Will NCLB be reauthorized? Core Knowledge Blog asked me and other edupundits to predict the future of the six-year-old law. Most think it will have to wait till 2009. Nelson Smith, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, predicts NCLB II may not be approved till 2010. (
(This) . . . plays right into the hands of those who never joined the “grade level by 2014″ bandwagon in the first place, and who are hoping the whole structure implodes. What’s really a shame is that there’s wide agreement on some of the things that need to be fixed (like adding “growth†to AYP). Even the diehard opponents have to admit that the Act has done an amazing service by saying that all kids can achieve, and by disclosing the achievement gaps between groups. Progress has ground to a halt because of what our sixth-anniversary NCLB statement called “the well-financed antagonists of accountability.â€
NCLB won’t be ended. We’re not going back to the days of no-strings federal aid. But will it be “mended” intelligently?
Update: Here’s more on the politics of NCLB from Ethan Gray at America Forward.
“No-strings federal aid”?
How about the government actually fund the programs they create. NCLB is horribly underfunded, Special Education is horribly underfunded, and technology is horribly underfunded.
The federal government is famous for creating “unfunded mandates” for education. To say that we used to have “no-strings federal aid” is shows lack of information or general apathy towards giving the schools the tools they need to succeed.
> How about the government actually fund the programs they create. NCLB is horribly underfunded, Special Education is horribly underfunded, and technology is horribly underfunded.
I sense an underlying theme here.
Could it be that all public education is terribly underfunded and always will be, no matter the level of funding? Washington D.C. has funding levels in excess of $16K/year and the district is a disaster.
What would it take? How much more then $16K/year would be required to ensure good results?
“Even the diehard opponents have to admit that the Act has done an amazing service by saying that all kids can achieve . . . .”
Well, pardon my grinchiness, but that really irritates. It irritates first because it begs the question. I really don’t know what diehard opponents are saying about NCLB, but I doubt it’s that. It irrates second because it elevates good intentions to a virtue. I’m not a fan of bad intentions, and other things being equal, good intentions are better than bad intentions. But other things are seldom equal, and over my life time I have become more and more aware of the harm done by undisciplined good intentions. It is no “amazing service” to say that “all kids can achieve”. It is no service at all – none, zilch, zero, zip, nada!
To be fair, this irritating quote is not representative of the statements on the Core Knowledge blog referred to. But I wonder if it is not important. In recent months I think I have moved over from the camp of of NCLB agnostics to the camp of NCLB opponents. My experience is not personal. All I know is what I read in the blogs. But I don’t see much that really seems to be of intrinsic worth. The law has teeth, to be sure, but from what I read those teeth lead to a lot of certain trouble, and only uncertain and arguable benefits. The law also seems to have a flavor of ideology, of undisciplined good intentions. The “grade level by 2014″ clause seems the most representative of this. Can we call it the “four minute mile” clause? It might as well state that every child will be able to run a four minute mile by 2014.
Why would it seem to anyone that an “amazing service” is done by spouting a slogan? I suspect that the ideological flavor of the law that I lament and criticize is to many people the attraction of the law. I see the “four minute mile” clause as destructive. Others, I imagine, do not. I have two articles on my website that I think are relevant to this discussion. Here are links. http://www.brianrude.com/mediat.htm and http://www.brianrude.com/let’s-do.htm
And whatever happened to “Goals 2000″? I thought that was going to fix education. Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Does anybody besides me think it is highly relevant?
Please take note: tools = money.
Yes J, but if two tools do the job, we do we have to necessarily buy the more expensive one?
I tend to agree with Brian’s comments… sometimes I wonder if the gains we’re producing in one area aren’t often being offset with more problems or less results being created in others… but then who I am to question the education establishment, I’m just a community college math professor.
From the perspective of someone who has worked in government for most of the current decade, I think it would be more accurate to say that education funding before NCLB had plenty of strings attached to it, but it was lacking strings that were directly attached to performance standards and performance accountability.
Performance based funding is the buzz word when it comes to fundings and grants in government, so I do honestly think that best parts of NCLB will remain intact, mainly because NCLB is consistent with other government programs that are being funded and are being used as a model for other programs. I know this personally because I have to write actual governmental policy and apply for grants based on these criteria. There are trends that are followed by the peon level workers in government that are really not appreciated by those outside of government, such as performance based funding, mainstreaming resources, and interagency coordination.
