Darn, I've missed this thread completely while doing research on the waste and fraud in the office of the Asst Supe of Business Services at our local school district. This is my wife's, and my, favorite school topic. (Well, that is after exposing how the district wastes the all-too-scarce funding we get from the state.) While admitting I haven't read the entire thread, the point I come back to is that it WOULD be useful to have a national standard, but, with about 6-7 different state-imposed tests and standards with which to comply, the teacher's time is wasted, the student DOESN'T get the education they should get, and good teacher's get frustrated and go into private business. In California, the biggest problem we have is that everytime a new legislature convenes, every new pol makes a run at their own idea of how to "fix" education with some cool new program or testing standard . But of course that requires more money which they don't have but they do steal a little here and a little there and to the program anyway. The result is the dollars get spread even thinner, the students continue to go backward, ...and the teachers get the blame. All the while, it is the STATE government, not the Feds that cause the bulk of the problem. And in the classroom, my wife, who HATES "testing," admits to being forced, as the result of the grant requirements, to spending 3-4 weeks/year "teaching tests." Once the test is finished, she goes back to the job of education. In the meantime, money is absolutely wasted at the admin level by people who make no contribution to the classroom at all, but rather are there just to administer all the grants-in-aid that have strings attached. The teacher can have all the lesson plans and portfolios they want but as along as we all stand idly by and don't get after the state pols and district admin, the situation will NOT get better, but worse. EDIT: In the midst of this post, I was interupted by a phone call from the district business officer trying to explain how they justified b replacing about 40 Macs with PCs at the same time they just turned down the new teacher's contract because there was a "me too" clause in it that would have cost the district about $12,000 in additional pay to the 3 other contracts already settled. And we blame teachers for not getting the job done. With people like this running the district, anyone who wastes any time at all blaming Bush, or D of E, is just doing that, wasting time. Bush AIN'T the problem. The problem is right in your home state.
Just imagine living in a state where Bush was the governor... BTW, all of next week will be spent taking the TAKS test. Basically, it's like taking a week-long break.
Interesting article discussing the results of the College Board's attempt at bringing writing to standardized tests. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/education/17sat.html?ex=1114401600&en=da94d4be00f85dfd&ei=5070
Today is the commencement of the most irrelevant week at the school at which my wife teaches: the beginning of STAR testing. She teaches Language Arts to 7th & 8th grades. All week she is required to both prepare the students for the test and administer it. She just called me a few minutes ago to ask about something. During the conversation she related that the first question she got from one of her 8th grade students was, "Does this effect my graduation?" Upon hearing that it did not, the student said, "Cool. This should be fun then." In the past, she has had students just go down the card and punch our all #1s or #2s or otherwise random answers without ever considering the question. Nice way to make education relevant, don't you think? Or how about this; because of the new computer program that records grades for all students, she is required to have final grades in to the district office by May 6. That means that the last 3 weeks of the school year are ABSOLUTELY IRRELVANT FOR STUDENT GRADES, and every student knows it. It is about the same as a 3 week field trip in terms of educating kids for the future. I thought computers were supposed to make things easier and faster, not irrelvant.
Darn!! You caught me typing a little bit faster than my brain could edit. Answer: Yes, she would be upset about that one. Guess that means it will be my turn to cook dinner tonight.
First National Suit Over Education Law Wednesday, April 20, 2005 Posted: 1:26 PM EDT (1726 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/04/20/education.lawsuit.ap/index.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's largest teachers union and school districts in three states Wednesday launched a legal fight over No Child Left Behind, aiming to free schools from complying with any part of the education law not paid for by the federal government... THERE YOU HAVE IT...proof positive that NCLB works but teacher lobbyists are against it because it makes bad teachers work harder! So they're filing suit... lazy bunch of nine-month wonders! NEA is against NCLB because their worst teachers can't comply!
There is no part of that article to which you linked that says anything like what you have claimed it said. I suggest you enroll in a remedial reading and comprehension course if you think that's the case, assuming your school has the funding and you wouldn't reduce the test scores so much that it would lose that funding. Mind you, one thing the article did say: Now that is more like what I have heard consistently from those who have problems with NCLB. It appears to me that the only people who do not have a problem with NCLB are the Kool-Aid political partizans.
WHY IS THE NATION'S LARGEST TEACHER UNION SUING OVER NCLB? Answer that and it will 'clue you in' on why the NEA is the actual problem here!
Because they don't like things such as Standardized Testing preventing them from doing their jobs. There are teachers in this thread who have given antecdotal evidence that says the same thing. To accuse them of suing because "they are too lazy to do their job," is both presumptous and ignorant.
Cry me a river! Every profession and career involves standard testing in some capacity to determine if professionals are actually accomplishing their stated goals! Trade professionals, laborers, and even top-level managers are routinely tested in several ways to determine if their work is satisfactory! NCLB tests students: the product of the professional teacher! Perhaps NCLB cuts into teacher break time and if it does; again, cry me a river!
Is it possible that the people our universities educate, the people we ask to teach our children, see the NCLB as flawed and a detriment to the students they teach? Could it be they actually have the best interests of the students in mind here? As you have said, most of the teachers out there are are good teachers. Are you saying that the NEA only represents the bad ones? If you truly knew anything about good teachers you'd know that the words "teacher" and "break time" don't often go together.
Should I put this in my sig in bright flashing lights? That was a sarcastic crack I made... you know what I mean! Some of the hardest working folks I know are teachers and educators! THAT IS WHY I am so angry that a few bad apple teachers nationwide and a scum of the earth teacher's union that defends their reprehensible conduct prompted NCLB!
I think you'll find that it was George W Bush pandering to his political base that prompted NCLB. It didn't work in Texas but only gave the appearance of such because the bad results were excluded.
You'd be more than welcome to, but it wouldn't help your case. I know that bad teachers exist and that they are represented by the NEA...but so are many, many good ones. To lump them all together is ignorant. Just like a political party, the NEA represents a lot of people, not all of them are the same or agree on every issue.
Wouldn't this part of the article that you cited... imply that they're suing because they want to force the federal government to pay for the changes they demanded. I remember not so long ago the Contract with America crowd railing against "unfunded mandates." How perspective changes when a party gets in power... We don't hear much about term limits now either.
I've met a bunch of teachers that have no use whatsoever for teacher unions! Of any kind. Especially the agenda-driven NEA. Additionally, you will find nationally in this country that those teachers dedicated to the profession of teaching, i.e., making it their advocation, do not belong to the NEA or any teachers profession. To them I, and am sure all parents, are apologetic for the interruption the NCLP testing might cause, but its need is more than justified.
Again, displaying your ignorance. The NEA is the largest teachers union in the country. They do not simply represent bad teachers (otherwise there's a ****load of bad teachers in this country and the nations youth is ****ed no matter how you slice it). If you've met teachers who have no use for teachers unions then you've met teachers who've never been part of a bargaining session for their contracts. Teachers unions are powerful allies that can be very advantageous come contract negotiation time [and in other cases as well].
Whatever "making it their advocation" means, this statement is just wrong. The majority of teachers belong to the "teachers profession." Beyond that, the vast majority belong to teacher's unions.
How can you tell us, students and teachers (who know a hell of a lot more about the education system than you do), that the need is justified when it's clear that it hurts education more than anything?
Wank's asinine comment aside, "how can you" distrunner450 assume that parents are not as fully informed about the "education system" as students and teachers? Indeed, many parents have multiple children within the education system, often at different schools, and as members of the PTA, are fully cognizant of all issues within their children's sphere of influence?