Poll: Parents Confident About 'No Child'

Is it wishful thinking to expect the schools and the professionals paid to run those schools to come up with better solutions? That doesn't seem to be part of the equation as described in the article.

If parents are a key factor, make them get involved. Easier said than done? OK, set their kids aside in specialized classes designed to get them to pass the tests and let the rest of the kids get on with a broader education - call it college prep. If the parents of the "special" students complain, bring them in for remedial work and enlist them in getting their kids up to standards or, better yet, up to college prep level.

Teachers always claim theirs is a work of love. They do it for the satisfaction, not for the money. Sure doesn't sound like it in this article. The truth is that we have thrown additional money at this problem for years and seen no results. Something is amiss.

Right on. The teachers teach b/c they love teaching and/or they love educating kids and making a difference. They quit when the government's programs and lack of parent involvement make those things impossible.

The truth is that we have thrown additional money at this problem for years and seen no results. Something is amiss.

The thing that is "amiss" is most parents. They are a'miss-ing parental responsibility. Since when is the government responsible for my childrens' education? Oh, yeah...when parents stopped teaching their children and started vegging on their couches all evening and started leaching off the government (when are they going to clean my dirty dishes, anyway?).

Not to sound pessimistic, but I doubt the problem will ever be solved on a grand scale by more government intervention or by more money (or by standardized testing). The problem of the lack of successful education will be resolved on an individual basis when a childs' parents/parent do their part.

Though I've said a small bit on it, I'll leave the "parental responsibility in the education of their children" up for discussion.

Rockman, it is a fact that rich districts produce better educated children, so money does have a large roll to play.

I also find it odd that you think that teachers have so much control over a child's ability to learn that they can counteract home life.

Parents play an inordinately large roll in a child's education. The parents give the child their attitude toward school, they support, or do not support the child's ability to do their school work. The parent's discipline or lack of discipline create the behavior of the child. Teachers are given children that have been created by the parents and are being shaped by the parents, yet, teachers are expected to perform miracles.

Behind My Screen says,

it is a fact that rich districts produce better educated children, so money does have a large roll to play.

Actually the success of "rich districts" is typically a result of well-to-do parents, who often value education more than parents of less economic status and also have the resources to help their kids be successful.

Throwing money at schools does not solve the problem. Title 1 schools, schools in economically poor areas, get large amounts of money from the federal government. So, often schools in economically poor areas have more money than schools in wealthy areas.

Do I think education needs more money? Yes. In this country money is status. We apply money to those things we deem important. Education is inherently undervalued because it's never at the top of the social priority list. As a people we say entertainment is more important than education by paying entertainers and sports figures increasingly obscene amounts of money while allowing most teachers to live just above the poverty level. How much do we think Britney Spears really positively adds to our culture? Is she worth the money she makes? Is she worth more than any child's education? Her pay says she is.

-Rob

In the Detroit area, you have Detroit with $6000 per pupil, and Birmingham (a rich city) with about $14,000. Birmingham can afford a low teacher to student ratio, more programs, technology for the students and the classrooms. Detroit can barley afford to keep their buildings operational.

yes, the rich districts have a different culture with respect to education, but the money aspect is a large part of the equation

I'm interested to know if that $6000 per pupil counts the Title 1 money. Here in Nevada, it doesn't.

Title 1 money is tricky. It has to be spent on programs specifically for students, which means it can not be used to supplement salaries or hire teachers, which again means that it can not bring down the student to teacher ratio.

Also, the student/teacher ratio makes a huge impact on the learning environment, which is why most expensive elite prep-schools keep their ratio very, very low.

-rob

It probably does not. I will ask my cousin who teaches in the district.

Good for you, ilyanep. Looks like IMSA would be very challenging and very worthwhile. I hope you get in.

Thank you very much, thomaslife :)

i had a friend who went to IMSA and said that one of her fellow students broke from the stress and ended up eating marshmallows all night and crying into a pillow.

not a value judgment. i'm just sayin'.

Well obviously that much stress is going to get to some kids. Seriously, look at any Ivy League College.

