"No Child Left Behind" up for renewal soon

[Pangloss]

Interesting op-ed piece by Florida Governor Jeb Bush and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the Washington Post today regarding the No Child Left Behind act, which is apparently up for reauthorization soon.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/11/AR2006081101565.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

 

The gist of their piece is that the act should be reauthorized, and the following changes should be made to improve it:

 

- Making the testing standards completely uniform so that states can't dumb it down

- Track individual student progress to show improvements beyond whether or not X number of students have met the minimum goal (per FL & NYC model)

- Replace the pass/fail metric with a grading metric (A, B, C, D, F) to show relative degrees of progress and failure

- Reward high quality teachers (pay for performance) and fire the bad ones

 

Makes sense to me.

[silkworm]

Hopefully they actually fund the damn thing and implement a statistical method to keep from punishing a school for having a class that rises above all others.

 

This bill is not popular in education circles because of its lunacy and ineffectiveness. Nice name though.

 

Also, teacher's aren't so disposable right now that you can just fire them. You'd either have to try to improve the teacher or try to care enough about education to get more people into college and train more teachers.

[Sisyphus]

Since the whole concept of the bill is based on the fact that good, qualified teachers will magically appear out of nowhere to replace the bad ones, I'm fairly skeptical of the whole thing. It's a simpleminded "apply capitalism to everything" approach, but that doesn't work when you have to make sure everybody gets by, or if, shall we say, you don't want to leave any children behind.

[JustStuit]

I think that they put too much pressure on standardized testing. The teachers are required to spent emense amounts of time teaching the test instead of the subject. Specifically preparing for the FCAT (in Florida) will not help once FCAT is over. Last year, we had to cut a few chapters off our physics course because of FCAT for one week, one week before where teachers were only allowed to teach FCAT, and packets tecahers had to teach about FCAT.

[Mokele]

Why not just solve the actual problem and give teachers a high enough wage that people will *want* to be teachers, and so we can actually hire good ones, not just anyone who shows up to the interview.

 

Seriously, my fiancee is trying to emigrate to the US, and the easiest way for her to do that is to get a job her. Easiest job to get: teacher, because the requirements are so abysmally low. They've now abolished the "anyone with a pulse" rule and are hiring vampires and zombies, so long as they promise to not eat too many students.

 

Mokele

[Pangloss]

I agree with that point but I would rephrase it slightly to say that teaching is not competitive. Low teacher pay is bit of a myth -- they make well above the national median even if you don't consider the 3-month break, plus they get government-quality benefits. The problem is that there are simply better opportunities for people with that particular level of education. The people we want teaching simply have better options for their careers.

 

The most eggregious examples are in the technical fields. Don't we WANT science and math teachers with graduate-level science and math degrees? But it's absolutely *impossible* for those people to go into high school teaching with that kind of education experience. The *only* way that happens is if they make a nice chunk of change and then decide to "give something back to the community" by semi-retiring as a teacher.

 

And therein lies another dilemma, because how can you pay your high school math and physics teachers TWICE what you're paying the english and social studies teachers?

 

BTW the concept of high pay as an incentive is included in the points I listed above, except from the perspective of bonuses for good teaching. Basically the same thing, just end-loaded instead of front-loaded. (shrug)

[john5746]

I'm not sure what no child left behind does for the average parent, but I guess it is better than nothing. From my perspective, a public school can be measured by the neighborhood surrounding it. Teachers are like anyone else, they will try to find a good environment to work in. So, good teachers will find schools with good kids and adequate funding.

 

As far as teacher salaries and shortages, I think technology should be used. You could have one science teacher making video conferences to several schools and have lower educated "proctors" to handle tests, and running of the class. This way you could have a highly qualified teacher earning a higher salary than a principle or administrator.

[Sisyphus]

 

As far as teacher salaries and shortages' date=' I think technology should be used. You could have one science teacher making video conferences to several schools and have lower educated "proctors" to handle tests, and running of the class. This way you could have a highly qualified teacher earning a higher salary than a principle or administrator.[/quote']

 

Well seeing as how class size has a strong inverse relationship to student performance, I think video-conferencing one teacher in multiple classrooms is probably a step in the wrong direction. If teaching were just about lecturing, students could just read textbooks and then take tests. But it isn't, it's about individual, two-way communication with students.

[john5746]

Well seeing as how class size has a strong inverse relationship to student performance, I think video-conferencing one teacher in multiple classrooms is probably a step in the wrong direction. If teaching were just about lecturing, students could just read textbooks and then take tests. But it isn't, it's about individual, two-way communication with students.

