Here's an article that is sympathetic to the problem of "overtesting" in schools, told primarily from one elementary school teacher's viewpoint. The article is straightforward and fairly informative. But can you spot the simple solution to this problem?
Under President Bush's "No Child Left Behind'' bill, [this teacher's] district received a three-year grant worth nearly $5 million to implement a literacy program in kindergarten-through-third-grade classes. Similar grants totaling $900 million went to thousands of low-income, low-performing schools across the country.
The plan made sense: Pour money and effort into helping kids learn to read by third grade, and they will have a solid foundation on which to build the rest of their education. But policies that are so impressive on paper inside the government offices of Washington, D.C., can look quite different when brought to life inside a classroom...
..this year, because of the new "Reading First'' federal grant money, schools have to show more accountability, another word for lots of testing. The teacher gives a literacy test every Friday that reviews the week's lessons. Then she gives three tests during the year that review material from the weekly tests. Then there are the three standardized math tests. And the California standards test. On top of those, she now has to administer six Reading First tests through the year...
Thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C., Bush recently talked about his "No Child Left Behind" plan. "It's an exciting time for American education,'' he said. "We're facing challenges, but we have the blueprint for success."
I know a teacher who would like that blueprint. The one she has now isn't working so well.
According to this teacher, the school was already implementing a successful literacy program, one which apparently conflicts with "Reading First." But why is the blame being placed on NCLB here? The blame should be on the school for taking the $5 million without understanding the accountability that comes with such a large chunk of money. It's not surprising that additional testing comes with additional money, but neither the money nor the additional testing is mandatory.
What conclusion are we supposed to draw here? That NCLB is bad because schools are required to account for grant money spent? That it's unfair when some reading programs conflict with one another? That students who are in federally-mandated reading programs shouldn't have to follow federal rules? This article is, as I said, sympathetic, but this teacher is barking up the wrong tree.
Posted by kswygert at April 1, 2004 01:20 PM