Ending NCLB

It is time for us to acknowledge that No Child Left Behind is a false bill of goods.

It is a like Iraq is a lie.

It is a lie like "social security is failing" is a lie.

It is legislation based on neoliberal faith in the power of markets to force change rather than a progressive faith in the power of people to co-create their democracy, and it is time for it to go.

I represent a group of teachers, administrators, scholars, activists, parents, and concerned citizens who see this law as

a clever long-range political ploy to discredit public education by branding good schools as 'failures' and to drive American education toward vouchers, charter schools -- and even resegregation.

This community could play a large roll in making democratic school reform a real possibility, and I hope many of you will do so today.

Our goal is to collect 1,000,000 signatures calling for legialators to vote NO on its reauthorization next year. We are also attempting to raise $174,000 to place a full page add in the New York Times, where the following petition will also appear.

You can read about the larger project here.

A Petition Calling For the Dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act

We, the educators, parents, and concerned citizens whose names appear below, reject the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act and call for legislators to vote against its reauthorization. We do so not because we resist accountability, but because the law's simplistic approach to education reform wastes student potential, undermines public education, and threatens the future of our democracy.

Below, briefly stated, are some of the reasons we consider the law too destructive to salvage. In its place we call for formal, state-level dialogues led by working educators rather than by politicians, ideology-bound "think tank" members, or leaders of business and industry who have little or no direct experience in the field of education.

THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT:

1. Misdiagnoses the causes of poor educational development, blaming teachers and students for problems over which they have no control.

2. Assumes that competition is the primary motivator of human behavior and that market forces can cure all educational ills.

3. Mandates data driven instruction based on gamesmanship to undermine public confidence in our schools.

4. Uses pseudo science and media manipulation to justify pro-corporate policies and programs, including diverting taxes away from communities and into corporate coffers.

5. Ignores the proven inadequacies, inefficiencies, and problems associated with centralized, "top-down" control.

6. Places control of what is taught in corporate hands many times removed from students, teachers, parents, local school boards, and communities.

7. Requires the use of materials and procedures more likely to produce a passive,compliant workforce than creative, resilient, inquiring, critical, compassionate, engaged members of our democracy.

8. Reflects and perpetuates massive distrust of the skill and professionalism of educators.

9. Allows life-changing, institution-shaping decisions to hinge on single measures of performance.

10. Emphasizes minimum content standards rather than maximum development of human potential.

11. Neglects the teaching of higher order thinking skills which cannot be evaluated by machines.

12. Applies standards to discrete subjects rather than to larger goals such as insightful children, vibrant communities, and a healthy democracy.

13. Forces schools to adhere to a testing regime, with no provision for innovating, adapting to social change, encouraging creativity, or respecting student and community individuality, nuance, and difference.

14. Drives art, foreign language, career and technical education, physical education, geography, history, civics and other non-tested subjects, such as music, out of the curriculum, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

15. Produces multiple, unintended consequences for students, teachers, and communities, including undermining neighborhood schools and blurring the line between church and state.

16. Rates and ranks public schools using procedures that will gradually label them all "failures," so when they fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress, as all schools eventually will, they can be “saved” by vouchers, charters, or privatization.

While any one of these issues is serious enough to warrant discarding No Child Left Behind, the law suffers from all of them. The number of signatures on this petition should be a clear indicator to state and national policy makers that it is time to move beyond this harmful, highly restrictive law.

Each of the above points is hotlinked on our homepage, but if you don't need to read more than this, feel free to go directly to the petition.

Your name will go a long way towards helping us reach our goal.

•  Tips/Thoughts/Arguments

  by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 04:47:56 AM PDT

•  Thanks, Dewey

  I think that NCLB is a not-so veiled attempt by the Rethugs to privitize education. Our society depends on public education, and I hate to see it reduced to the lowest common denominator.

  by blue jersey mom on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 04:56:13 AM PDT

  •  yes indeed

    our democracy cannot function without citizens prepared to take care of it...schools should be the spaces for such preparation...they cannot be if we reduce them to test prep centers.

    by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 05:35:01 AM PDT

  •  Privatization of education

    This is an important point. NCLB is just part of a larger plan to set up conduits for public dollars to flow into private pockets. If you don't believe this is the plan, check out this older post that discusses the rewards given agencies who privatize.

