We'd Rather Look at Obvious Beauty

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND…  

Take a Closer Look…

No Child Left Behind is a federal Act that has been on the books since the presidency of George W. Bush.  It is the brainchild of the Department of Education “experts” in his administration who recognized that many students in the public school system are disadvantaged by, among other things, poverty.  What a Republican administration does about any of the inevitable end results of poverty, especially of children living in poverty, is limited by a Republican trickle-down, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps mindset. The thing never to do is spend “government” money to correct a problem.  Disadvantaged people, even disadvantaged children, are expected to find a way out of the circumstances that create the disadvantage.  

In a time when both houses of the legislature are dominated by Republicans, the No Child Left Behind program has all but collapsed after being replaced by a complicated and problematic system in which states have been granted waivers that allow them to choose what they will or will not do for public school students living in poor districts. Congress is dominated by leaders who are convinced that Federal control over schools is a bad idea. When the law was put in place, poor districts were given fourteen years to bring their schools up to “full academic proficiency” for ALL THEIR STUDENTS.  Strategies developed by “educators” in the Department of Education clearly did not work. Now both the House and the Senate have passed separate bills. The two bills must be reconciled. Prescriptive and punitive remedies haven’t worked.  The federal Department of Education is managed by people who seem to know only strategies that are aimed at punishing those people who are in charge of lower performing schools. That has obviously not worked in the past because punishing poor people for being poor instead of removing as many of the disadvantages of poverty from poor children and poor older young people has never been tried in our country.  

Standards can include measures to prepare students for jobs and/or college.  Living conditions of students in a district can be evaluated locally to determine what can and what should be done to help the poorest children achieve academic success that leads to jobs or college.  All teachers assigned to schools serving poor students should be thoroughly acquainted with the impact of poverty on learning.  That will take more money for teacher training in poverty pockets of America. Rather than pouring money into federal and state departments of education, funds must be made available for preparation of teachers in poor neighborhoods.  “No Child Left Behind” put great emphasis on student performance as measured by tests, so teachers naturally began teaching to the test.  Those teachers whose students didn’t show improvement were fired and their administrators were put on notice that they would be fired if they couldn’t find teachers who “could teach to the test.”  The disadvantage of poverty has not been addressed.  We seem unwilling to do that.  Until we become willing, programs “approved” by the House and Senate leaders who don’t understand poverty are bound to fail.