No child left behind

[fintstone]

It appears that"No Child Left Behind" is having positive impact in the Hispanic community. Hillary, unable to counter....offers to provide college financial aid to illegal immigrants (via your tax dollars) in an attempt to buy Hispanic votes. Liberal desperation knows no bounds....

Spellings, Clinton Disagree on Hispanics
By ERIN TEXEIRA, AP National Writer

Monday, July 18,2005

(07-18) 17:58 PDT PHILADELPHIA (AP) --


U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Monday the "achievement gap is beginning to close" between Hispanic and white students, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton countered that she's not convinced the federal government is doing enough to help Hispanic youth get through school.


Spellings and Clinton each spoke at the convention of the National Council of La Raza, a four-day event that ends Tuesday.


The two did not dispute statistics that show Latino students have the nation's highest high school dropout rate and the lowest college enrollment rate, but diverged on whether the government is fixing the problem.


Praising No Child Left Behind, the education law President Bush signed in January 2002, Spellings pointed to National Assessment of Educational Progress scores released Thursday that show 9-year-olds, including Hispanics, have improved their reading and math scores.


"These results did not come out of thin air," Spellings said. "They came from a commitment to doing something that's never been done before, a commitment to giving every child a quality education."


"The achievement gap is beginning to close," she said.


But minutes later, Clinton told the same group: "You are doing your part, but I don't know that your government is doing its part right now."


Clinton stressed that, though younger students' scores have improved, 17-year-olds have made virtually no gains since the tests first started being given 30 years ago.


"I'm not sure that we are doing everything we should to make your job easier, to make sure that the opportunity society is alive and well for everyone," she said.


Linda L. Silva, a Democratic organizer and advocate for Latinos in Delaware County, Pa., stood with hundreds of others to applaud Clinton, particularly when the senator called for policy changes that would allow undocumented immigrant students to receive college aid. Silva said she hopes to see Clinton enter the race for president in 2008. "There's no one else in America who has more integrity today," she said.


The welcome for Spellings was more muted.


Washington-based La Raza was founded in Phoenix in 1968 as a Mexican-American civil rights group and now is the nation's largest advocacy group for Hispanics. It represents 4 million members in 300 affiliates across the country.


Minutes after the speeches ended, eight people who said they want tighter controls on immigration walked into the Pennsylvania Convention Center where the meeting is being held wearing T-shirts and caps saying "U.S. Border Patrol," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of La Raza. They were escorted from the building without incident, Munoz said.

[HardDrive]

Both parents just retired as public school principals. They regard No Child Left Behind as an unfunded government mandate that has little impact other than causing wide spread cheating to achieve unrealistic test score.

The test scores the administration is pointing to as proof of success are bogus.

That being said, Hillary is a twit, and not even my bleeding heart, tree huggin family could bring ourselves to vote for her.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by HardDrive
Both parents just retired as public school principals. They regard No Child Left Behind as an unfunded government mandate that has little impact other than causing wide spread cheating to achieve unrealistic test score.

The test scores the administration is pointing to as proof of success are bogus.

That being said, Hillary is a twit, and not even my bleeding heart, tree huggin family could bring ourselves to vote for her.

So are you implying that educators cannot be trusted not to cheat? That seems pretty strong. Why would they not be honest and let the scores speak for themselves/the program?

I agree that it is an unfunded mandate....but something needs to be done to account for the federal tax dollars poured down the education rathole. It would be far better to get rid of mandate and get the federal govt. out of education. Let schools be funded and run locally.

Funny how Hil is against illegal immigration one day...and wants to pay for illegal immigrants' college the next....mixed message huh?

[CamB]

Not all Mexican's are illegal, which is what you appear to be implying.

[red-beard]

Funding "Undocumented Immigrant Student" is Insane. No mention of Mexicans.

James

PS: My wife came legally from Mexico and she deplores illegal immigration.

[gavinlit]

"So are you implying that educators cannot be trusted not to cheat? That seems pretty strong. Why would they not be honest and let the scores speak for themselves/the program?"
If you tie achievement on external examinations to school/district funding or to numbers of potential students looking at gaining entry to a particular school in the following year you will find cheating. Educators are human too & if it means the survival of your school (and you know/think/expect competing schools to cheat) then ....
Sad but true.
Besides which - examination performance is not generally indicative (in a causal sense) of genuine learning (although genuine learning does usually lead to higher examination performance in most tasks). You'd need to take a look at the examination questions, how they have changed over the years and how the socioeconomic indicators have changed over the years before getting too excited about a shift in results.

[Par911]

No child left behind will doom all of mankind........

[Jims5543]

No Child Left Behind.....


The class is only as smart as its slowest student.


No wonder there are waiting lists to get into private schools.

I am giving the public school system one last chance with middle school. If I am not happy my son will be in a Private HS and my little guy (2 year old) will go to private school from the start.

My son spent the last 5 years doing nothing but get ready to take FCAT's he has not learned anything more than how to take a standerdized test. The teachers spend every day drilling them with practice tests.

If it happens again this year I will be getting on a waiting list for a private School.

This is coning from a parent that actually spends time with his child every night doing homework and making sure he understands what he is doing. This is a really sore subject for me.

[legion]

I'd really like to see the Department of Education abolished...

Still, calling "No Child Left Behind" an "unfunded mandate" makes me laugh. The funds have been there for a long time (federal education dollars)...it just took until a few years ago to attach a mandate to them.

[mikester]

That's a good point - a lot of well off families are pulling their children out of public schools - I don't know the percentages but I sure hear about it a lot. That leads me to wonder if that is artificially bringing up the test scores of minorities.

Regardless; I just breezed past and LA times article that outlined that 9 year old latinos and blacks were doing much much better than they ever had before. So...I'm just glad to hear some good news really.

