bootism-shoe-religion

Nancy Patterson is a professor at Grand Valley State University. She came to talk about “No child left behind”. I thought I had a grasp on what this new law was. Boy was I wrong. I did like “no child left behind” in the first place. But after Nancy’s presentation I like it even less. I never liked standardized testing. But I felt that there really wasn’t anything I could do about it. I had the belief that there is no other way so we are stuck with standardized testing. The measure is designed to give a common measure of student performance. The measurements compare individual students’ performance. I didn’t realize that the purpose of standardized testing was defined as “to label people as bright or not bright, as worthy academically or not worthy.” This is just bogus. I just am speechless regarding this definition. Why test in the first place? The government wants something to show for America’s education, numbers are seductive, and accountability of schools. The accountability is all about keeping teachers, administrators and districts in line. If there is a consistent trend of failing standardized testing the government comes in and takes over. All the teachers and administrators are fired and the school is reorganized.
What is wrong with NCLB? It pits the rich against the poor. There is a threat of withholding money from schools. To get money must write grants that explain a scientific based instruction. The creators believe that America is made up of cookie cutter children. There is no where in the world that have cookie cutter children. What’s the standard? Whose standard? School districts are finding ways to make loop holes. One is that they are lowering the score to pass. For example the score was 12 now need an 8 to pass. This says that oh school is doing better. Oh NCLB is working. This is not really true. If we continue to lower the score to pass then we are not only hurting ourselves we are hurting students. I didn’t realize how expensive administering the MEAP was. It costs 30 million dollars for students to take the MEAP for one week. This is darn expensive. Where is this money going to? Are people making money off the MEAP? If they are then the government needs to find a alternative test that is cheaper or made by the government to use. Federal funds are dwindling. There is not much money being disbursed to schools. Schools are required to cut back where they shouldn’t have to, such as curriculum, building repair, teacher salaries. But schools are still required to comply with the law, which is expensive. This is how nasty the government is playing. Utah said they were not going to comply. The government’s response threatened to take away the military bases. The bases are one of the main sources of jobs for Utah residents. There are many ways to fail. These ways are obvious to me. They schools that are failing routinely are those that have high concentration of high minority and poverty, and special education. NCLB would not be as bad if there was more than one way to assess students. As of right now there is only standardized testing. There is a foundation that is trying to dismantle NCLB. Those that want to help in the effort should go to www.fairtest.org.