Comments on: Let Teachers Teach

By: dosido

dosido — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:25:15 +0000

Oh let me add my sunshine from California:

Right now, our guvernator wants to take the lottery money earmarked for education and steer it over to prison reform!

By: Hebisner

Hebisner — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:03:16 +0000

Whatever NCLB’s flaws are, exactly how is getting rid of the testing process going to improve education? We had all of the problems in education well before anyone starting testing on this scale. And if improvements are implemented, how will we know they work without some sort of empirical measure of progress? I would argue it is a fairly credulous statement to say that removing the one of the few elements in public education that is measurable is going to improve teaching.

And remember folks, NCLB is just a name. We used to call it ESEA, and it was, and remains, a civil rights law aimed at addressing education inequities. That’s why NCLB data is broken out by race, since school districts and states have been adept at hiding the scores of lower performing students. I’m not suggeting NCLB is beyond criticism, I’m simply pointing out the status quo was not working, and replacing NCLB with platitudes about letting teachers teach is not a step forward.

By: laurastrand

laurastrand — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:46:29 +0000

My 2 cents worth is that NCLB is doing exactly what it was designed to do- ensure a dumbed-down, uninterested, unengaged workforce that has no ability to challenge the status quo on any issue of complexity or importance. In essence, a permanent underclass.
Good on those kids for speaking truth to power.
NCLB belongs on the trash heap of history.

By: Dearie

Dearie — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:53:42 +0000

In my day, education was a “States Rights” issue —– where did that get stuffed?

By: ucsbclassics53

ucsbclassics53 — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:43:46 +0000

Merit pay can also lead to cronyism, especially if principals determine which teacher deserves it or not…

By: rwcole

rwcole — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:25:50 +0000

“NCLB” started out with the wrong fuckin measurs- so it’s a doomed concept.

It gives the teacher no credit for helping bright kids to perform better- nor do they get any credit for improving the performance of slow kids who still end up short of the standard.

They only get credit for taking those kids who are just below standard to just above standars…which may be not much of an accomplishment…

The program ignores the very slow and also the brightest kids who have a chance of becoming the mathematicians and scientists of the future—

We’ll might get more literate plumbers out of this program- but not a hell of a lot else.

By: Dearie

Dearie — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:08:39 +0000

Thanks, Laura, for addressing this situation. What some people forget when they tout merit pay is that someone will be teaching the least able students (and, let’s recognize that average means half the students will be below that middle mark!) — those teachers are often most able but may not be able to produce results that testers want. “Merit” must be calculated by someone…..and it will never be as easy to assess as it might seem.