Foster City Islander Article - 06-06-2007

Time Issues Report Card on “No Child Left Behind”

The June 4, 2007 Time Magazine has graded “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB). Two marks are especially revealing:
Informing the public on school failure: “A”
Helping schools improve: “F”

Americans suffer from a serious awareness gap regarding NCLB. Polls reveal that most people believe government reports claiming that NCLB improves schools. Tragically, few people recognize that NCLB is aggravating, not solving, the real problems that cause children to be left behind.
NCLB suffers from fundamental flaws in strategy and harmful effects in practice. It is based on the mistaken notion that the main goal of schools is to raise test scores and that schools will improve if threatened with harsh penalties for not reaching preset performance goals.

NCLB has produced mostly negative effects. Many schools now allot far too much time preparing students for reading and math tests. As a result, they now spend far too little time on science and social studies. Harsh penalties for not improving test scores are not leading to improved student performance. Arbitrary progress goals have set up many previously successful schools for failure and often have forced them to drop educational programs that were working. Schools are redirecting funds—already in short supply—to implement this ineffective and disastrous program.

One veteran Foster City teacher laments that NCLB is “¼a brutal and punitive approach that takes all the fun and excitement out of teaching and learning.” Dozens of educational, children’s, civic and other organizations agree. They have united in an effort to convince the U.S. Congress to radically revamp this seriously flawed law. Their “Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB” (www.fairtest.org) calls for an end to mindless testing and cruel penalties. It urges lawmakers to focus instead on revamping curriculum—what is taught and how it is taught—a proven approach for bettering schools. This reflects the thinking of F. David Pearson, Dean of the School of Education at U.C. Berkeley: “¼ education isn’t supposed to be based on what’s tested.” He advises, “Never send a test out to do a curriculum’s job.”

These words also reflect the thinking behind the basic design of the public high school planned for Foster City, where the curriculum will include all the critically important areas that have been left out of “No Child Left Behind.”

Contact me at phyllismoore1@comcast.net or 650-349-5676

http://www.fchighschool.org/.