The foundations of human psychology have long shown that human beings in physical and emotional turmoil are affected by that turmoil and hampered in their efforts to learn, create and perform tasks. Surely everyone’s own human experience confirms and attests to this truth. It flies in the face of common sense to require that children living in chaos and deprivation learn in the same way and at the same rate as every other child. This requirement may be the most scientifically unsupported reasoning ever applied to education. Yet this is exactly what the No Child Left Behind Act does, and gives it the weight of federal law. At the same time, it provides large amounts of federal money to a select few publishing houses and consulting firms to "assess" and "assist" the children and teachers to "comply" with its requirements. NCLB is essentially requiring children with broken legs to run a race in the same time and in the same way as children who are whole. It declares that their broken legs are not the problem and are no excuse, and then spends billions of dollars--not to heal their legs--but to purchase state of the art running shoes from vendors they select themselves.
NCLB sets a required target for school test scores called AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) that raises each year until 2014 when it will reach 100%. The law provides penalties for schools that do not meet AYP, including state takeovers. School districts are required to spend substantial amounts of money on testing instruments like Missouri's MAP test which are required to evaluate schools under NCLB. The MAP test is published by McGraw Hill, one of a small number of publishers whose tests are approved for this purpose. These tests do not track individual student progress, but rather compare the scores of different children at a given grade level year to year. They provide no input for teachers in adapting or evaluating instruction, as scores are not even available until well into the following school year. They provide no record of student growth in a given subject because the same child will not take the test in subsequent years so there is nothing to compare. Because different children are tested, the scores vary widely from year to year in EVERY school. If one looks at individual school scores on the DESE website, http://www.dese.mo.gov/, one can easily see that any given school's scores vary like a roller-coaster year to year. Yet under NCLB, the school's scores in a given year will determine the fate of the school.
NCLB has also created a massively funded federal program called “Reading First”. The federal government has funnelled BILLIONS of dollars to a handful of "approved" textbook publishers and consultanting firms to "improve teaching deficiencies” in schools that fail to meet AYP. The program imposes a scripted curriculum of drill and direct instruction with frequent testing. As a result of federally imposed Reading First curriculum, teachers are held accountable by federally funded “consultants” to be on page 37 at the appropriate time. They have scripted dialogues with children they used to converse with. Subjects like Social Studies have been pushed out of the school schedule to complete the program requirements in reading. And even though the children’s reading scores have fallen—not risen—powerful people have declared their programs to be “successful”. The performance report on Reading First is available on the Department of Education’s website, www.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/performance.html. Each year listed represents a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money. Yet the performance statistics show years of “we’re still setting the baseline” and “results are being reported in a new format” and VERY FEW NUMBERS. Perhaps they are loath to report their numbers because they do not show the progress they have claimed and on which they have staked their political reputations.
Elementary Communication Arts MAP test statistics for St. Louis Public Schools do not show progress in reading as a result of Reading First. In fact, scores have gone down ever since Reading First and its “approved” curriculum, Open Court, was introduced to St. Louis Public Schools several years ago. Open Court is also published by McGraw Hill. The Office of the Inspector General of the United States investigated the Reading First Program for ethical and legal violations in relation to misrepresentation and conflict of interest issues involving approved vendors. The report of their audit is available at www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/aireports/i13f0017.doc. This audit resulted in the firing of the program director and legal action against the Reading First program. In spite of all this, Missouri has made no changes to its Reading First program.
The Reading First program is funded based on the number of economically disadvantaged children who score poorly on the MAP test. Therefore, McGraw Hill sets the requirements that are tested and also provides the "remedy" for those who do poorly. Open Court is not aligned with the requirements of the MAP test and so does not prepare children to do well on it. Therefore, it perpetuates its own existance at the expense of St. Louis children, and to the benefit of McGraw Hill and its investors. The state also receives a share of the Reading First money; money that is largely based on how many St. Louis children score badly on the MAP. MAP test scores determine a school district's AYP, and thus its status in regard to sanctions like state takeovers under NCLB. MAP test scores are a large part of the state's assessment of a school district's accreditation status.
Education has become a very tangled web. Common sense says that where there is a web, there is a spider somewhere.
Setting high standards for children to meet while ignoring and discounting their basic human needs creates resentful, bitter young adults. Because urban schools have the highest concentrations of needy children, they have more children whose test scores reflect their neediness. Their tears interrupt lessons; their resentments spill out into the best-laid lesson plans; their bitterness stalks the recess yard. Their daily struggle to survive in their urban environment imposes great limitations on what the students, teachers and schools are able to accomplish. NCLB was set up to impact these schools first—not with help for the children’s REAL needs—but with sanctions for their schools and federally-funded, federally “approved” curriculum and consultants. If the problems our children are having really are caused by curriculum and teachers, then it is logical to hold the school district accountable for solving these problems, and consider it a failure if it has not produced results. If, however, our children’s problems stem from a failure of the society around them to provide for their basic human needs, it is not the school districts that have failed, but we the people. Of course, if we allow the government to ignore and overturn our elections, “we the people” have no power at all anymore. It is past time for the state AND federal government to stop blaming school districts—St. Louis or any other—for incorrectly identified and improperly evaluated “failures” of our society’s children and do their part to provide for the human needs of these uniquely challenged children that go far beyond what a school district can provide; to focus taxpayer money and governmental effort toward addressing the conditions of poverty, chaos and despair that cause these children to be unable or unwilling to go with us, despite all our efforts not to leave them behind.
