The Children Left Behind -- What Happens to the Students Pushed out by High-Stakes Testing

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/children-left-behind



When I knocked on her door late last year, Sonia S. had just returned from the county hospital after giving birth. She had no idea why I’d come to her home in a poor neighborhood in El Paso, Texas. I told her I’d found her name on a list of public school students who’d once taken a high-stakes test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), while attending Bowie High School. The list indicated that Sonia had failed the test in the past and was predicted to fail in the future.

I asked her if she’d been kicked out of high school. “Yes,” she said, juggling her newborn boy on her hip. That had happened two-and-a-half years earlier. Now she was 20 years old.

Not far away, I found Leo G., also 20, living with his mother and his pregnant girlfriend in public housing. He, too, was on the TAKS predicted-failure list and had been kicked out of school. So had Yanderier G., 22, whom I located after finding Sonia and Leo. Yanderier told me she’d once aspired to attend college, become an accountant and start her own business. None of that had happened—now she was working in the kitchen at a pizza restaurant. She invited me in, made coffee and started weeping.

TAKS was administered to Texas children under the mandates of a 2001 federal law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which set a benchmark for 100-percent student proficiency in math and reading by 2014. States were required to show “adequate yearly progress” toward the goal, mostly through standardized testing. Good scores on the tests would lead to rewards for schools, administrators and teachers. Bad scores would provoke punishment, including closing schools and firing teachers. (TAKS has since been replaced by a newer and more difficult test called State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.)

[chervilant]

1. Virtually EVERYONE hated TAKS.

Virtually everyone hates STAAR.

Our teachers struggle to 'teach to the test,' while they struggle to accommodate the Common Core requirements. Most teachers are overwhelmed by this effort. Our students, who've been lied to for far too long, are completely disinterested in school, except insofar as it facilitates their social lives. Common Core is commonly perceived as yet another effort by the 'adults in charge' to "educate" our disengaged and disinterested children.

It's a big, hot mess, and people like Rhee and Gates are riding this train wreck to profit and fame.

[xchrom]

2. ...

[narnian60]

3. Well said and I totally agree. nt