    The No Federal Agency Left Behind Act or this one Good Agency - Bad Agency.

    by shirah on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 07:54:13 AM PDT

•  NCLB washes all the color out of education and

  turns it into a mass marketing meat grinder.

  NCLB is obstensibly being done in the name of efficiency; the real cost is the very soul of youth of our country.

  Nicely done, recommend.

  by shpilk on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 05:00:05 AM PDT

•  I am signer number 11

  and am a proud member of the group that is involved in doing this, although the main impetus has been other people, especially as last week I was very heavily involved with a diary about Yearlykos.  DeweyCounts and Marion Brady (gee, look at the overlap here at dailykos) and a few others were the ones most responsible.

  I encourage people to come and visit our website, linked in the tip jar.

  by teacherken on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 05:05:48 AM PDT

  •  ha on you

    you are one of the main reasons i have not sold my sould to academia...it was your posts here that led me to become a member of this community and that have helped me grow as a blogger.

    a title that i have more respect for than philosopher...

    by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 05:36:30 AM PDT

  •  the more i think about it...

    yoou should have written this diary...in fact, as i watch this scroll down, i am kicking myself.

    perhaps once we have the new site up you could craft something better?

    in your free time of course!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 05:37:53 AM PDT

    •  Dewey

      it is hard to get attention for a diary at this time of day.  You never know what will get people's attention.  This is a good diary and you should do another on this topic in a day or so.  It would be great if Ken did too.

      by TeresaInPa on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 05:42:15 AM PDT

    •  I'd be happy to do one

      I've already written one anti-NCLB diary, I can take another shot and plug this petition.
      (I was #57 when I signed, it's gonna need as much exposure as possible)

      by Sidof79 on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 06:31:42 AM PDT

      •  yes

        i think we are going to have to bang people over the head with it...

        thanks for your support!

        by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 06:36:52 AM PDT

      •  hey, we are neighbors....

        by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 06:44:43 AM PDT

    •  there are several ways to get this attention

      1. pimp the hell out of it on open threads

      2. get someone to send the link to the rescue rangers (which I promise to do as soon as I finish reading the comments.

      I will be happy to revisit the subject when the website is totally up and available.

      meanwhile I am in the process of going through my last diary on the education panel, and its two predecessors, trying to extrac ideas, and then present an organized plan and distribute it for further discussion - you can expect to be on that email distribution list as well, if you don't mind.

      by teacherken on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 07:57:07 AM PDT

      •  yes, count me in

        i would love to help you in whatever capacity i can!

        by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 08:05:36 AM PDT

        •  I have emailed SusanG

          requesting rescue for this diary.  Hope that helps,

          I thought about burning my diary to point to yours, but I might have time to diary on another, non-educational, subject later today.  Ah, in the days when we had two diaries I often burned a diary to promote the good work of someone else.

          I still might do it.  Although I actually think getting it rescued might actually at this point get it more attention.

          by teacherken on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 08:11:56 AM PDT

          •  cheers!

            no need to burn a diary...I think, if you don't mind, a  diary on this after the new site is up...Sunday...that's what the designer says anyway...

            by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 08:18:33 AM PDT

•  Count me in!

