September 3, 2006 7:06 AM

Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener

Official: No Child Left Behind Act nearly perfect

DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener #433: Education Secretary Margaret Spellings

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said today the No Child Left Behind Act is close to perfect and needs little change as its first major update draws near….”I talk about No Child Left Behind like Ivory soap: It’s 99.9 percent pure or something,” Spellings told reporters. “There’s not much needed in the way of change.”

It sounds as if someone’s been hitting the Kool-Aid a little too hard, eh? Though many educators and others with a stake in education strongly oppose the law for creating a public educational system held hostage to standardized tests, Spellings seemingly can’t see what an ineffective, pointless farce No Child Left Behind has come.

The advantage with No Child Left Behind is that now Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader can point to the law and say “See, I fixed edumication!” What he’s done, though, is to create a system in which school districts are held accountable solely on the basis of their performance on standardized tests. We now have an educational system in which teachers are forced to teach to a test, because that is all that anyone is looking at anymore- How did little Johnny do on the [insert your state’s standardized test here]? Here in Texas, it’s the Texas Assessment of Knowledge & Skills Test (TAKS), and schools are graded based on their collect results on the TAKS test. Whether or not little Johnny is learning the 3 Rs is almost besides the point. As long as a district does well on TAKS, no one really seems to care about anything else.

This is what No Child Left Behind has begat. Little Johnny may know squat about American History or any other subject, but as long as he does well on the standardized test, everyone’s happy. States and districts have become all about test scores, and the actual, honest-to-God work of education seems almost beside the point. With districts being judged, rewarded, and/or penalized almost solely on the basis of standardized test scores, they have no choice but to play the game by the prevailing rules. It’s just too bad that education seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the way.

It is unsurprising that Spellings strongly supports the law. She helped craft it as President Bush’s domestic policy chief and now enforces it as the top education official.

Yet her view that the law needs little change is notable because it differs so sharply from others with a stake, including many teachers, school administrators and lawmakers.

Already, the House education committee is holding hearings on how to improve the law. So is a prominent bipartisan commission, which is touring the nation to gather opinions.

No reasonable person would argue with the idea of creating a system that holds school districts accountable for what their students are or are not learning. To argue that No Child Left Behind achieves this, however, is patently absurd. A system that’s based solely on test scores ignores the hard and often difficult to quantify task of educating students. We should be teaching students to think critically and to understand the world around them. We should be teaching them the skills they’ll need in order to head down the path towards becoming successful adults. Instead, we’re creating a nation of test-takers.

More than 80 organizations have signed a statement urging fundamental changes, in areas such as how student progress is measured and how schools are penalized when they fall short. And the National Conference of State Legislatures has given the law a scathing rebuke.

“You cannot ignore reality,” said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country.

“The reality is that poll after poll speaks to the concerns that people have,” Weaver said. “They are not arguing with the goals. They are not arguing with accountability. But they say something needs to be done to fix this law.”

I have no issue with accountability, but the problem with No Child Left Behind is that it’s the lazy way to achieve it. Spellings has participated in creating a system in which Republican politicians like Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader can point to test results and credit Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader or his brilliant and prescient leadership. Whatever….

Margaret Spellings ought to be ashamed. Instead of figuring out how this country can and should prepare American students to face the challenges of the 21st century, she has helped to create a system that does little except create test-taking automatons.

Your tax dollars at work. Or not. “99.9% pure”? I hope Spellings separates her shoulder from trying to pat herself on the back.

STILL GLAD YOU VOTED REPUBLICAN??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on September 3, 2006 7:06 AM.

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