No
Child Left Behind
No Child Left Behind? No School Left
Untouched. As educators responsible to make sense of all new regulations on
school districts, we have been struggling with all the new rules, regulations,
reports, and requirements associated with “No Child Left Behind.” [NCLB] “No
Child Left Behind” is the latest federal program designed to save society from
failing school systems. The lofty goal of this program is to ensure that every
student in the nation scores substantially better than the average student by
the year 2014. That means of course, that there will be no more average
students. How could anyone argue with this goal? We all want the best for
students.
But before we all blindly agree, let’s look at what that means. By
every student the federal government means each and every student, regardless
of his or her condition. That includes children who have brain injuries from
car accidents, who are special education students, who do not speak English,
who have changed schools 15 times in five years, and who have parents who
believe that education is unimportant. This will not happen. It is impossible
to have all students above average because the very definition of average means
that half of the population achieves below that level. The federal government
has designed a program that guarantees that schools will fail.
One should also look at the standards.
NCLB was patterned after the standards program that was implemented by
President Bush in Texas. The Texas standards however are “minimum competency”
standards. California standards are “world-class” standards. What a child is
expected to learn in the sixth grade in Texas is expected of a third-grader in
California. Yet we are expected to score at the same level as Texas schools,
even though our curriculum is much harder. Clearly, this is not going to
happen. And when it does not happen, schools and districts will be punished.
Those punishments include a variety of prescriptive requirements that basically
funnel money out of the schools and into private tutoring hands.
In an effort to better understand this
legislation, we have accessed the Web site and learned, to our amazement, that
NCLB “combines and simplifies programs so that schools don’t have to go through
as much red tape to get and use federal funds.” It took 670 pages of
legislation to supposedly relieve us of the red tape. From a practical point of
view, the last thing NCLB does is relieve us of red tape.
There are so many requirements attached
to NCLB and some of the entitlement programs, such as Title I and Title IV,
that some districts, particularly small ones, are starting to ask if they would
be better off to decline the federal funding so they don’t have so much of that
reduced red tape to wade through. In a time of shrinking budgets, it is almost
unthinkable to decline funds but when you look at all that is required because
of these programs, you find that you might be better off without the money.
Small, rural districts, such as Yosemite, Coarsegold, Bass Lake,
Raymond, Mariposa and Sierra struggle to keep staffing at the needed level,
then when we are hit with so many plans and reports that we have to hire extra
people to keep up with them all, it doesn’t make much sense.
The Title I funding we receive is
one-half of 1 percent of our budget. It is money we need desperately to meet
the needs of our students, but it may turn out to be money we can’t afford to
accept. Our high school district will almost certainly decline Title IV funding
next year because of the requirement that we administer the California Healthy
Kids Survey. The survey requires parental consent and that is almost impossible
to get at the high school level. We have tried the past two years to administer
the survey and the best we have gotten is 22 percent of the consent forms
returned with 6 percent of those declining. Sixteen percent is not
statistically significant and is not even evaluated. The amount of time and
expense we put into that seemingly small requirement takes up a significant
portion of the approximately $5,000 we receive in Title IV funds. We would
gladly administer the survey if we were able to do so, but we are unable to
meet the requirement.
I wish those who are supporting the NCLB could attend a meeting of
educators and listen to their frustrations. You would hear people who are
buried under red tape and who are wondering how any of this benefits
children.
A big piece of NCLB is the
accountability issue. Over time, every school will become under performing
because it is statistically impossible to keep gaining points year after year.
A cartoon making its way around education circles shows a teacher in a classroom
asking why there are more than 3 million students in the class. The answer is
that they are the last school that is not under performing.
Yosemite High School has had a
declining Academic Performance Index [API] for the past three years, we will
most likely be designated as an under performing school next year. I hardly
think we qualify as under performing: 96 percent of the students in the class
of 2004 have already passed the English portion of the High School Exit Exam
and 85 percent have passed the math portion.
Our students scored over the 50th
percentile in all areas but one this past school year on the STAR. Is that
under performing? The Bass Lake schools have been uniformly among the leaders
in the San Joaquin Valley with their the API scores. Oak Creek Intermediate has
been widely recognized as one of the best middle schools around. Yet each
school in the Bass Lake District could easily become an under-performing school
because it is statistically impossible to have rising scores every single year.
At some point, every school in the nation will become an under-performing
school.
No Child Left Behind is clearly setting
schools up for failure. It discriminates against small, rural schools and it
hurts students by taking away resources that are badly needed. This all just
seems so wrong.
Do small districts need to file a class action suit against the
federal government to stop this bad legislation before it completely destroys
the educational process?
Surely this legislation wasn’t intended
to penalize schools, but that is what is happening. Our legislators need to
better understand what their action, or inaction is causing. Our parents need
to understand that the schools in our area are providing a superior educational
experience even in the face of a federal program designed to make it appear
that our schools are failing. And finally, our teachers and classified staffs
need to understand the need to continue to strive to do an excellent job with
children, and to know that we appreciate them for their effort.