientififies" (I love inventing terms) the educational process. EVERYTHING must be measured and documented. While I think applying scientific principles certainly has its place in education- this has gone way overboard and seriously hampered my ability to teach- I became so frustrated and miserable w/ it that I just left the profession.
I was a great teacher! I met the "highly qual;ified" teacher standard- but that's not based on how well you teach. Nope- measurable objectives: degrees of education, coursework completed- stuff like that. B4 NCLB, I was very creative in addressing the educational objectives for my grade level- textbooks were supplementy materials, as I found that creating experiences and oportunities for students to "play" with the concepts in an integrated way was more effective than direct instruction because it gives kids a context for the concept and helps build neural connections- My kids always did well on end of year testing. I seldom did ********, paper/pencil evaluations with my students because I could tell from my interactions with them whether they needed more practice or had a good grasp of the concept and were ready to move on. It was so great to guide my students through this process of learning and they were excited to be there and there were very few behavior problems because they were so engaged and busy. I LOVED TEACHING !!!!
Then came NCLB- high stakes test taking w "data driven" instruction. Now- iits not enough for me to know my students are achieving- I've got to constantly generate pre/post instructional reports to demonstrate how much learning has occurred, study the data and generate a report of what I will do based on the data, document the pre/post data to gage the success-repeat the cycle forever. This has to be done for every area of instruction, which in elementary grades is reading, writing, math, science, social studies. I still just have the 45 minutes/day of "prep time" (time w/o students to do paperwork) to do these blasted reports, coreect/score papers, design lessons and gather materials to teach them etc. IT CAN'T BE DONE!!!- Oh, I also have to plan for and document parent involvment, plan and document how I meet the needs of IEP kids who are included in my classroom, and in my school (I think my district was under a separate federal mandate for this) we also had to create and follow (of course highly documented) IEP's for all our ESL (English as a second language) learners. So, because of time constraints, and because textbooks provided the pre/post lessons evals that I needed to document that students are learning- I switched to text book program "teaching" and my classroom became monotonous for both teacher and students. "Scientifically proven" programs are implemented, that the instructor can not deviate from, because you are collecting data specific to that program. It doesn't matter that your years of teaching experience have provided you with the skills and insight to know a better way to teach- your way has not been scientifically studied and proven. (We'll have none of that anecdotal evidence!) Gone was the exhilaration of exploring the universe together and figuring out how it all worked...Now parent contact participation becomes mandated and feels more like an intusion on my precious time, instead of the previous celebration of student achievement. I'm living and working in an environment of constant stress and I HATE TEACHING!!! Because of the teacher accountability portion, I'm constantly being judged on all these reports that I now have to do...and my main focus is no longer teaching and learning, but test scores and documentation. I personally believe that the major thing that separates humans from animals is our capacity for creativity (and is the major way we are created in God's image). When you remove the creative element from education you dehumanize it. I just couldn't go on doing what I not only did not believe in, but what I believed to be wrong.
So, that's my personal experience w/ NCLB. On a less personal basis- In order to make AYP (adequate yearly progress) schools must meet standards of student achievement in many different categories. The data is broken down into gender groups, racial groups (which I see as separate from ethnicity), socio-econ groups, sped, etc. A deficit in any single category renders the school deficient in AYP and subject to remedial consequences. My daughters' charter highschool did not make AYP last year because, although 100% of the students took the test- one student had "nonstandard accomodations", in compliance with the students IEP. This school only has 60 students. Students who have non standards accomodations are counted by fed. gov. as not having taken the test. You need 95% of your students tested, and in their case that student represented more than 5%- so even though the school scored adequate in every other category- following that 1 IEP rendered them a "failing" school. I'll let you figure out how that may affect student's IEP's in the future. Furthermore, it has been mandated what % of sped students are allowed nonstandard accomodations and sped students are required to meet the same standards of achievement as reflected by standardized testing as non sped students.
I could go on more- but, this is probably more than enough.
No Child Left Behind is federally mandated standards of educational competencies. Each state Dept. of Ed has to create a program to comply w/ NCLB. Failure to fully comply can result in withdrawal of federal funding, even though no additional funding was provided to implement programs.
