Getting George Miller's Attention and the Bad Miller/Pelosi NCLB Bill

(full disclosure: CTA has hired me to do blog outreach on NCLB)

Well, CTA sure got George Miller's attention yesterday with the blog ads (see dkos side bar).  He actually responded with a statement to Education Weekly:

The CTA claimed today that the legislation would judge teachers’ performance solely on the basis of their students’ achievement gains, even though the organization knows this isn’t true. Contrary to the CTA’s assertions, the legislation would consider achievement gains along with other measures, like principal and master teacher evaluations. The CTA also wrongly implies that I don’t support things like class size reduction, teacher professional development, and mentoring programs for teachers. I do support those things, which is why they are included in the bipartisan discussion draft of NCLB reauthorization legislation that we have circulated. From the very beginning, I sought the input of teacher organizations to craft the legislation.

Actually, Rep. Miller knows full well that the Miller/Pelosi proposal still bases achievement gains predominantly on test scores.  It counts for something like 85% of the scoring and indeed states could choose just to base it on test scores.  Perhaps he needs to read the press release over again.

Notice that he only responded on a limited number of topics and was quite defensive.  Just because he included teachers in the discussions, does not mean that he totally heard them.  Take the issue of data.  I know boring right, but stick with me.  It's an important lesson about the failings of the first version and how this Miller/Pelosi proposal fails to fix them.

When NCLB was first passed it demanded assessments of student achievement, measured by tests scores.  The goal was laudatory, to close the achievement gap, however we don't have the data to make honest assessments.  Those that have tried to come to conclusions have used various methods to try to take scores and use regression analysis or other efforts, but have always pointed out that any conclusions are limited by the lack of available data.

In California, which is not atypical, the biggest roadblock is that we don’t have a statewide student identifier – or a way to track a specific individual student as she/he progresses from grade to grade.  That’s the only real way to know if things are working.  Instead, researchers, bureaucrats and politicians are taking snapshots of group performance at any time, and comparing it to snapshots of a different group a year later.  There are obvious flaws in this from the research standpoint.  That issue has also complicated things like tracking graduation and dropout rates.

The other problem comes in when you try to compare states to each other.  Each state has its own standards and its own method of testing how students measure up to them.  Now states had to have their testing processes approved by the Dept. of Education to meet NCLB requirements, but the Dept. of Ed. accepted very few of them, especially at first.  California has one of the oldest and most widely-respected accountability systems that began back in 1999.  Since NCLB, the state has attempted to mold the exams to also use them for federal purposes.  But it’s difficult.  And CA’s system is a growth model – tracking progress over time, rather than setting benchmarks that schools either meet or don’t in any given year, as is the case with NCLB.

The draft legislation, tries to mandate the data system requirements for the states, including linking teacher data to student data, which is opposed by CTA.  And, again, there’s never any money for any of it.  Creating complex data systems, integrating them, converting data to them, etc. all takes money – especially in a state as large as ours with around 9,500 schools and nearly 1,100 districts feeding in data for 6.3 million kids.

That is what we mean by including new mandates and failing to ensure there is funding.  Having data and tracking students is a great thing, but you can't mandate that it happens and then not provide the funding.  The California legislature will not provide the money to meet federal requirements, nor should they.  The feds need to provide the resources to meet their mandates.

The Miller/Pelosi proposal is unacceptable as currently written.  Many problems with NCLB have not been fixed, nor has funding for things like the data programs been provided.

Keep the pressure on Miller and Pelosi.  Take action.  Blog it up on your own sites.

•  Tips

  are great, making noise and helping beat back this Bush Dog bill is better.

  by juls on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 03:54:30 PM PDT

•  Nice work, Juls

  I just called Ellen Tauscher's office and urged a no vote based on California having a better tracking system as well as the lack of funding for mandated programs.

  Thanks for giving me a kick in the rear.

  by CA Nana on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 04:20:20 PM PDT

  •  No problem

    this stuff is flying below the radar, particularly on a week like this.

    by juls on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 04:25:44 PM PDT

•  What is CTA? n/t

  by MyBrainWorks on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 04:54:19 PM PDT

  •  Whoops

    sorry...should have been more clear CTA: California Teachers Association.

    by juls on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:03:18 PM PDT

•  Yes! Yes! Yes!

  Keep telling everyone that

  "taking snapshots of group performance at any time, and comparing it to snapshots of a different group a year later"

  is absolutely NUTS!  This is my comment in another diary (I don't know how to link to comments...)

  I am measured by how this year's 4th grade performs in relationship to last year's class, as though kids were widgets stamped out like toys on an assembly line!

  We have to keep at this and the funding.  I do more paperwork than a f**king CPA, and I'm doing it on my own time on a salary that is a small fraction of any other professional person.  How is what we do less important than what others do?  After all, the kids in our classrooms today will be making decisions for us and contributing to our Social Security - or not!  

  Rant over.  Blood pressure too high!

  by luckylizard on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:14:19 PM PDT

•  Thanks for keeping us informed

  I am truly disappointed in Miller and Pelosi on this.  Have written them several letters.  Kennedy too.

  NCLB is wrong.  It is immoral and unethical and hurts the poorest schools and the poorest children.  It's a political piece designed to blame teachers and children for the fact that we have failed to adequately fund inner city schools, failed as a nation to give a damn about school infrastructure and refuse as a nation to entice more into the profession with decent salaries.

  Teaching is as much an art as it is a science.  Just like medicine.  Good doctors KNOW that not every medicine works on every person the same way.  Good doctors learned that some medicines that cure some people can kill others.  And that just giving medicine is not enough.  People, whether children or adults, also have to take part in the healing process.

  Teachers, the good ones, know that there is NO ONE METHOD, no ONE TEXT that is a magic bullet to teaching.  Something that works amazingly well for one student, could fail for another. THUS, one test fits all, is as unfair as ONE pill fits all.

  But it seems that our legislators are buying into the right wing lies.  They have allowed the right wing to accuse them of "leaving poor children behind" if they do not go along with NCLB.  More poor schools are being pressured and punished by the tunnel vision of NCLB.

  It is the poor children who suffer when we cut recess, cut field trips, cut the arts so we can have more time to train them better for THE TEST.  Teachers and administrators are put in an impossible situation.  If we refuse to bend or buckle under pressure, and do what we know is better for children, for learning, we are threatened with school closures. If we do not jump through their score hoops, we are made to feel guilty and wrong and ruining it for the school.

  In schools in affluent neighborhoods, if they kids lose PE or ART or MUSIC, so what.  Mom and Dad can take them to gyms or get them private music and art lessons.  So what if school cuts out trips to the museum, or to a theatre since parents can afford to take them.

  Miller, Pelosi and Kennedy need to wake up.
  NCLB is all about giving the right wing the chance to use the law to get vouchers passed.
  Publish raw data in the paper and school X is the lowest school (as the scores are by zip code)  and voila a year to two later comes a private company opening a private or charter school and promising the world to poor parents who are tricked by data, since all they publish are numbers with no explanations.

  It's all about the money and to hell with poor families.  Same old, same old right wing mentality.
  True anecdote: when a right wing nutcase got elected to a school board (in a stealth campaign) with the sole purpose of destroying the public school he was voted to represent, he was heard saying this (to someone he thought was sympathetic to his cause of privatization).
  After asked about the fact that his scheme might not be good for poor kids, he said "Oh well we always need maids and janitors..."

  BUT the good news is that our community woke up and we recalled the a**hat jerk.

  by Jjc2006 on Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:51:08 PM PDT