Education secretary: 'No Child Left Behind' has led to a 'dumbing down'

[kpete]

Source: The Hill

Education secretary: 'No Child Left Behind' has led to a 'dumbing down'
By Emmanuel Touhey - 01/28/11 02:47 PM ET

President Obama placed special emphasis on education in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, mentioning it 10 times in all. With Congress set to renew the ‘No Child Left Behind’ law this year, The Hill’s Comment Editor Emmanuel Touhey sat down Thursday with Education Secretary Arne Duncan here in Washington, D.C. They discussed the approach Congress should take to overhauling the law, school vouchers, the DREAM Act and proposed rules governing for-profit colleges and universities.

The Hill: ‘No Child Left Behind’ is up due for reauthorization this year. What exactly do you want to see fixed in the law?

Secretary Duncan: There are a number of things that I think are broken with the current law that working in a bipartisan way we can have common sense fixes. I think the law is too punitive, too prescriptive, it’s led to a dumbing down of standards, and it’s led to a narrowing of curriculum. We need to fix all of those things. We have to reward success, reward excellence, look at growth and gain, not just absolute test scores. We have to be much more flexible. When I ran the Chicago public schools, I almost had to sue this department for the right to tutor my children after school. It made no sense why I had to fight this department to help kids who wanted to learn after school, so we have to really get out of the way there. We have to continue to raise standards. We’ve seen 40 states provide leadership, and do that, and we need to provide a well-rounded curriculum, so reading and math are important, but science, social studies, dance, drama, art, music, foreign languages, physical education, all those things. We want the new law to be fair, to be focused to be flexible. And we think we can do these things working together this year.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/the-administration/140977-interview-with-education-secretary-arne-duncan

[RC]

1. Let the teachers teach.

Teach Applied subjects. As in applied to the real world. Do not continue to teach each subject in a vacuum, as they do now.
Math, science, English, Foreign languages, history are all interrelated. Teach them as such.
Teach critical thinking from the lower grades, through University. Then wait till those kids get out into the real world and see the change. The Rush Limbaughs, Glen Becks and Sarah Palins will not be able to get started, let alone do any damage.

[dkf]

3. Do you agree that barriers to after school tutoring need to be eliminated?

This is the sort of thing that started me down the anti teachers union path.

[msongs]

4. feel free to tutor your kids all you want :-) for profit grafters are a different story tho nt

[dkf]

8. Why? Don't these kids need help?

[amandabeech]

16. The teachers I know help kids after classes end, but do it informally.

They spend more time planning the next day's lessons, correcting work and doing administrative tasks after classes end.

My Mom worked from 8:15 to 5:00 with a half hour break, and then an hour or so in the evening. Yours truly pitched in by correcting 3rd grade spelling books and scoring multiple-choice tests. I don't know how she would have been able to squeeze formal tutoring into her day, although she did do some private tutoring in the summer.

My grandmother, two aunts, an uncle, two cousins and two long-time friends taught or are teaching. They all had the same stories. Some teachers may have time to tutor after school on top of everything else, but they are not necessarily the teachers that you or Mr. Duncan would prefer because they are using planning and homework correction time for the tutoring. You'll get some tutoring, but the next day or the next week the teacher will not be prepared for a regular class. Perhaps some teachers can keep up teaching regular classes and tutoring, but they are few and may end up burning out earlier than their peers.

One of my friends recently retired from full-time teaching. She totally burned out on NCLB because she taught in a poor school district with many non-English speakers. The amount of money that could be gained from NCLB and Race to the Top kept the school district afloat and the teachers had to produce no matter whether the parents were interested in their children learning or not. She now teaches in an after school program that uses NCLB money. She's rested and ready to help grade school kids. She likes it because she can use her natural creativity in the program and she's not completely spent like she would be at the end of a school day. Believe me, the kids that she tutors are getting a great deal by having a creative, fresh teacher in the late afternoon.