At least she was eating Marshmallows and not shrooms, if you catch my drift.

Exactly my reasons for applying and getting into the North Carolina School of Science and Math.

I have taken exactly one standard (non-honors or AP (no IB offered)) in high school, and have recieved one B. However, I am still bored constantly. Testing certainly doesn't help. For example, a few months ago, every 10th grader in NC took a writing test - a two-page essay on the topic of "no-pass, no-play" policies in schools. I completed the essay in 20 minutes, and had 80 minutes to wait.

I didn't feel any smarter than usual after having taken the test.

Oh yeah, good luck!

Thanks. Do you currently go to NCSSM?

Nope, will next year though.

The difference between the working world and education is that in the working world people can play to their strengths.

I've always wanted to play in the NBA, and if the standards for NBA players were applied to all citizens, I'd come up a bit short. (Pun intended.) I don't have the physical aptitude to play basketball professionally, so I don't.

This is an appropriate analogy because NCLB is trying to standardize achievement in reading and math. In setting this standard, the states try to set reasonable goals at an average level: A 10th grader in high school should be able to read, comprehend, and analyze literature at a 10th grade level. This is great for the overachievers; they don't have any problem meeting the standard. Of course, some of the see the standard and think, "That's all I have to do! Sweet." And, they do no more than is required. They are being cheated by the low standards and their own teenage attitude.

How about applying these average standards to the kid with the 75 IQ, which is just above mental retardation, or a kids with severe dyslexia? NCLB counts these kids too. Can they learn? Yes. Do they have other strengths? Yes. Wouldn't it be better to work with these kids on reading and math to the limits of their abilities and at a realistic individual pace while also provide for them some type of job training?

Is it fair that the average student gets to graduate with a tainted diploma from a school labeled "unsatisfactory" because one segment of kids only improved by 1% instead of 5%. Even if each kid improved individually, if they didn't improve enough as a group, NCLB sees only failure.

-Rob

Rob, you have some strong points. But blaming the NCLB law is a poor solution. Local school boards were given control of the program for a reason. They, of all people, should be able to come up with new programs to optimize their schools.

First, we need to get the smartest kids out of environments where they are not challenged. Create new schools, if necessary. New campuses aren't necessarily required, but magnet schools serve that purpose all over the country. We are spending an absolute fortune on school buses for little or no reason in many cases. So make use of them. Take kids to schools that fit their needs.

Second, we need separate schools and/or programs that focus on the children who are behind their grade level. Find out why, in each case, the child isn't making progress. Use specialists to teach as needed. Get the parents involved. Set up a system of rewards, including promotion to a higher level school when justified.

Don't hesitate to use the brightest kids to help the younger, struggling kids. Set up volunteer groups to tutor and mentor them. Match up kids with similar backgrounds, especially those who have overcome problems that plague their younger counterpart.

There are probably dozens of ideas like these. Get to work finding solutions! I think that NCLB can be a huge success if it does nothing more than get schools off of their backsides and start looking for better ways to bring the slow learners along. Will we have 100% success? Obviously not. But we can't allow the schools to ignore the problem.

First, we need to get the smartest kids out of environments where they are not challenged. Create new schools, if necessary. New campuses aren't necessarily required, but magnet schools serve that purpose all over the country. We are spending an absolute fortune on school buses for little or no reason in many cases. So make use of them. Take kids to schools that fit their needs.

Next year will be the first year that our school will have more special ed classes than Honers program classes.

In a school that faces so-called financial problems where they drop our day from 7 periods to 6 periods but keep the requirements the same. I'd like them to know that I want to take their requirements in addition to 4 years of each of the core classes, but it's a pain with this plan. Which is why if I don't get into IMSA (see my comment above), our family is moving.

I really wish that our [high] school district took account of the opposite end of the spectrum from NCLB a little bit more too. At least our grade school district had a magnet class program.

...and yes I believe we need to look at why the struggling students are struggling, but I think some kids are placed in special ed that don't belong there. Not the retarded (I use the term clinically) ones, but the normal ones who are just struggling.

