learnteach | argh

"Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the day that I signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law. And since that day we've come a long way, fewer students are falling behind. People are beginning to get used to the notion that there's accountability in the public school system. Look, I recognize some people don't like accountability. In other words, accountability says if you're failing, we're going to expose that and expect you to change. Accountability also says that when you're succeeding you'll get plenty of praise. "

President George W. Bush
January 7, 2008

I can't even begin to respond to this. Well, I can begin, but it's not very reasoned. 3 points: The administration load of the program, and the continual testing (4 times a year by the school) suck up any advantage. Secondly, the metric (the test) is incredibly poor. Testing of this sort doesn't really work. Finally, the amount of funds pledged versus the amount of changes and work, and the codicil requirements which require many extra resources to pull up the low performing students, mean that we're taking all the programs that reward intelligence and achievement to try and enact basic social programs in schools.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Of course. The primary group I had hoped to exclude would be legislators.

OK. Sometimes the professional educators try to cut the parents out of the loop which (speaking as the rabid homeschooler in the group) isn't ok with me!

Personally, I always wished the parents of my students had more opportunity for input than the administration provided. There's nothing more valuable than a parent invested in his or her child's education.

After my oldest daughter's 2nd grade teacher made her hate math, I volunteered to teach a "math club" the next year, which amounted to the only "gifted" program the town had. It consisted of my daughter plus 2 kids chosen by the teacher from each of the 6 classes in her grade. I was delighted to be able to put a bunch of smart kids in one room, because the way our schools work, these kids pretty much never saw each other.

The first year we met in the library. The librarian, after a couple months of listening in, told me she wished she could be in the class because we were doing such cool stuff.

The next year, there was a space crunch, and the assistant superintendent who had encouraged me had left our town. My group was put in the cafeteria, right before lunch, where our voices echoed, and the kitchen noises and smells were very distracting. After a maintenance person walked between me and the kids, pushing a cart of trays, without so much as an "excuse me", I insisted that we be moved to a more private location for the spring. We got the reading resource room, and a promise that no one else would be using the space while we were there.

Eventually though, the resource teacher began bringing in kids for tutoring during our time, on the other side of a divider from us. It was a bad mix, because I had enthusiastic energetic kids, and we played lots of games, while the kids being tutored were having difficulty, and needed a very quiet, protected environment.

One day, I was teaching factorials (using Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar), and the kids were practically leaping out of their seats with eagerness to do gigantic multiplication problems. I loved it, but it was too much for the reading resource teacher. She went to the principal and announced that my group was obviously not learning anything because they were making noise.

The following week, the principal came to the room and bawled me out in front of the children for making noise. Dammit, if she didn't like what I -- a volunteer -- was doing, she should have spoken to me in private.

I lost all heart for working with this absolutely wonderful group of kids, and soon after that I quit.

(It was a great class. Maybe I should start up a similar group with the homeschoolers, around my dining room table.)

You should.

And let me attend!

It's a short daily commute, after all!

argh

Re: No Teacher Left Standing

Re: No Teacher Left Standing

Re: No Teacher Left Standing

Parent involvement; volunteer abuse

Re: Parent involvement; volunteer abuse

Re: Parent involvement; volunteer abuse