  NCLB is damaging education and must be ended.  The underlying core principles run counter to everything public education should be.  Thanks for your work.  I'm rolling up my sleeves...

  by evanindallas on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 06:17:59 AM PDT

•  All I have to say is a resounding

  AMEN!  I've been teaching for 14 years, and NCLB is the worst thing to have happened to education in my tenure.  I've seen my district make mis-guided decision after mis-guided decision for four years because of NCLB.  My high school, one of the top 100 in the country (according to Newsweek), has yet to attain Adequate Yearly Progress because of the intricacies of sub-groups.  I personally have to prepare 10th graders for the State Writing Test.  In an attempt to help low-level 10th graders improve as writers, my district has given these students double doses of English for the year--unfortunately, that has simply led to over-crowded classes (one 10th grade English inclusion class has 38 kids!)  It's a mess.  I so hope NCLB dies.  It is a misbegotten, misguided, mess.

  by mkkendrick on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 06:41:45 AM PDT

  •  No need to be shy. Tell 'em what you think :)

    by cskendrick on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 06:54:17 AM PDT

•  Don't blame NCLB

  Drives art, foreign language, career and technical education, physical education, geography, history, civics and other non-tested subjects, such as music, out of the curriculum, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

  for a lousy state educational system.

  ( C ) SUBJECTS- The State shall have such academic standards for all public elementary school and secondary school children, including children served under this part, in subjects determined by the State, but including at least mathematics, reading or language arts, and (beginning in the 2005-2006 school year) science, which shall include the same knowledge, skills, and levels of achievement expected of all children.

  by SingleVoter on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 07:08:02 AM PDT

  •  in order to make AYP

    states are gutting their curriculum.

    My research details that first hand. IF you need more, visit our homepage and look at what we have to back this up.

    best

    by DeweyCounts on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 08:03:55 AM PDT

    •  This is absolutely true

      The schools know they have to hit their numbers in math, reading, and language arts, at any cost - including music and PE. The teachers and principals want to do it all, but they only have so many dollars and so many hours.

      If your school gets on the remedial list, the teachers will have to teach the Official Curriculum to the minute. That is, the teacher must sign off that she spent 7 minutes on page 36, 8 1/2 minutes on page 37, 15 minutes on page 38, etc. Seriously. Regardless of how the kids react.

      by elfling on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 09:03:39 AM PDT

    •  Fun with numbers

      I have been helping at my school with writing funding requests and the like. It would be a soul-crushing experience if I hadn't already taught myself to write these kind of things, but I've learned to view them with enough cynicism that I can write them fairly well.

      It's hilarious to look at a technology plan template and see that essentially, you have to promise:

      "If you let us purchase these 5 new computers, we promise it will raise our school's AYP by 10 points. If we are allowed to purchase 10 new computers, we estimate it would raise our school's AYP by 15 points."

      Then the next question is something like: How will you prove that the new equipment is in fact raising your test scores?

      And I always want to answer (but don't):

      "We will demonstrate that the higher scores are due to the new computers by only exposing half the children to the new computers. The other half will be blindfolded while the computer students work on their lessons. At the end of the year, we will compare test scores between the two groups."

      And then we mutter to ourselves - but what if it's the CRT radiation that's making the kids smarter?

      So, see. You can have lessons in science under NCLB after all.

      by elfling on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 09:15:18 AM PDT

  •  Notice the subjects mentioned...

    math, reading and language arts, and science.  While it says "at least," can you honestly imagine that this will lead any state to emphasize art and music education, foreign languages, or physical education?  How many states will be assessing these subjects with standardized testing?  The opposite is happening all over--these subjects are being de-emphasized in order to cram for the "preferred" subjects.

    by evanindallas on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 08:35:11 AM PDT

•  thank you so much

  i teach entering freshmen, and have been seeing the results of NCLB for a couple of years now

  and i can't tell you the number of kids i've seen who can do picture perfect work, yet lack critical thinking skills, creativity, etc.

  furthermore, i'm starting to see the consequences of an almost complete absence of individual attention --- eg, the system's inability to acknowledge that some students might be particularly gifted in a specific area, while others may have relatively profound deficits. it's like demanding a room full of students ranging in height from 4' 11'' to 6' 2" all conform to a norm of 5' 9". worse, both groups become bored and/or frustrated.

  by cookiebear on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 08:39:02 AM PDT

•  DLC articles about schools

  I was glad to sign the petition. My whole family will probably sign it before the day is over.