 

I am not suggesting to increase CLASS SIZE. Class size would remain the same. Teacher-pupil ratio would decrease, but not class size. The bright kids would be able to educate themselves as you say, while the slower students could be helped by the teacher aide, who would be in the class room. Maybe this could be done only in High School, not sure. Why wait until college to expect people to take responsibility for their education?

[Sisyphus]

Well then you're just doing a great disservice to the smart kids. Education should be a dialogue. Lecturing is a sham. Why even have a teacher at all? They can just read the book.

[Severian]

It is simply a question of priorities. Do you want your child to have a decent education? If you do, you have to pay for it.

[john5746]

It is simply a question of priorities. Do you want your child to have a decent education? If you do, you have to pay for it.

 

No argument here, America doesn't give education enough priority, but we do spend money on it. Trying to be efficient is a good idea, IMO.

 

Well then you're just doing a great disservice to the smart kids. Education should be a dialogue. Lecturing is a sham. Why even have a teacher at all? They can just read the book.

 

I guess I was poorly educated, because I don't recall much from teachers except lectures, especially in college. In fact, the lowly grad assistants provided more personal attention to me than Professors, who had better things to do with their time, like research.

[Tetrahedrite]

It is simply a question of priorities. Do you want your child to have a decent education? If you do, you have to pay for it.

That may be the case in the USA or the UK, but in Australia we have a history of supporting public schools. I myself was educated at a public school and I am presently completing a PhD. The four other PhD candidates here are also all public school educated. This clearly suggests that public school education is not necessarily bad. It is a matter of how much the government of the day wants to support it.

 

The Labor Party in Australia has historically strongly supported a good education for all, while the conservative party (especially the present one) seems to prefer a "those who can pay get the best education" approach.

 

I believe it is one of the marks of a truely civilised society: universal free education, universal free health care, and support for those who can not look after themselves, and a completely secular government.

[padren]

Firing bad teachers is always a good idea, like in any field.

 

I am concerned however about the idea that how well someone's students do on a standard test equals how good the teacher is.

 

Its sort of like a "no wound left behind" policy, where any wounds on the body that leak blood slower than a standardized allowable limit, gets rewarded with extra band-aids while the bad ones get critizied for their shoddy clotting...all while the body bleeds out.

 

 

I'd be much happier, even if we had some halfed baked system where a school was found "educationally backrupt" and was forced to reorganize under intellectual chapter 13 backrupcy - get some Superfund thing going for fixing the schools that are effectively waste sites.

[Sisyphus]

 

I guess I was poorly educated' date=' because I don't recall much from teachers except lectures, especially in college. In fact, the lowly grad assistants provided more personal attention to me than Professors, who had better things to do with their time, like research.[/quote']

 

Such is the scam that is the large university, where the people who actually teach you are paying to be there also...

[Severian]

That may be the case in the USA or the UK' date=' but in Australia we have a history of supporting public schools. I myself was educated at a public school and I am presently completing a PhD. The four other PhD candidates here are also all public school educated. This clearly suggests that public school education is not necessarily bad. It is a matter of how much the government of the day wants to support it.

[/quote']

 

I certainly don't dispute that - public schools (public in your sense, not the UK sense) can be very good, if they are well enough equipped and can attract good enough teachers. But someone is still paying for it. You are instead paying for it through your taxes.

 

With this system, it is not the person who benefits from the education who is paying, but the society as a whole (who of course all benefit indirectly from an educated population). In my opinion, it is fairer if the person who gets the education pays for it themselves, but that was not the point I was trying to make.

 

I was trying to say that the standard of education is directly correlated with how much money (or more accurately how many resources) the society wishes to expend on that education. I don't have any figures, but I am fairly sure that the proportion of our GDP that we spend on education today is considerably less than it was 50 years ago, so we really shouldn't be surprised by falling educational standards.

[Severian]

Such is the scam that is the large university, where the people who actually teach you are paying to be there also...

 

The only scam of large universities is that students are given an education without having to pay for it and then complain that the universities are underfunded.

 

If you want higher education to be a 'dialogue' between students and staff you will need hire a lot more staff, which means paying a lot more money for your education

[Sisyphus]

In the U.S. we pay for higher education ourselves. Even the "public" universities. I'm going to be in debt from student loans for a long time.

[GutZ]

The only thing that bothers me with post-secondary education is (I guess I can only speak for Canada) that:

 

1) You don't need any teaching experience to teach or even take classes to teach.

 

2) Teachers (or instructors rather) go through a 3 month probation period and after that they are basically untouchable. I had an instructor and probably will have when I go back, that should not be there. Doesn't care at all, completely useless, yet still he's been there for 20+ years.

 

He puts his overheads on and leaves to go drink coffee. You ask him a question he doesn't answer it (probably because he doesn't know). I've asked him a question about an assignment and in his exact words "Oh, but you haven't finished". Why would I ask him the procedure if I am finished?