In practical terms-It "scientififies" (I love inventing terms) the educational process. EVERYTHING must be measured and documented. While I think applying scientific principles certainly has its place in education- this has gone way overboard and seriously hampered my ability to teach- I became so frustrated and miserable w/ it that I just left the profession.
I was a great teacher! I met the "highly qual;ified" teacher standard- but that's not based on how well you teach. Nope- measurable objectives: degrees of education, coursework completed- stuff like that. B4 NCLB, I was very creative in addressing the educational objectives for my grade level- textbooks were supplementy materials, as I found that creating experiences and oportunities for students to "play" with the concepts in an integrated way was more effective than direct instruction because it gives kids a context for the concept and helps build neural connections- My kids always did well on end of year testing. I seldom did ********, paper/pencil evaluations with my students because I could tell from my interactions with them whether they needed more practice or had a good grasp of the concept and were ready to move on. It was so great to guide my students through this process of learning and they were excited to be there and there were very few behavior problems because they were so engaged and busy. I LOVED TEACHING !!!!
Then came NCLB- high stakes test taking w "data driven" instruction. Now- iits not enough for me to know my students are achieving- I've got to constantly generate pre/post instructional reports to demonstrate how much learning has occurred, study the data and generate a report of what I will do based on the data, document the pre/post data to gage the success-repeat the cycle forever. This has to be done for every area of instruction, which in elementary grades is reading, writing, math, science, social studies. I still just have the 45 minutes/day of "prep time" (time w/o students to do paperwork) to do these blasted reports, coreect/score papers, design lessons and gather materials to teach them etc. IT CAN'T BE DONE!!!- Oh, I also have to plan for and document parent involvment, plan and document how I meet the needs of IEP kids who are included in my classroom, and in my school (I think my district was under a separate federal mandate for this) we also had to create and follow (of course highly documented) IEP's for all our ESL (English as a second language) learners. So, because of time constraints, and because textbooks provided the pre/post lessons evals that I needed to document that students are learning- I switched to text book program "teaching" and my classroom became monotonous for both teacher and students. "Scientifically proven" programs are implemented, that the instructor can not deviate from, because you are collecting data specific to that program. It doesn't matter that your years of teaching experience have provided you with the skills and insight to know a better way to teach- your way has not been scientifically studied and proven. (We'll have none of that anecdotal evidence!) Gone was the exhilaration of exploring the universe together and figuring out how it all worked...Now parent contact participation becomes mandated and feels more like an intusion on my precious time, instead of the previous celebration of student achievement. I'm living and working in an environment of constant stress and I HATE TEACHING!!! Because of the teacher accountability portion, I'm constantly being judged on all these reports that I now have to do...and my main focus is no longer teaching and learning, but test scores and documentation. I personally believe that the major thing that separates humans from animals is our capacity for creativity (and is the major way we are created in God's image). When you remove the creative element from education you dehumanize it. I just couldn't go on doing what I not only did not believe in, but what I believed to be wrong.
So, that's my personal experience w/ NCLB. On a less personal basis- In order to make AYP (adequate yearly progress) schools must meet standards of student achievement in many different categories. The data is broken down into gender groups, racial groups (which I see as separate from ethnicity), socio-econ groups, sped, etc. A deficit in any single category renders the school deficient in AYP and subject to remedial consequences. My daughters' charter highschool did not make AYP last year because, although 100% of the students took the test- one student had "nonstandard accomodations", in compliance with the students IEP. This school only has 60 students. Students who have non standards accomodations are counted by fed. gov. as not having taken the test. You need 95% of your students tested, and in their case that student represented more than 5%- so even though the school scored adequate in every other category- following that 1 IEP rendered them a "failing" school. I'll let you figure out how that may affect student's IEP's in the future. Furthermore, it has been mandated what % of sped students are allowed nonstandard accomodations and sped students are required to meet the same standards of achievement as reflected by standardized testing as non sped students.
I could go on more- but, this is probably more than enough.