Give "No Child" an "F"

      In the budding years of my career as a teacher, a colleague imparted the following wisdom contained in what he'd likely refer to as a flow-chart of education: "The teachers are afraid of the principal.  The principal is afraid of the superintendent.  The superintendent is afraid of the school board.  The school board is afraid of the parents.  The parents are afraid of the kids.  The kids are afraid of nobody."  How ironic that decades later this pearl should serve as prologue for the folly and the fate of the "No Child Left Behind" law.

               The underlying inspiration for this disastrous attempt at reform by the previous administration seems to have been something akin to the old nautical axiom that a rising tide raises all boats. That "something" was obviously lost in transition from ship to shore.  Given that the idea was formulated and developed by"experts",who have spent precious little, if any time, wrestling with a lesson plan book, the law was doomed to failure almost as soon as it was launched.
              The act reads in part, "...funds enable schools to provide opportunities, programs, and resources for disadvantaged students to help them achieve state academic achievement standards.  Some funded services include: Placing a highly qualified teacher in every classroom; Develop effective instructional practices and materials: Professional development for teachers: Parent involvement activities."
                         The mandate from the department of education advised all federally funded school districts that every child in every classroom was expected to perform at grade level in math, and reading competencies by the year 2014.  All schools which fell below "established norms" following three probationary years of rehabilitation would be subject to closure.  The measure of performance was to be a periodically administered, standardized test; designed by another panel of supposed experts from each state.  According to a retired principal from Maryland, substandard classes and schools could be assessed as often as every eight weeks.  A 6th grader in Portland public schools was given a standardized test on four separate occasions.  An eighth grader in the same district went through the rigor six times.  Of course, these examinations came independent from, and in addition to the testing required in their regular classroom subjects.
            It all seems so simple and straight forward in concept and application.  What could possibly go wrong?!  Probably nothing...provided one ignores the fact that all elements for a monumental seismic event have gathered.
             Some of these elements are found in assumptions that are made about the behavioral and intellectual capacities that every kid brings to school.  For example, it is assumed that family stability, income and environment won't have any bearing on measured progress or potential.  It is assumed that all students are highly motivated test-takers, regardless of their frequency, and that they have a genuine need to achieve the highest possible results, every time.  It is further assumed that all kids - even down to third grade -  understand that test scores will have profound ramifications for doors of opportunity opening and closing in the future.
                All the while, "No Child" has imposed a series of teeth-gnashing dilemmas on those responsible for instruction.  Given that there are only so many ways to divide up a teacher's day, what gets sacrificed when a balance can't be struck, and future test results are perhaps hanging in the balance?  Should it be teach-to-the-test, or abide with the entire curriculum?  Rote drills or critical thinking skills?  Text book assignments, or hands-on creativity?  Individual needs, or the progress of the whole class?

                  Dilemmas are multiplied for the person in front of the chalkboard, or behind the door marked "Principal", for example.  What happens when things don't go according to their plan?  What happens when responsible, competent professionals can't meet the imposed standards after two of a three-year probabtionary period?   What will a teacher, administrator, or even a superintendent do when he feels his job is being threatened....even if by circumstances beyond his control?

         The first stress fracture of the law's foundation has been sighted in the school district of Atlanta.  As disclosed in a July 16, 2011 Associated Press article,  a Georgia State report has detailed "the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal, concluding that half of Atlanta's schools allowed practices that inflated students' scores to go unchecked for as long as a decade.
         Administrators - pressured to maintain high scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law- punished or fired those who reported anything amiss and created a culture of "fear, intimidation and retaliation".  
         The report names 178 teachers and principals. and 82 of those confessed.  Tens of thousands of children at the 44 schools,  most in the city's poorest neighborhoods, were allowed to advance to higher grades, even though they didn't know the basic concepts."
          "Everybody was in fear", another teacher said in the report.  "It is not that teachers are bad people and want to do it.  It is that they are scared."  As Jay Leno has oft times observed with a wink in his eye while commenting on a situation with an obvious consequence, "Gee, who could have possibly seen that coming?!"
            Another tell-tale line with similar stress marks has surfaced in Oregon.  On August 2, 2011, The Oregonian newspaper's headline declares: "Fewer Schools Meet Rising Standards".  The accompanying article states that ",......half of Oregon's 1,200 public schools now fall short of performance targets under the No Child Left Behind law, primarily because too few students in certain groups...read and do math at grade level..."
                         "A record 80 Oregon schools that serve a concentration of low-income students will have to offer students a priority transfer to another school or free after-school tutoring because they repeatedly missed performance targets......
              With the rash of schools missing performance targets this year, that number is likely to swell past 200 next year unless the law is re-written."  To which this retired pedagog must pose the question: Why do learned people persist in repeating the same approach to the same problem, and anticipate a different result?  To some at least, this is the definition of lunacy.

   Of the three schools in which I taught in east Multnomah County, only one has continually avoided the dreaded "Watch List" of alleged under-performance.  It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out the underlying reasons.  It's as simple as noting: 1) the daily free lunch count  2) class size and 3) minority enrollment percentages.  Menlo Park has traditionally served a primarily middle-class, anglo-saxon community.  A commendable level of supportive, two-parent involvement in their child's progress and school activities has been a customary given.  It was this writer's own personal experience that neither of the other two schools could make these claims to anywhere near the same degree.  But by fiat of this law, all schools and students- regardless of per-capita income, regardless of cultural or intellectual limitations and capabilities, regardless of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, regardless of the imposed, conflicting objectives in teaching..... must meet the prescribed standards of performance....even as those standards are arbitrarily raised.
             Deborah Meier, a member of the New York Univesity's Steinhardt School of Education recently spoke of the deeply-rooted problems she sees confronting America's education system, "Somebody needs to initiate the conversation about what schools are for, and what students and teachers are doing there, other than preparing for tests." 

            She remarked further, "We're trying to teach kids to exercise judgment, but they can't learn that from teachers who aren't allowed to exercise judgment."

                   In the words of the poet-singer, Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in."  It is hoped that it won't be long before the present administration sees that light coming through the widening fault line, and seeks to repeal this fatally flawed, cookie-cutter approach to the shaping of our precious young....and those who teach them.

(ed.note: Stan Torrence, a former teaching colleague was commissioned to paint the two-room schoolhouse in Shaniko, Ore., which the Bride attended for part of her first grade.  The second school depicted is West Portal School in San Francisco, which yours truly attended for grades K-6.  He can confess now, without remorse, that Mrs. Pond, his kindergarten teacher, considered him a behavior problem.  HLR)