No Urchin Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has been with us for a couple of years now. This law is meant to engender greater effort on the part of school administrators and teachers to ensure that "every" child is successful. Apparently its supporters believe that teachers are sending the lowest achievers out into the hall while we teach everyone else. Or maybe they think we refuse to call on them when they raise their hands (kids who aren't achieving aren't raising their hands -- I promise). Or perhaps they picture us using too many big words (...nah). Maybe they buy into the myth that middle class white teachers can't possibly understand how to reach urban black males and the other subgroups who make low scores on tests. Perhaps they even believe that standardized tests still ask questions about china patterns and polo, so that the typical inner city kid can't possibly make good scores. Not sure.
I am notorious for giving more Ds and Fs than most teachers at my school. But you know what? Every single D and F student has missing work. I even put in writing that if a student turns in all of their work (and follows directions), they CAN'T make lower than a C. I even take late work for half credit at ANY TIME before the quarter ends. I'll admit I'm not willing to go to a student's house, hand them a pen, and stand over them while they do their homework. I'm not sure what else I can do besides remind them continually, alert the parents, and hope. How is the school or the teacher at fault when students fail under these circumstances?
As you can imagine, what is really happening with NCLB is that schools are scrambling to "fix" their lower scores in any haphazard way they can, just so they won't be put on the Bad List. I'm sure there are exceptions. But here is one example:
The state tests are to be given in mid-April. On March 22, two days before a week-long spring break, teachers on my team were asked to come up with a strategy for preparing our lowest math and reading students for the tests. We kept to ourselves the thoughts that you might be thinking too: "Didn't we know the tests were coming up before this?" "I've been preparing them in every way I know how already. I do that all year." "Cramming for tests is not only ineffective, but a horrible example for students, especially those who are already having trouble." We struggled to come up with something our principal would be happy with. We made several suggestions but there was no definite decision at the end of the meeting. We had parent conferences that week, which means we were busier than usual updating grades and printing progress reports, as well as working late to meet with parents.
When we arrived back at school on March 28, we had email outlining a new schedule with an extra class for test prep, and plans that the math teachers had pulled together for math prep. [We learned later that the math teachers had been pulled into a last-minute meeting to plan. Interestingly, the science teachers were, too, but not the English teachers.] There were no instructions for what everyone else would do during that time, so we scurried to plan something reasonable. I pulled out some old test prep books; a colleague found a set of social studies magazines and planned to have students read and discuss some articles. Meanwhile, the students had no idea where to go that morning. We had to stand in the hall and call out, "Go to your first elective!" over and over again. Students would ask, "Why?" and we would have to say, "We'll explain later."
When we finally got our students that morning, I stopped to explain why we were having this special test prep class. Guess what the students said. They wondered why we had waited until the last minute. They said we had been learning all year; wasn't that preparing for the tests? And anyway, wasn't that a bad way to learn, to cram?
If only we tested them on logic.
My colleagues really rose to the occasion. We did the best we could do under ridiculous circumstances, and I hope the students gained something from the various activities.
This spectacle, of course, was the administration's fault, and does not in itself negate the value of NCLB. But consider this: standardized tests are multiple choice and CANNOT test students on higher-order thinking skills. Standardized tests can require that students comprehend and recall information, and even in some cases deduce outcomes. But it can't test whether or not a student can express him- or herself articulately, use facts to build a logical argument, or analyze literature. So, NCLB has schools scrambling, as in the above fashion, to raise test scores, when what students need (in humanities classes, anyway) is more practice in reading, analyzing, writing, and research. (We were actually told, in so many words, not to worry about teaching research skills, because the English test template calls for only one or two questions on research.)
Meanwhile, our top students are suffering through these test prep classes for two weeks, bored out of their minds. When they say No Child Left Behind, they refer only to low-achieving kids. What about the ones who are eager to learn, participate, and contribute? They get slapped in the face.
