Leaving No Child Left Behind… Behind
Now is a wonderful time to be thinking about changing our educational paradigm, and President Obama agrees. His administration has recently allowed states to opt-out of No Child Left Behind requirements. This new potential freedom is exhilarating, but terrifying too. After all, one’s current reality even if it’s bad is at least familiar. My district’s superintendent, when first interviewed by the Bismarck Tribune about the option (10/25/11), said, “[as for No Child Left Behind], I know what we have right now, what is good, and what I don’t like about it. I’m not clear on what the waiver would change … I can’t say I’m for or against it.” My initial reaction when I read that was “WHAT?!” But then I put myself in her shoes. It’s a huge system, and if a state is going to opt-out, they have to create something else to determine the success of students and teachers alike. The idea of it made me tremble a bit. (North Dakota is, by the way, one of the 40+ states that have submitted their intent to request the waiver.)
There are a couple of things to know about the NCLB waiver option. And they’re best explained by the US Department of Education’s FAQ page. But I’ll summarize a couple of points here.
- Emphasis will be placed on student growth instead of an across-the-board test score. This means that kids learning at different levels can each be viewed as successful if they attain individual academic growth. This also means that teachers will be accountable not only to struggling students, but also to kids at the top of the class, making sure that they too move forward, even if they started out ahead of the rest. This is essential to the success of our gifted population, who have been embarrassingly neglected under NCLB.
- Testing will still be part of the deal, but only annually. This is a vast improvement over the current system of testing in fall, winter, and spring. And again, the test will be de-emphasized as an end-all goal, and seen instead of one of many tools to assess student growth.
- Teachers will still be at least partially evaluated based on their students’ success. However, according to the US Dept. of Education, student test scores will only be one part of a larger teacher assessment package.
It’s not easy creating a dynamic educational plan that will meet the needs of thousands of children with unique issues, personalities, learning styles, and home environments. But sticking with a system that is crippling our teachers and schools and students just isn’t an option. Tomorrow I’ll share some ideas about how we could take advantage of this new climate and change our system.
I especially like #1! This is GREAT for the gifted learner! Now instead of a teacher thinking, “Oh, they’re smart and are already at benchmark so I don’t need to give them extra learning time.” They will have to reorganize their thoughts to think about their gifted child making PROGRESS (which, by the way, is the hardest type of progress to make; especially when these students are at such a high level of learning already). Maybe this will sway the public school to get more serious about education for all (EVEN GIFTED STUDENTS) and not just the issue of raising the struggling children to proficiency level. I hope ND gets that waiver!
I believe NC is ahead of the curve with #2—while I taught in Charlotte, my third graders were given a Pre-End of Grade test at the beginning of the year. (Difference: The students were tested biannually and not just annually.) Then they were tested at the end of the year (EOG) to show growth or areas of stagnancy….this is how schools were recognized as schools of excellence. Also, schools were awarded money to give to teachers (Merit Pay)–kind of a taboo subject in the teacher’s lounge–if their students made academic growth. I hope ND does not do this….teachers should not get paid EXTRA for things they should ALREADY be doing! I was on the receiving end of merit pay both years in Charlotte and it caused hard feelings with my team teachers who did not receive the extra money. I had the gifted class, very active parents, and great home situations while my teammates were struggling to get kids to come to school in clean clothes and fed. This situation pinned them against me and created many hard feelings. For example, the first year I was there I was invited to all the team meeting (all five teachers in grade three were given a block of time–two hours–every week for lesson planning). I learned a lot from these teachers and we bounced ideas off of each other. The second year, after merit pay, I was not invited to meetings and I was left alone to lesson plan by myself. It was quite a lonely year.
Thanks for letting me vent….like you had a choice, right?!?!? Maybe you’ve already stopped reading….ha ha 
Wow Angie. What a horrible setup! I agree – it’s unfair to judge teachers simply by the growth of their students, because there are so many factors that teachers have no control over. And how sad that NC’s short-sighted system of merit pay based on that student growth actually caused more trouble and less collaboration. It’s just not a quick black and white answer, and we are so afraid of subjective analysis! Perhaps we could think about honoring teachers for their creative and innovate approaches instead of scores improvement. And perhaps too, honors/awards could be given to groups of teachers for intentional and creative collaboration. Student growth is an essential part of the picture, but we need to step back to see that picture.