I don't oppose after school tutoring or programs in the public schools, but I think that teachers are right in opposing anything approaching mandatory after school tutoring for more than the 15 or so that most teachers are available immediately at the end of the school day.

I think a good after school tutor would be one who has his or her mind on tutoring, not on the next day's lesson plans or correcting homework or just taking a little break. That's not a teacher who's already been teaching for 6 hours and minding kids for more.

[dkf]

19. Isn't this about preventing outside tutors from providing services?

[ixion]

2. well, duh. That's what happen when you force teachers to teach the test(s).

And it was one of the under-lying motivations, in my opinion.

[liberal N proud]

5. And that was the plan from the start

Teaching the lowest common denominator was the dumbest idea ever.

[Fumesucker]

6. Not dumb at all...

If you are one of the elites who benefit from having a workforce that is unable to grasp how they are being manipulated by the elites.

[liberal N proud]

7. That is true

A poor nation of people would mean they could bring the manufacturing back and work for near nothing in unsafe conditions.

All part of the master plan, kill regulations and education, the people will have no choice.

The did know what they were doing.

[thanks_imjustlurking]

23. Yep.

And then they expect teachers to put in unpaid time to produce the drones.

Either teachers are interchangeable cogs (in which case they are due overtime) or they are professionals (in which case they deserve pay and respect commensurate with their expertise).

[valerief]

9. Duh, Home school. God school. Bush is cool. Rah rah.

:eyes:

[frazzled]

21. What on earth are you even referring to?

Your comment has zero to do with the OP or the article linked therein.

Just talking to yourself, maybe?

[Maeve]

10. Gee, who could have predicted THAT??

Just a whole helluva lot of us....

[UpInArms]

11. the stupid NCLB was all about letting the military recruiters on high school campuses

and now ... well

'nuf said

[defendandprotect]

12. And why wouldn't everyone recognize that -- including Obama and Duncan ...?

Why wouldn't Congress know that?

A lot of money involved in knocking out public education and substituting

Charter schools!

[tigereye]

13. well, that's pretty encouraging!

[old mark]

14. &R- I believe that was the plan from the beginning-GOP LOVES ignorance! nt

[Hannah Bell]

15. translation: more tests, better tests.

[immoderate]

17. Yup. It's just talk. Nothing will change.

--imm

[Hannah Bell]

18. oh, something will change. i wasn't kidding, this is his charm offensive for more tests

& supposedly "better" tests.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/21485/left-ed-pre-sotu-edition-whats-wrong-with-calls-for-more-and-better-tests.

[Exilednight]

20. Duncan's Race to the Bottom is just as bad as Bush's Every Child Left Behind.

Race to the Bottom picks up where Bush's policy left off.

Rewarding states for creating charter schools is bad policy. Studies are beginning to surface that show most charter schools have done no better a job than public schools.

If we really want reform in our education system then we need to push out such bullshit as teaching intelligent design as a possible alternative to evolution. Not to mention the way schools attempt to whitewash history. I just wonder how long until literature classes stop teaching Lord of the Flies or A Farewell to Arms and start teaching Stephen King and John Grisham novels.

[QC]

22. Students, teachers, and parents figured that one out years ago.

Still, it's nice to see that Arne is catching on, finally.

[Jakes Progress]

24. That's just what it was designed to do.

And the only thing that I have seen emphasized in RTT is more testing and less experienced teachers which will accelerate the "achievements" of NCLB.

[Arkana]

25. At this point, I honestly don't know what will improve public education.

Might as well toss them some money and see what happens.

[boppers]

26. Close to 10 grand a year already. Per student.

$9,666 per student, per year, on average (these are 2007 numbers)....
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/07f33pub.pdf (page 13)
(It also breaks down by state there).

For a classroom of 30 students, that's $289,980. Since most public teachers I know certainly aren't making over $50K a year, there's some huge money-sinks involved, and I suspect plenty more waiting at the trough...