Rockman,

I agree with your ideas. I didn't mean to focus the blame on NCLB. Honestly, I don't think NCLB is the problem, but it certainly isn't a solution in itself.

One fairly positive thing about NCLB is the standards it sets for teacher education. We have too many teachers who've spent too much time focusing on mostly worthless education classes and very little time in their subject area (at least in high school - I can't speak to elementary).

Also, you are very correct in saying that NCLB can wake people up to identifying problems and searching for solutions; however, as is the nature of any bureaucracy, I believe the system is much more likely to find ways around the law as opposed to solutions to problems. I find this particularly true when schools and students do make real gains and show improvement, but states under NCLB still label those schools as failures.

Personally, I think the entire education system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. We should start stealing more ideas from other countries while coming up with a few of our own. I also believe the reworking of the system needs to start with parents (see dst's post below. He makes good points about why parents need help.).

-Rob

@ mlarsen

I don't know what you do for a living (I am going to assume it isn't teaching), but since you bring up doctors...let's go with that.

Say you are a doctor, a really good one, you've been doing it a long time and you are respected in the hospitial that you work in. The powers that be come in and mandate that you must save EVERY patient, no matter how sick, no matter how injured or diseased, they ALL must be saved. And, they ALL must leave the hospitial with all four limbs, both eyes, all organs, etc. In other words, they must meet the same standard for being saved.

To top it off, they come in and tell you that even though you are a pretty darn good surgeon, and you've been operating on the lungs for many years, that your medical degree doesn't make you "highly qualified" to continue operating on lungs. Never mind your years of experience...because of a piece of paper, you are not "highly qualified" and now must no longer do the surgeries that you have been doing, very successfully, for the last 20 years.

Finally, the people making these "rules", aren't even doctors, or if they are, they haven't done surgery, or even been in a hospitial for many, many years, yet they are telling you, the doctor, what to do with YOUR patients.

Then, you see that people are saying things like, "What are they complaining for? They make lots of money, they get Wednesdays off? What more do they want?"

What more do they want? How about some respect for the years of being a surgeon, for the hours spent in an operating room learning first hand what to do with their patients? How about being allowed some input on these new guidelines? How about being treated like a professional who is highly trained to do their job?

Do you think perhaps that you would be a little upset? Upset that people who haven't ever even been a doctor think that they can do their job better than you?

I think you'd see some pretty upset doctors...why shouldn't teachers be upset too?

I'll agree with you that there are teachers who don't take their job very seriously, and maybe school districts too. But when is the last time you looked at a problem at work and said, "Hey, let's get the Government involved! That will fix the problem!"?

According to my family doctor, not everybody is the same on the inside. What they teach you in Anatomy class, isn't exactly where everything is. By the same token, every child is different. Why should we try to hold them all to some artificial standard? Does that mean we wont hold them to a standard? Of course not! But holding them all to an identical standard (or a group standard) shows a real lack of understanding of not only child development, but education in general.

I've had major surgery, but that dosen't qualify me to do it. Why is it that just because people went to school they think they know how to run it?

But, after all, I get 1/4 of the year off, why should I complain?

mlarsen says:

Take any other job and have the attitude teachers have:

"I think the standards are being applied to everybody indiscriminately, without regard to their abilities," said Steve Peterson of Knoxville, Ill., who has been teaching for 31 years. "Schools in general," he said, "are not going to be able to meet the standards."

and see how long you are employed? Why do we let teachers who teach for a living, yes it is their job, get away with this crap? You already get 1/4 of the year off, what more do you want?

In therein lies part of the problem. Parents, society, and obviously the government think as teachers as individuals who get 1/4th of the year off with bad attitudes, while this has very little to do with the reality of the situation. Most kids get 1/4th of the year off, unless they have summer school or their parents have schedule them ad nauseam for summer activities. Teachers need to prepare for the next year of classes—including creating lesson plans, doing research, updating certification, attending local and or state required training, etc. On top of that is summer school, summer activities, and a host of other work related activities. And not being a teacher myself, I probably didn't even get to the really time consuming stuff.