Also because legislators don’t really understand the bulk of what they pass or don’t pass, policy planners that currently love performance based planning will be the one that actually write the core of NCLB II instead of legislators. I do think that legislators can complicate things and add to the regulatory burden, but even though legislators talk and talk, it still comes down to policy professionals who do the actual work of writing policy.
More performance based funding and data based decisions are the underlying trends of current policy professionals, and despite all the hoopla and a clueless media, NCLB II will follow the underlying trends of government. It is just that many won’t know it or even appreciate it.
Think about this guys, it took NCLB to get many states to even test their kids to see if the education the citizens of those states were getting what they paid for. Why weren’t those states doing that anyway?
Abolish the DOE and return the money to the taxpayers. Let the states and their citizens decide what to do.
“grade level by 2014″ isn’t this the reason for schools, to get them to grade level before they start the next level.
what part of NCLB isn’t funded? the impression I have about the NCLB it is setting standards for schools, which I think is something they should be doing already.
I agree with Miller Smith about abolishing the DOE and returning the money to the states. I also believe public education is over funded due to countless layers of adinistrators.
That said — I thought if NCLB was not amended or whatever it continues in place as it is. This means the states with the hockey stick achievement goals (who educated them?) will now be failing like the states that set stair step increases and are still not meeting them.
It is time for a paradigm shift in education in America.
“…even though legislators talk and talk, it still comes down to policy professionals who do the actual work of writing policy.”
Hmm, and I thought the lobbyists wrote policy…
> The “grade level by 2014″ clause seems
> the most representative of this. Can we
> call it the “four minute mile†clause?
not if you’re being honest, no you should not.
Consider literacy as a model: No one thinks
it unworthy or impossible to set a goal
that all children should be able to read.
and even the most die-hard NCLB opponent
should blush before saying “no one is allowed
to measure if the kids can read until
they pay for it.”
It’s not an unfunded mandate: it’s a metric
with some teeth behind it.
NCLB brought an unwelcome spotlight that
school performance was poor and that
pockets of poor performance existed even
in highly-regarded schools.
If one is hung up on making athletic
analogies, then consider the NCLB goals to
be ones of general fitness for children,
rather than the
four-minute mile mark.
The whole system is in shambles. It is based on an 1860’s model and it doesn’t work for many, many reasons. Some American kids think education is worthless, and they will not take it for any reason. To be educated is not “cool” forget that it can enable the poor to achieve middle or upper class.Other immigrants are overloading the system with their needs, which siphons $ away from the other students. Special ed kids’s needs are taken into account, too. It seems that as it works, to try and serve all needs serves none.
We live in a digital age and no students at my school have computers. We teach with pens and paper- which often runs out. The copy machine has set limits on it. We are not given overhead, or whiteboard pens. The classrooms are not cleaned. They stink. The restrooms are filthy. They food it crap. When will the congress, the sentante and who ever else is supposed to fund, and supply the schools of America wake up. Have they lost their minds? IT’S NOT WORKING! Education is a joke. I wish I could teach, but I spend a large amont of time telling the kids to be quiet. I lose my train of thought. This is an ongoing problem Students should not be forced to g o to school , they shuld be forced to go to work camps- and get a taste of their future. Maybe they’d wake up.
Schools need more money to improve the climate, the physical setting- the infrastructure is crumbling. Test scores are down. Why? Not enough learning is taking place on a daily basis. Change the high school schedule to align with college. Give kids three classes a day instead of six. Put smart desks in every single school in America. Educate American kids first- make all others pay for it. POLITICIANS WAKE UP! YOU ARE RUINING AMERICA! SPEND SOME OF THE WAR BUDGET ON SCHOOLS, EDUCATION, AND KIDS! HEY! SPEND IT ALL!! GET OUT OF IRAQ. BOMB THEM.-It’s cheaper! SPEND MONEY AND TIME MAKING THIS COUNTRY BETTER. IT’S FALLING APART! I LOVE AMERICA! SAVE IT! Why would any one want to save the”neighborhood” when their own house is burning?? It doesn’t make sense. Save America before we lose everything.
ARE ALL THE POLITICIANS CRAZY????? They must be because they’re acting like they’ve lost their minds!