  The first time I heard of privatizing schools, it was on a financial show. They talked about profits and charging to ride the school bus. They talked of profits, profits, profits. That awakened the reptillian part of my mind. I imagined how hectic it would be to have to pay for every little service. At the end, no more pooling tax money for affordable school, we will be feeding top fat cats that know nothing about education.

  Without a doubt, they will present privatization of schools in a non threatening manner until they do what they do best and that is destroy the traditional, whether it is public school or Social Security.

  They take real problems and focus on them ignoring the many great teachers and schools we have. I can see, knowing some parents, unless their child is making straight A-s, they would prefer to blame the school, rather than their children.

  There are schools in areas that are unsafe that do have problems getting good, caring teachers. Let's make those areas safe.

  As privatization takes over, there will eventually be two tiered schools, as more and more money goes to the charter schools and vouchers.

  Personally, I feel like the teachers and students are being bullied by NCLB.

  A big part of the problem is the video games and TV, plus so many sports make it harder for them to find learning exciting.  

  All in all we are proud of the schools our grandchildren go to. The only thing I would change is no homework sent home. We always had part of the period to do that at school.  But that is just me, dealing with a strong willed grandson that thinks school should end when he gets on the bus.

  Charter schools are public schools precisely because they are accountable to the public bodies that authorize them. Indeed, a "charter" is basically a performance contract that outlines the school's responsibilities for achieving publicly defined educational results, and, at least in jurisdictions with good charter laws, such schools lose their authorization if they fail. Certainly charter public schools enjoy a lot of flexibility in terms of detailed regulations, and many of them are actually owned and operated by private entities, but public accountability defines them entirely. More

  Here are some article links by the Progressive Policy Institute that leads the DLC:
  A list of articles of the PPI/DLC

  And more importantly, anyone who cares about public education must stay focused on the political impetus for voucher programs like Florida's: the failure of traditional public schools in so many locations, particularly those serving the neediest students. The proper response to demands for voucher programs is not to demonize them, but to make a commitment to transform public schools so that they can achieve the publicly defined results that parents and taxpayers rightly expect. And that means liberating the charter public school movement so that it becomes central to public education, instead of a marginal experiment alongside traditional public schools and with voucherized private schools.More

  Another DLC article

  Some people think they would save on taxes if they had private schools.  Only those who have no children would save.  There is about a five to 7 year gap in most families where there is no one is school, if you start with the grandparents. Then there is thirteen years of public school when each new generation turns five until they graduate. A family of three makes the time in between less.

  by relentless on Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 11:08:38 AM PDT

•  Veal Calves and Slaves

  As a public school teacher working under increasingly absurd conditions I am constantly asking myself "How?"  I watch fellow educators thoughtlessly embrace the anti-intuitive, anti-educative policies of our administrators never pausing even momentarily to acknowledge the fact that kids don't learn this way and, moreover, what their being asked to learn is decontextualized to the point of irrelevance under the test-drilling regimen we feed them.  We've turned our kids into veal calves and it is a travesty of the worse kind.  On a purely professional level, I am also amazed at how accepting my colleagues are of being typecast as the source of all perceived educational problems.  Every so often I actually hear teachers say things like "well it is a good thing that we're held accountable".  Why?  Can't we hold ourselves accountable?  All the corporate bastards who are pushing their market agenda down the nation's throat, are they accountable to someone?  Educators unfortunately display one of the strongest slave mentalities I've ever seen.  In any case, if we're to make real change in education a profound rethinking of what education is all about must be pursued vigorously.  I am also part of DeweyCounts's group, and while our work is very important, we must pay particular attention to our audience and our constituency.  This petition drive will reveal how many educators are ready to rise up against big money, government interference and the pitiable, capitulating NEA.

  by Horse Philosopher on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 05:17:37 AM PDT