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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 5, 2005 Case In Point: Education In America Reflections on No Child Left Behind By Chris Honoré Tidings Correspondent Part one of three parts With notable exceptions, public education in America has been in steady decline for decades. Generations of school children, to utilize the language of the current administration, have been left behind — passed along, grade after grade, with little regard to their proficiency or their futures. Consider this one fact alone: less than one-third of all fourth graders read proficiently (studies have shown that if a child has not mastered reading by the fourth grade he or she will struggle thereafter). Reading is the one skill that must be mastered. Not just proficiently, but truly mastered. Without it you never even get to base camp. In a country as rich and resourceful as America, in a time often referred to as the information age, to allow countless children to face life only marginally educated is reprehensible. Massive change is called for. The question is what form should it take. The No Child Left Behind Act has been this administration’s response. Enacted into law in 2001 by an overwhelming bipartisan margin in Congress, it has a clear and transforming mandate. Nationwide, schools must establish standards of proficiency in content areas and then must test on a regular basis to determine if those standards are being met. The four principles of NCLB are: stronger accountability; increased flexibility and local control; expanded options for parents; and an emphasis on teaching methodologies that have been judged, scientifically, to be effective. In other words, classroom methodologies must be utilized by teachers that have been rigorously subjected to the scientific method of hypothesis, control groups, measurable outcomes, followed by an evaluation of the hypothesis (either it is proven or not). As well, those same methodologies must be able to be replicated, meaning that if a different teacher follows the same methodology, then that teacher will have the same result. So far so good. Well, maybe not. The fulcrum of the NCLB Act is assessment: the conviction that what is taking place in the classroom (methods and learning) can be successfully subjected to the rigors of measurement, and that the final arbiter of the efficacy of public education will be the state approved test. Yet, states and districts are still struggling with how best divergent populations of school children can be successfully evaluated, keeping in mind that in every class, in every district, the spectrum, cognitively and culturally, is enormous. Can standardized tests actually be designed to address such heterogeneity and in the end can these same tests truly measure what a child has either learned or failed to learn? Quantification can be a slippery slope with unintended consequences: the test can become the sword of Damocles, and preparing students for what is on the test (referred to as high stakes tests) can quickly become the supra-curriculum. As well, in order to avoid federal sanctions, tests can be dumbed down by states, as has been alleged recently. Implicit in embracing standardized testing as the panacea to the problems of education is that change begins at the top, at the federal and state level, and moves down to the classroom. Is it possible that the solutions to the failure of our public schools lie in the opposite direction? Perhaps the final judge for measuring whether children are learning should not be the standardized test, but should reside with the classroom teacher. Who is better equipped to design an exam and evaluate the progress of his or her students? Is it possible that our faith in data, our insistence on romancing the scientific, the statistical, is, with regard to education, completely mis-placed? And is it possible that what takes place in the classroom cannot be reduced to “scientifically proven metho-dologies” or standardized test scores? As all teachers know, there are many roads that lead to learning. Most, if held up to the rigors of the scientific method, would send disciples of quantification hurrying for the door, shaking their heads. But what must be remembered is that teaching is interaction, and therefore often (generally?) a nebulous, irreducible process in which the teacher, looking at the class, decides, here is where they are and here is where they must go. That one teacher knows better than anyone what is to be assessed and who is passing and who is not and for what reasons. Of course, the tests created by the teacher and given at the end of a chapter, or at the conclusion of a novel, cannot be characterized, by any means, as standardized or scientific. But that is exactly the point. The process of learning, of teaching, is often a messy, difficult journey. It can be ephemeral, elusive, and ultimately irreducible. What works in the classroom from year to year, from month to month, is ever changing and often seemingly magical. Can what happens between a teacher and a group of students ever be expressed as a standardized score? No. Can a lesson plan that transcends for inexplicable reasons be duplicated? No. And to make policy as if it can be is to ignore some enormous truths about teaching and learning. But, and this is a very large but, that is not to say that our schools should not be accountable. What is suggested above is not a soft pitch to once again excuse the dismal performance of our public school system. Or evade the expectations of accountability. Public education, in far too many places, is a disgrace. How it is funded defies understanding and the constitution. Children are spilling through the cracks. To lose multiple generations to functional illiteracy is beyond tragic. It is immoral, and it is a harvest we will one day reap. Case in Point is a weekly editorial column designed to provide in-depth commentary on current events. Responses should be less than 250 words and sent to [email protected]. The Tidings gives priority to letters on local and regional topics of current interest. It seeks to encourage thoughtful, well-reasoned letters and to discourage personal attacks, repetitive messages and personal disputes. Form letters are not published in the Tidings, nor are letters identified as having been published in other publications. Contributions to the Opinion page should be e-mailed in text-only format to [email protected]. Please include your address and a daytime phone number where you can be reached for confirmation. Letters are limited to 250 words. At Length submissions are limited to 400 words. Submissions may be edited for length, content and clarity. See www.dailytidings.com for our expanded letters and opinion section. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. 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