I don't agree with funding illegal immegration and their children's school and college.

P.S. I've met Red-Beard's wife and she's a class act to be sure. Smart as a whip; likely smarter than he is.

[stevepaa]

Anyone know what percentage money schools really get from Fed Gov't through this program?

http://www.cbee.org/PDFs/10facts.pdf

8.2%

And for this measly amount districts go through hoops altering what is taught to pass some tests to acquire these funds.
What does that mean? It means that schools need more funding from you, so they don't scramble for this pittance of money.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by CamB
Not all Mexican's are illegal, which is what you appear to be implying.

Please explain exactly how I am doing that????

[fintstone]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Anyone know what percentage money schools really get from Fed Gov't through this program?

http://www.cbee.org/PDFs/10facts.pdf

8.2%

And for this measly amount districts go through hoops altering what is taught to pass some tests to acquire these funds.
What does that mean? It means that schools need more funding from you, so they don't scramble for this pittance of money.

They already waste far too much. All federal funds should be cut. Education is a local issue.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by fintstone
They already waste far too much. All federal funds should be cut. Education is a local issue.

no education needs to be a national mandate. It is the only thing that has a chance of saving the country from going down the toilet...

And no child left behind merely has changed the curriculum to "teach to the test." Drill, lather, rinse, repeat. No critical thinking skills. No application. The metrics are crap.

[dd74]

Agreed. It's about saving the educator's job, and not educating the child. But damn! They sure can fill in a bubble neatly, can't they?

[fintstone]

Originally posted by nostatic
no education needs to be a national mandate. It is the only thing that has a chance of saving the country from going down the toilet...

And no child left behind merely has changed the curriculum to "teach to the test." Drill, lather, rinse, repeat. No critical thinking skills. No application. The metrics are crap.

Nationalizing education has accomplished just the opposite. The metrics are only crap if you cheat. How would you measure performance? I cannot imagine any other profession (except teaching) that would ask for you to pay them and "just trust me, you are getting your money's worth," regardless of outcome.

[dd74]

Originally posted by fintstone
I cannot imagine any other profession (except teaching) that would ask for you to pay them and "just trust me, you are getting your money's worth," regardless of outcome.

Isn't that what's (still) happening now?

[Moses]

Originally posted by nostatic
And no child left behind merely has changed the curriculum to "teach to the test." Drill, lather, rinse, repeat. No critical thinking skills.

Oh how I wish we could get them all to "teach to the test". Then all we would need is better tests. A much simpler task.

And yes, tests can measure critical thinking skills.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by fintstone
The metrics are only crap if you cheat.

These metrics or any metrics? Have you seen the standardized tests recently? Do you have a kid in elementary school who is going through this right now? Do you have a background in pedagogy?

Moses, I would like to think that at least some of my exams were testing for critical thinking skills. I assume they were, since they required the synthesis of knowledge and application, not just regurgitation.

[fintstone]

Here is another excellent article on the subject:

Dogma versus reality
Thomas Sowell

July 19, 2005

There have been many bitter complaints from teachers and principals about the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" act -- and more specifically about having to "teach to the test" instead of doing whatever teachers and principals want to do.

Now the results are in.

Not only have test scores in math and reading shown "solid gains" in the words of the New York Times, young black students have "significantly narrowed the gap" between themselves and white students. All this is based on official annual data from 28,000 schools across the country.

What is especially revealing is that it is the young black students who have made the largest gains while older minority students "scored as far behind whites as in previous decades."

In other words, the children whose education has taken place mostly since the No Child Left Behind act show the greatest gains, while for those whose education took place mostly under the old system, it was apparently too late to repair the damage.

Do not expect either the New York Times or the education establishment to draw these conclusions from these data. Nor are black "leaders" likely to pay much attention, since they are preoccupied with such hustles as seeking reparations for slavery.

"By their fruits ye shall know them" may be an ancient adage but results take a back seat to dogma when it comes to the education establishment. That is why there has been so little to show for all the additional billions of dollars poured into American education during the past three decades.

Ironically, there was another report issued recently, this one giving results of opinion polls among professors of education, the people who train our public school teachers. It is also very revealing as to what has been so wrong for so long in our schools.

Take something as basic as what teachers should be doing in the classroom. Should teachers be "conveyors of knowledge who enlighten their students with what they know"? Or should teachers "see themselves as facilitators of learning who enable their students to learn on their own"?

Ninety two percent of the professors of education said that teachers should be "facilitators" rather than engaging in what is today called "directed instruction" -- and what used to be called just plain teaching.

The fashionable phrase among educators today is that the teacher should not be "a sage on the stage" but "a guide on the side."

Is the 92 percent vote for the guide over the sage based on any hard evidence, any actual results? No. It has remained the prevailing dogma in schools of education during all the years when our test scores stagnated and American children have been repeatedly outperformed in international tests by children from other countries.

Our children have been particularly outperformed in math, with American children usually ending up at or near the bottom in international math tests. But this has not made a dent in our education establishment's dogmas about the way to teach math.

What is more important in math, that children "know the right answers to the questions" or that they "struggle with the process" of trying to find the right answers? Among professors of education, 86 percent choose "struggling" over knowing.

This is all part of a larger vision in which children "discover" their own knowledge rather than have teachers pass on to them the knowledge of what others have already discovered. The idea that children will "discover" knowledge that took scholars and geniuses decades, or even generations, to produce is truly a faith which passeth all understanding.

What about discipline problems in our schools? Fewer than half of the professors of education considered discipline "absolutely essential" to the educational process. As one professor of education put it, "When you have students engaged and not vessels to receive information, you tend to have fewer discipline problems."

All the evidence points in the opposite direction. But what is mere evidence compared to education dogmas? We need more "teaching to the test" so that dogmas can be subjected to evidence.