Here's my wish for the election season - no matter what Bush or Kerry come out with as their debate points, the main thing I'd like to see is an end to biased reporting in which the claims of those opposing NCLB are credulously repeated:
Dreary skies did not stop educators, past political figures and parents from gathering Saturday at the Ohio State House lawn to protest President Bush's education policy, No Child Left Behind. The message of the rally organizers and participants focused on high-quality education for all children, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status.
"I have taught the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, and one thing I know is the testing necessary for No Child Left Behind is not facilitated properly," said Drue Barezinsky, special education teacher for Dublin City Schools.
Okay, I have a Ph.D., and I don't understand what Ms. Barenzinsky means when she uses "facilitated" here - the Act has not been brought about more easily, properly? But, moving on:
Rally organizers distributed information that claims the policy is punishing the schools rather than supporting them by using a standardized test to mislabel schools as failing and then place harsh sanctions on them.
"When I go home I don't mind spending personal time doing work for children, but when I have to spend my time working on meaningless paperwork to defend myself on why the students are unable to pass the test, I get upset," Barezinsky said.
So, being required to defend why students flunk the test a meaningless issue?
Many rally supporters say the system is failing children.
"When students fail, the schools are blamed," said Pattie O'Brien, a teacher in Athens, Ohio. "But the problem is we are leaving teachers and students behind. Educators, not legislators, should be making critical decisions about education."
We tried that. It didn't seem to work. Now we're trying something else. And since when is requiring teachers to be accountable for student learning the same thing as leaving them behind?
Some of the suggested alternatives smack of enough governmental interference to make NCLB look like a libertarian proposal:
Rally speakers spoke of many issues, and some speakers offered possible solutions.
"It will take $1.5 billion to do this. However there are five steps that must occur," [vice president of the Ohio Education Association Patricia] Brooks said. "Making a level playing field, providing resources and access to free school programs, provide intervention specialist in the classrooms, access to technology and having expertise teaching in the classroom will all help close the existing gap."
Emphasis mine. Making all the playing fields level among all children. Yeah, that'll happen. What's more, I thought activists like this opposed NCLB because it gave too much power to the federal government. Does Ms. Brooks really believe there's a system that can level the playing field yet keep governmental interference down?
The rally urged people to vote on Nov. 2 and elect a president who will support the schools.
"Are you ready to make a change and volunteer to help defeat President Bush and the NCLB act?" said Dennis VanRoekel, vice president of the National Education Association.
Supporters were urged to go to www.rallyforchildren.org to learn more about the policy. "The hope of the nation depends on our children," VanRoekel said. "But what does that say when 99 percent of public schools will be labeled as failing?"
According to the most recent report, a quarter of the nation's schools failed to make adequate yearly progress. In notoriously-bad districts like Washington DC, the numbers are higher, but still only around 50%. If VanRoekel wants to pull numbers like 99% out of his hat, so be it, but there's no reason for reporters to credulously print them. I don't have much faith in activists' opinions of the issues when they make up numbers to give to the press.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the rallyforchildren website, which seems to be convinced that reading and math are not useful skills for children in the 21st century, advertises the appearance of testing critic Susan Ohanian at its rally, along with "musical performances" that will probably feature these artists. If nothing else, what passes for "music" among testing critics will convince NCLB supporters to put music education back in the classroom - fast.
Update: Be sure to check out Eduwonk's insider information on the city where the rally took place.
Posted by kswygert at October 5, 2004 05:47 PM