THE ILLOGIC OF NCLB

It's a bold name for a piece of legislation. You'd be hard pressed to find a dentist that claimed, "No tooth shall ever have a cavity ... ever." There is no emergency room with a sign on the doors that reads, "No one will ever die here again ... and this time we mean it." It's absurd, of course. Some people don't brush their teeth. Some bullet wounds are bigger than others.

There's only so much any one doctor or dentist can control. The notion is almost as crazy as "No Child Left Behind." Many of our kids come in not knowing their alphabet. At other schools, all the kids arrive knowing the alphabet, with many already beginning to read. Still, at other schools, no children come in without any letter recognition at all, not even the ones in their names. There's only so much any one teacher can control. Some needs are just bigger than others.

Now, for us, the legislation has become tangible. It's easy to rail against something before the first shoes begin to drop. Just a few miles down the road from the school where I teach is another school in our district. Same teacher qualifications. Good people. It was one of the first schools to take on our district writing program. Teachers from that school were out training the rest of us. When I was looking for the most effective ways to service kids in my Title I program, I asked the person running their program. Learned a few things, too. Top-notch administrator. Somebody I'd want to work for. Just a few miles down the road from us.

And, that's a potentially failing school under "No Child Left Behind." On the other hand, our school received an honorable mention from the state of California under their Distinguished School Program. And the schools are just a few miles down the road from each other. Just a few. So, what's the difference? Same district. Same mission statement. Same practices and techniques. Same adopted materials. Are we, as a staff, that much better? More dedicated? Harder working? If only it were that easy. Each school has its seasoned veterans, its shining stars. Even some rookies. Just like all schools.

So, why were we invited to apply to be a distinguished school, while this other school is allegedly failing? The answer is poverty, mostly. Though only a few miles down the road, they have a far greater number of kids receiving free lunch. Their parents are much more likely to hold jobs, rather than build careers. Their families are also much more transient than ours. And they have greater language issues. Have you ever tried to take a standardized test in a foreign language? Don't bother. So what will happen if this school fails to meet testing goals again this year? Money will have to be diverted from the kids and put aside for transportation. Kids from this school will get to choose a new school in our area and this school will have to flip the bill to get them there. And which kids might actually leave? The kids who are doing well. The kids whose families are on top of it enough to make the move. This takes those kids away from their school testing totals. It takes away their brightest and best. And, once they leave, who will be "left behind"? Poor kids, the disenfranchised. Now we've got poor kids at an even poorer school.

And my school? Well, by luck, we may wind up with their brightest and best. We are, after all, just a few miles down the road. If that happens, our test scores will go up. The real answer is easy. The execution is not, but the answer is no great stretch. It's the same answer for most of society's ills. Fight poverty. Don't seek to make people poorer. You want children to perform better in school? Fight poverty. Their poverty....

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BRITISH HEAD TEACHERS REFUSE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

Head teachers threatened a campaign of disobedience yesterday to wreck the Government's testing regime in primary schools.

The National Association of Head Teachers voted unanimously at its annual conference to oppose the continued publication of league tables of test results for 11-year-olds. Mick Brookes, its general secretary, said that parents who supported the campaign could be asked to keep their children at home when national curriculum tests in English, mathematics and science are due to be taken. They could also be urged to send children to school late on test days to invalidate the results. Regulations state that results are invalid at schools where less than two thirds of pupils take the tests.

The union, which represents 85 per cent of primary heads, said that it would seek support for a boycott from other teachers' unions and governors. It would also consider a ballot of its 28,000 members on a refusal to supply the Government with test results from their schools for publication. Mr Brookes, in a dig at Tony Blair's policy of promoting parental control of schools, said that the campaign would be a true demonstration of parent power. As a head teacher in Nottinghamshire, he had once invalidated results for his primary school by hinting that parents who opposed the tests might want to send their children in late.

Relations between the union and Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, have soured rapidly since it withdrew last year from a national agreement on reforming the school workforce. The union accused the Government on Friday of snubbing heads by refusing to send a minister to address its conference for the first time since Labour came to power in 1997. The threat of a tests boycott would pitch Ms Kelly into a confrontation with heads when she is struggling to win support for the Government's Education and Inspections Bill, which is promising greater autonomy for schools.

Mr Brookes said that his union would use the power of persuasion initially to try to convince ministers to abolish the tests. "We don't want to get into further confrontation but I think we have been given permission from this conference to take action to stop them," he said.

It was too late to stop this year's tests, later this month, but the union was determined to ensure that they were the last ones. It would draw up an action plan to replace the tests with alternative forms of assessment, as had been done in Wales. "We will say to the Government that we have tried to consult with you and this has fallen on deaf ears, so we are now going to take matters into our own hands," Mr Brookes said. Delegates at the conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, angrily condemned the pressure placed on pupils and teachers by the need for their schools to perform well in the league tables of results. Gail Larkin, the head of Auriol Junior School, in Ewell, Surrey, who proposed the motion, said: "We gave national council the green light to fight for the abolition of league tables two years ago and yet the situation has not changed. It is time we really stood up to be counted. The publication of league tables in England must stop now."

Chris Howard, a member of the union's national executive, said that the Welsh Assembly had abolished tests and league tables without any decline in standards [How do trhey know??] . Northern Ireland and Scotland also produced no league tables of schools. "League tables are there to referee an educational marketplace and there is no other justification for them," he said. "It is absolutely vital that we campaign to get rid of the tables in England."

The Department for Education and Skills insisted that the continuation of tests and tables was a non-negotiable part of its school reforms. David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that the Conservatives would not abolish league tables either. He drew rumbles of dissent as he told the conference: "We have to accept that we are working in a society where this information is something that parents expect."

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WHY IS THIS NOT IN PLACE ALREADY?

Teachers should be protected against malicious allegations from pupils by enjoying anonymity during any investigations, David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said yesterday. Mr Willetts told the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, that too many allegations of abuse turned out to be untrue. School discipline was being undermined by false claims from pupils and the lives of individual teachers suffered tremendous harm. He said that the Conservatives would table an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill to give teachers the same protection as children while allegations of abuse are investigated. This would prevent them from being named in public unless they were charged with an offence. Guidance to schools, local authorities and police already suggested that anonymity should be maintained during inquiries but Mr Willetts said that this needed to be given statutory force.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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