The purpose of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is to raise pupil achievement by measuring the progress of each school. “In the trenches” teachers fight the day to day battle – they battle the intrusions of pop culture, of poverty, the lyrics of the latest hip hop beat, with successes and failures.
In spite of the pronouncements of Bush and Klein the outside world impacts – closing the achievement gap is everyone’s goal – and “blaming” schools and teachers too often excuses the government bureaucracy that ignores the influence of poverty.
New York State has specific high school graduation requirements: the accumulation of forty-four credits in a range of subject areas and passing at least five Regents examinations. If kids want to compete in the cruel adult world a high school diploma is a bare minimum – for too many kids that elusive NBA or hip hop star career is more attractive than applying themselves and acquiring the literacy and numeracy skills they so desperately need.
In addition to meeting NCLB requirements the DOE has created a new metric – School Progress Reports-that will grade each empowerment school on an “A” through “F” scale. Schools will be “measured” by the average growth of individual students and the top 10% of schools will receive a grade of “A,” the bottom 10% will receive a grade of “F,” and so forth. “Extra” credit will be given for moving “difficult” populations – special education, English language learners and “low” achieving children, as well as moving kids from grade to grade by accumulating credits.
Unfortunately rather than supporting schools, training staff and creating rich collegial environments the Office of New Schools and the Leadership Academy encourage principals to be “innovative,” and “creative,” a wink and a nod!
Special Investigator Condon cites blatant cheating at the HS for Youth Development and recommends the principal be fired – the principal is still in place. A NYSun columnist sees a culture of undue pressures and widespread cheating.
The mantra of the week is Credit Recovery: innovative ways for kids who have failed subjects to earn credits. The DOE “passes along” low achieving kids to high schools, it is commonplace for entering classes in high schools to include seventy to eighty percent of kids who have NOT met state standards in ELA and Math. Why are they “passed along,”? You have to ask the DOE.
Rather than providing small classes, skilled and experienced teachers, tutoring–the range of interventions that are essential to provide the youngster with literacy and numeracy skills–the kids are dumped into classes, and, guess what? They fail!
The solution? Not smaller classes, not intervention strategies, the answer is Credit Recovery: independent study, Saturday classes, reports, a range of “soft” strategies to earn credits.
Rumors abound: how many schools lean on teachers to pass kids? who monitors the marking of regents exams? the granting of “invisible” credits? I fear that the “wink and a nod” and the punitive provisions of the School Progress Report are driving school decision-making.
The metric of the DOE should be “integrity and rigor,” not “abandon hope all ye who enter here…”
1 Comment:
1 Persam1197
· Jan 20, 2007 at 7:26 am
You are so very right. You can see the softening of standards all around. The students now know that they can get away from doing consistent work by doing a make-up project to earn credit.
The day I give away a freebie is the day hang up my grade book. I’ve had students come back to me and thank them for not giving them the free pass. They now realize that the world out there has very little patience for unqualified workers who want to ride the gravy train. As a society, we send a profound lesson to children that has an everlasting impact when we celebrate mediocrity.