NEWSFLASH: OBAMA HAS BEEN IN FAVOR OF NCLB FROM THE START

Any hopes you may have that he will toss it out are futile.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/

Edit to add: As for Duncan, I found this:

Duncan's Chicago Was Poster Child For NCLB Resistance

Many educators will be happy to know that, under Arne Duncan Chicago was the poster child for districts resisting and criticizing the law.

http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2008/12/transition-du-2.html

I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude on where they go with this.

So do most of the teachers on DU.

are stuck with now. And charter schools.

Hillary got this one right.

Here are a couple:

Funding destructive legislation won't make anything any better.

NCLB is flawed too deeply to "fix." I don't want it "fixed," which I read as political tinkering with no significant change, or funded. I want it gone.

Obama and Biden are calling for MORE accountability. That's MORE of what NCLB fails at.

Arne Duncan is the poster boy for the "Chicago Miracle," which included many unsavory actions.

Here are some comments from liberal educators in Chicago:

http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2008/12/arne-duncan-p...

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=318

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=122

And NCLB has failed at accountability, so Dems calling for more accountability fails because?


As I said, I'm waiting and seeing. It annoys me that people are trashing a new program, perspective, game plan, before it's even implemented, before the PE even is sworn in. But I'm sure the same will ensue once their plan is announced, so I best get used to it.

Calling for accountability fails because the whole political fairy tale is flawed.

I am not accountable for what my students do. Or for what my district does. I am accountable for what I do. Using what others do to measure MY accountability is a corrupt measure.

We know a great deal about the factors that encourage success, and the factors that put students at risk, and lead to failure.

Many of those factors are completely out of my control, as a classroom teacher, and out of my school site's control, and my district's control.

Holding us accountable when we don't control the determining factors is corrupt. To say the least.

One of the first, and strongest, predictors of student test scores is parent SES. We don't control that. A big federal and state investment in closing the economic class gaps would address that issue more decisively, and more effectively. That has nothing to do with anything any district, school site, or teacher does.

Of course, this very factor makes it easy to skew results for AYP and for the "merit pay" that Obama and Duncan are so enthusiastic about. It's all about placing students in classes and at school sites. Give the weakest teacher on site a classroom full of solid middle-class students, and they are likely to make AYP. Give the strongest teacher a room full of at risk students, and no matter how much growth they make, they are unlikely to make AYP. Same with redrawing school boundaries and creative "choice" plans. It doesn't change the reality, just moves it from one place to another.

Research also tells us that the optimum class size for student achievement is 15 students. Please find me a public school or district in the nation that provides that. As a matter of fact, most school districts count special ed teachers, counselors, music teachers, etc.; certified staff that have no classes of their own, but who serve the population, when they are figuring class size. It makes the average "class size" look better when they add some teachers who don't have a class of their own.

What public school gives the optimum class size, physical plant, or resources to schools and teachers? Not too many. In fact, in many districts trying to squeeze every penny, teachers are not only responsible for their teaching duties, but spend all kinds of time that should be spent on planning for effective instruction in extra duties for the district; committees, meetings, etc., which often require too many subs, and too many sub plans to write, and usually have teachers burning the candle at both ends to make up for lost time.

I had 7 subs in the month of October alone, and they were all for district business. That's about 10 hours spent writing sub plans. An extra 10 - 14 hours on doing the paperwork the sub generated, since they aren't paid to handle that. All of those hours are in addition to the 9 hours or so a day it takes me to do my job with no extra meetings or duties. I also had 8 meetings, 60 minutes each, during the hours outside of school that I usually spend planning, correcting, etc.. That's about 28 hours in October in addition to the 9 hours a day it takes my job, which is already more than the contractual day I'm paid for. I'll be frank: the quality of instruction goes down under that schedule.

There are many reasons why students don't succeed, and only some of them have anything to do with anything a school or teacher does. Social, emotional, and physical health, family stress, cultural valuing or devaluing of intellect, school, and learning, parenting, all of those are factors the school system does not control, and all of those factors affect outcomes.

In the end, it's my job to provide abundant, rich, multiple opportunities for students to learn and succeed. It's THEIR job to make use of those opportunities.

I'm willing to be accountable for staying current in education theory and practice, for offering multiple high-quality opportunities for learning, for differentiating instruction to meet individual needs, and for doing my best to creating an environment conducive to learning within the resources at my disposal.

I'm not accountable for what students choose to do with those opportunities.

I'm not accountable for all the factors that affect my students' progress that are outside of my control.

New legislation about "accountability" won't be non-destructive and positive. It springs from an authoritarian control philosophy, and is based upon the idea that teachers are incompetent, and that we don't care about our students' progress.

It's the blame game, scapegoating those on the front lines of a crisis in order to gain political capital and move a privatizing agenda. It also means that the real sources of public education "failure" never have to be addressed, which is good for politicians who don't want to have to commit the kind of support, funds, and changes it would take to make our system healthy, vibrant, and strong.

Legislation based on that underlying philosophy is not going to be positive.

NCLB has some decent reason to exits, but hasn't had the funding nor enough helpful tinkering for it to be beneficial.

NCLB was a bipartisan effort with Ted Kennedy at the helm. Initially the GOP were against it....but they learned to love it when it wasn't funded. There is much work to do about it, but gutting it and starting from scratch isn't necessarily required.

Barack Obama will reform No Child Left Behind:
Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests and he will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/

The FCAT is a test given at different grade levels. Passing the test is a requirement, so now teachers are having to teach to the test, and kids are only learning one thing: how to take the FCAT.

It's pathetic. From Reagan to the present, public education in the U.S. has become worse and worse.

It is a huge burden that has harmed our kids and our schools. It needs to go.

That is what is exciting....that Education will get better not worse, no matter the tactics used to improve it.

"Reforming" NCLB could be a band-aid on cancer, which winds up making things worse, because you ignore the real problem thinking you did something.

I thought anyone with schoolaged children would be horrified by it.

That Obama is going to go a long way towards destroying public education. Duncan's "CEO" style of school "reform" is just the sort of set up for widespread privatization of the school system. Yippee:eyes:

and one of the reasons I lost hope when Obama was nominated.

While I've always felt called to teach, and, in my 2+ decades in public education, have received many kudos from the families I serve, my colleagues, and my administrators, I'm tired. I'm tired of swimming upstream, being a political scapegoat and football, and trying to work multiple miracles with no help, and mountains of bureaucratic obstacles. If I didn't depend on my paycheck to survive, I'd retire. As it is, I'll probably still be working in public education when I keel over from old age, since I don't have the resources behind me to make retirement realistic.

I sure don't recommend the teaching profession to any young people deciding on a career.

our kids are fucked.

Who forgot to turn off all caps!

I never supported him. :(

I keep reminding myself of that :)

It was a lesser of 2 evils situation for me since last January. I hoped someone more education friendly would get the nomination; Biden and Richardson both spoke, at least in the debates, about getting rid of NCLB. Edwards was more positive; even HRC was better on education.

Then I hoped that Biden might have some influence with education policy, until I read the education situation at Obama's site.

Now I just hope to survive awhile longer.

we have other unimportant issues kept at the forefront....it was clever of Rove or whomever WAS responsible, to keep controversial issues front and center, such as Rev. Wright, the 24/7 Hillary vs Obama debacle...then the birth certificate issue...I would have sworn Obama was against NCLB, since it's almost destroyed our education system...wb

ps: edited to add, the most important, yet distracting non-issue of the last couple months campaigning...which was brilliant...Sarah Palin

I can't stand NCLB. It's a horrible policy and it needs to be eliminated.