[LM_NET] Weighing the Pig

[Jamie McKenzie <fromnowon@EARTHLINK.NET>]

The December Issue of No Child Left
Volume III, Number 12, December, 2005

This month's issue offers a long article exploring the
simple-minded notions embedded in NCLB/Helter/Skelter.

A brief excerpt follows, but the full article is available
at http://nochildleft.com

Weighing the Pig: NCLB as Simple-Minded Con
By Jamie McKenzie

There is an old saying that you can't fatten a pig by weighing it.

NCLB proponents have been busily weighing the pig in the name of school 
reform, promising that unproven change strategies such as annual 
testing will lead to improved student learning.

Recent NAEP results show this reform package is a con. While the 
weighing has been going on frantically for some three years now, the 
pig is no fatter. Reading and math scores are basically stagnant.

In addition, many of the states have employed easy tests that make 
their students look good until measured by the NAEP. Note the November 
26, 2005 article by Sam Dillon in the New York Times, "Students Ace 
State Tests, but Earn D's From U.S." (Registration required.)

Would you like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?
How about some Snake Oil?

Given the absurdity of the basic strategies underlying 
NCLB/Helter-Skelter, it is hard to understand how both parties in 
Congress voted for it in the first place. It is even harder to 
understand continued support as NCLB damage accumulates and a 
generation of children suffers a factory-style education that limits 
them severely, turning childhood for many into a tale from Dickens. 
Many children are being nickel and dimed educationally. ("Nickel and 
Dimed" is Barbara Ehrenreich's book
about minimum wage life in America.)

We now know that the so-called "Texas Miracle" that served as a model 
for the NCLB strategies was a fraud. The improved test scores were 
often engineered through a series of tactics that ranged from dishonest 
to unsound "teaching to the test." Texas students could not replicate 
success on a national test. Note "The Testing Gap" in the January 2005 
issue of No Child Left.

The chart at the left shows the gap between claims of student 
proficiency on state tests and the actual proficiency levels as 
measured by NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

----- What is the price of this bridge?

When someone offers us a bridge or a vial of snake oil, we should ask 
more than the price. Unfortunately, Congress has asked few of the 
questions it should have asked. Too much of the questioning has 
centered on whether funding is adequate. Not enough attention was 
devoted to basic premises.

Educators need to help Congress understand that NCLB cannot work even 
if fully funded. Unfortunately, the NCLB experiment has been imposed on 
schools and the states without much consultation of educators. We are 
witnessing what happens when folks without understanding, expertise or 
wisdom presume to reform an industry about which they are poorly 
informed.

Even before the Bush administration came to Washington, both political 
parties toyed with the mistaken notion that "weighing the pig" would 
force malingering teachers and principals to "fatten the pig." The 
first President Bush and Bill Clinton were fans of this strategy.

There is no evidence that weighing the pig works as a fattening 
strategy, but this lack of evidence has not deterred Congress and the 
Education Department from wading in with heavy boots and heavy scales. 
These are not the scales of justice. They are crude measures in many 
case forcing schools to narrow their focus and change their tactics in 
ways that are unhealthy for children.

Jennifer Booher-Jennings' article in the November 2005 issue of No 
Child Left "From Classroom to Emergency Room: Educational Triage in 
American Schools" shows the kind of damage done to children when 
schools are forced to focus so directly on test scores.

Dictating educational policies like annual testing is fundamentally 
unconstitutional as the founders clearly expected that the states would 
make laws governing education of children, not Congress.

Educational Porridge is Unhealthy

Oliver Twist suffered through meals that were unhealthy and lacking in 
nutrition. Children in many American schools would recognize the diet. 
Milk-and-cracker curricula combine with drill-and-kill learning to turn 
school into a dreary experience.

----- 20 Simple Minded Notions Lurking Behind NCLB

1. "Educating the Whole Child" is an outmoded luxury.
2. Recess is a waste of time.
3. What matters is basic literacy.
4. Segregated schooling does not contribute to school failure.
5. Poor kids don't need art, music and citizenship.
6. If you test just two aspects of learning, the rest will still get 
lots of attention.
7. Inexpensive standardized tests are rich and accurate indicators of 
student performance.
8. Inexpensive standardized tests provide data to guide better 
instruction.
9. Schools will get better results if they imitate McDonald's, Wal-Mart 
and Burger King.
10. Shame, fear and humiliation are effective motivators for teachers 
and principals.
11. Corporate style competition is a healthy and effective model for a 
learning organization.
12. Annual testing turns children into better readers.
13. Children learn best when limited to a narrow range of educational 
experiences taught in highly standardized ways.
14. Elevated levels of threat and risk create healthy environments for 
learning and teaching.
15. Skilled veteran teachers will keep teaching even when the work life 
of teachers has been radically shifted.
16. Talented new teachers will rush to work in schools that are more 
like factories than institutions of learning.
Unleashing the NCLB Dogs
17. Educators don't know what they are doing. Retort
18. Parents and families are not responsible for student performance. 
Retort
19. Increased poverty and the growth of low wage jobs have nothing to 
do with student performance.
20. Congress can push down on one aspect of a complex system without 
responsibility for other aspects of the system like funding Head Start 
or programs that generate well paying jobs.

Each of these is explained at some length at 
http://nochildleft.com/2005/dec05weighing.html


Jamie McKenzie
Editor, No Child Left
http://nochildleft.com
editor@nochildleft.com
FNO Press
500 15th Street
Bellingham, WA 98225

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