 

There are some schools that are just poorly organized and planned as well. I can't wait to finish and pay off all my debts so I can work and afford better education (hopefully company funded ).

 

Everything below post secondary, you get what you pay for. I really hope Canada will follow the same direction as "No child left behind" act though, because it is getting quite brutal. No one can write proper English, including myself lol.

 

I find though that if someone is willing to learn and wants to be educated, they will, ultimately. It's a bit of a bumpy ride with that transition from secondary to post secondary (without good education), so I would expect it help somewhat with that.

[Severian]

The only thing that bothers me with post-secondary education is (I guess I can only speak for Canada) that:

 

Are you meaning Universities?

 

1) You don't need any teaching experience to teach or even take classes to teach.

 

In the UK you need to get a postgraduate qualification to be allowed to teach. It is not very strict' date=' so postgrads are allowed to take tutorial etc, but anyone who is teaching longer term is forced to do it.

 

2) Teachers (or instructors rather) go through a 3 month probation period and after that they are basically untouchable. I had an instructor and probably will have when I go back, that should not be there. Doesn't care at all, completely useless, yet still he's been there for 20+ years.

 

In the UK the probabtion normally takes 2-3 years and you are definitely not untouchable afterwards.

 

Of course, there will be bad teachers everywhere, but I don't think it is fair to tar all lecturers with the same brush.

[john5746]

In the U.S. we pay for higher education ourselves. Even the "public" universities. I'm going to be in debt from student loans for a long time.

 

Public Universities have a portion of the tuition payed by the state. They usually charge much less for in state students and it is becoming common for states to provide tuition free or discounted tuition to students with B averages in high school.

 

The student loans are going to become more of a problem, since education isn't paying off as easily as it used to.

[Sisyphus]

it is becoming common for states to provide tuition free or discounted tuition to students with B averages in high school.

 

 

Really? What states have that kind of policy?

[Pangloss]

Georgia does. I'm not sure whom else. It was one of Zell Miller's more popular acts while governor. (He's the Democrat who's somewhat famous these days for crossing party lines and giving a speech at the Republican National Convention, writing abook critical of the Democratic party, etc.)

[Pangloss]

Are you meaning Universities?

 

In the UK you need to get a postgraduate qualification to be allowed to teach. It is not very strict' date=' so postgrads are allowed to take tutorial etc, but anyone who is teaching longer term is forced to do it.

[/quote']

 

It's similar here. I'm not sure exactly what he was talking about. Those terms like "secondary" and "post-secondary" seem to have become variables in recent years.

 

Teachers at accredited colleges and universities in the US are required to have at least 18 credit hours at the graduate level in the subject they're teaching. Realistically, however, I've never seen a placement at an accredited school with less than a Masters in a related subject. Most schools required a PhD, and it's an employer's market at all levels.

 

I have a Masters in CIS from a major university, and teach introductory-level programming to undergrads at a small, private, for-profit, accredited university. They pay me a reasonable salary with benefits, and are paying for my PhD work at the other (major) university.

 

I'd be out of there in a heartbeat if I wasn't getting the job done. But over at the major university where I'm doing my graduate work, it's a different story. I had ten straight As (following a 4.0 in undergrad) when I ran into a tenured professor who was angry with the school, uninterested in the program, and completely unavailable to his students. He gave us impossible work and no way to complete it. I failed his class, and was already planning to take it again from another instructor, when I got my grade report. He did the worst thing he could to me -- he passed me with a C-, making it impossible for me to make up for the predicted F, and destroying my honors credentials. Probably because of all those calls to his answering machine that he never bothered to return. Later I found his name on ratemyprofessor.com, and found out I wasn't the only one who'd run into this guy.

 

We're getting a bit off subject (NCLB only pertains to pre-college grades), but it does seem to underscore the point that bad teachers are sometimes hard to get to.

[Tetrahedrite]

With this system' date=' it is not the person who benefits from the education who is paying, but the society as a whole (who of course all benefit indirectly from an educated population). In my opinion, it is fairer if the person who gets the education pays for it themselves, but that was not the point I was trying to make.[/quote']

That is a valid point, however I don't happen to subscribe to this way of thinking. User pay systems are by their very nature class based, in my opinion, creating generations of people trapped in a poverty cycle. It also neglects all the potentially very talented people in society who can't afford to pay. Public systems give both the rich and poor equal opportunities to benefit from a good education.

 

I don't agree that it is unfair on the other tax-payers either, as a well educated person is much more likely to have a higher paying job, which obviously returns a lot more tax income to the government, and by-proxy, back to the tax-payer.