Of course, another component of the problem, is the assumption that when trained professionals tell you a solution won't work or won't work well, that you (figuratively) disagree and value your opinion more. Personally, I thought Mr. Peterson's statement was realistic. The "No Child Left Behind" is destined to leave every child further behind in a variety of ways.

For those children whose parents can afford private school, or who have exceptional talent they maybe able to remove themselves from the reaches of this law. But for others its just one more effort that makes schools remote, repetitive, and non-engaging. It forces teachers into almost standardized lesson plans that rarely play to their classroom strengths. For the kids that get it (math and english lessons) its boring. For the kids that don't get it (math and english lessons) its still boring, cause any variation or opportunity teachers had to provide light bulb moments have all but disappeared.

Imagine becoming a civil engineer, getting a job with a local or state government. Your job is to build better roads and freeways to ease current and future congestion. You see it as a great challenge, but then they tell you 'you can only use existing road plans designed by them'. And just in case you could become too creative with that, they divided all road plans into four or five groups, and you can't apply a road plan from one group to another group.

Or in Tyson Hamrick's comment

Say you are a doctor, a really good one, you've been doing it a long time and you are respected in the hospitial that you work in. The powers that be come in and mandate that you must save EVERY patient, no matter how sick, no matter how injured or diseased, they ALL must be saved. And, they ALL must leave the hospitial with all four limbs, both eyes, all organs, etc. In other words, they must meet the same standard for being saved.

I've never understood why people feel placing more and more limits on what, when, and how teachers can teach should make them better teachers or barring that, make their children better students.

Yes, under other regulations, a number of states were producing High School graduates who could barely read or write. But under these requirements states are producing students who can barely read or write and a growing number of students with no comprehension of basic grammar and mathematics with the ability to pass a standard test; because all the answers have been drilled in for a year or two.

Rockman, all of that is fine and good, but it take MONEY. Currently there is not enough investment in the school systems in most school districts to provide such changes as you outline.

you claim money has done nothing and that money will not do anything, but then you come out with this crazy plan (I say crazy because it requires money which you yourself claim is not working).

For something like what you outline, you would need a funding level of about 15 - 20k per students.

The rich districts are already at that level in many cases just from their tax base. the poor districts have anywhere from 3k - 6k per student. it would be impossible to teach children in a standard system AND make the changes. the school district would go bankrupt.

If you can get congress to fund those changes, then perhaps you have something to start with. I would put professional educators and education policy researchers in charge of the program development rather than no-nothing politicians and armatures, but your ideas have some merit.

if you are truly interested in the subject of improving the school system, you should look into the work Carnage-Mellon has done in the area of education research.. a lot of great material has come out of there.

DigitalRob,

Education classes are VERY important to the creation of a teacher. It helps a state standardise methodology, professionalizes the field, gives teachers some field experience before entering the profession, and gives them tools on how to deal with the problems they will encounter in a classroom before they get there.

Yes, all teachers should have a major in the field they are teaching (I am a math and computer science double major), but to trivialize education classes is wrong.

Behind My Screen,

SOME education classes are worth-wild. However, I've never met a teacher, maybe you are the first, who didn't think at least half of his education classes were a huge waste of time.

I can count on two fingers the number of education classes that were beneficial to me, not counting my internship: Education Law and the class I had about Special Education and writing IEPs. Most of the rest of it was a confluence of impractical ideas for the classroom.

Now, my internship was amazing. As most teachers will say, I learned more from my internship than from any combination of classes. My internship, however, was quite different from most student teaching. I team taught with a remarkable and experienced teacher for a full school year, unpaid. This internship program has now gone the way of the Dodo because most people can't live for a year without pay. (I worked full time at night while my wife's income paid most of the bills. At the time we didn't have kids.)

-Rob

It's kinda silly, really. Since 50 states each have their own standards, are those "standards" really standard? Are those "standardized" tests really standardized? Within each state, yes. But, what does that mean in the whole scheme of things?

To give an example of what I mean, a child in Wyoming may be seen as an over-achiever when it comes to standardized testing but may have done poorly if judged by Montana's standards. If this is the case, what's the point?

@ James,

I agree that teacher unions would oppose regulations to hold teachers accountable; however, as a teacher I say, "Bring it on!"

As long as the accountability is based on students knowing more at the end of a year than they do at the beginning of a year, I'm all for it. A majority of my students learn.

I teach both remedial reading/English to 9th graders and Honors World Literature to sophomores. Both groups learn, but these groups are very different from each other and don't have the same knowledge base or study habits, so judging teachers based on whether or not every student meets an arbitrary standard will only eliminate the number of teachers willing to instruct remedial students, those students that need good teachers the most.

As an English teacher, I'd love to get paid for the time I put in teaching and grading writing. I have colleagues whose students don't improve in writing because those teachers don't want to spend the time grading and giving feedback to students. Also, I spend as much time outside of school grading as most coaches do coaching, sometimes more; yet I get paid no more for my extra work and a coach does get extra pay.

We should have a tiered by pay structure. Good teachers should be paid more than mediocre teachers.

Also, the media focuses on the shortage of science and math teachers, which is a huge problem; however, I've found that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find English teachers as well. Many who want to go into teaching realize early on that the time commitment for an English teacher is significantly different than that of a health, study skills, driver's ed,... teacher but the pay is the same. We have two good English teachers in our department who are working hard to get certified to teach ANY other subject that requires less time outside of class. Honestly, I don't blame them. The average teacher at my school has 200 students with no significant difference between subjects. Grading 200 essays multiple times per year is a daunting task.

-Rob

At the beginning of every school year my classes have upwards of 40 students. By the end of the year my average class is about 33. Most of this transiency is a result of those students committing a serious enough infraction that they get expelled to an alternative program here in Nevada, which is akin to school-as-jail.

I run a very structured classroom and have very few problems with discipline even with my remedial students. However, a student who doesn't want to be in school, doesn't want to learn, and won't respond to anything, either encouragement or discipline; these students simply aren't going to learn. On top of this, most of these students have parents who can't/won't be involved for one reason or another. Although most of these kids do weed themselves out, they are a distraction while they're in class, which does hinder other kids.

I don't have any good suggestions to help these kids.

-Rob

Recalling my days in school, I'd say it isn't so much that chilren don't want to learn, but that school is often less about learning, and more about rote memorization. Standardized tests, IMO, tend to make this even more of an issue.

As a kid in school, I remember that I loved learning new things, but so rarely did any of my lessons involve really *learning* new things, rather than just memorizing information, so I could spit it out a few weeks later on a test.

I think one of the key problems is that children aren't taught how to really *enjoy* learning new things, and thus, school often just becomes a daily chore of memorization and repitition until perhaps the last few years of high school where more elective courses open up.

the law fails to factor in those kids who have no desire to do anything

You hit the nail right on the hammer (or head :P) there. Ultimately, the child may have the best teacher on the face of the planet, but if the child doesn't want to learn they won't.

I am a freshman in high school and my grandma was a teacher in the Soviet Union. I was discussing this with her and there are too many parallels with NCLB and their education system. Yes the system was a good one (and we come take some lessons from that), but if she gave a kid that wasn't trying to learn a bad grade it automatically started a review on her (from what I understand). The system wasn't good for this aspect. It was partly because a teacher wouldn't be slaughtered for actually assigning a decent amount of homework, and giving his or her kids a work ethic.

[I have been told very many interesting things by my grandma about the Soviet Union. I was born in Latvia but moved to the US at the age of 2 BTW]

...and when she complained about the system that started a review if a kid of hers got a bad final grade she was told "you must not understand the politics of the party". Enough to shut anyone up.

I don't think we should be trying to equalize with that. I think we should be trying to fix the parts that they did better. Just throwing money at it won't solve the problem either; we have to make sure the money is spent in the right way.

Sorry I seem to have spun off on a rant.