"Unusually gifted to the mentally retarded" must meet same level of proficiency. How absurd.

[madfloridian]

There is a rather sad but true column today at the Washington Post, the Answer Sheet Blog. Consider the idiocy of NCLB in requiring both of the above to meet the same standards, pass the same tests, reach the same goals.

Yet it has been happening around the country.

President Obama and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, finally realized that 82% of schools might fail this year because of the ridiculous requirements. So they decided to do something about it.

Some of us have tried to point out that though they are allowing states to request a waiver for their failing scores, the replacement plan is just as bad. It is a tragedy.

The guest columnist at the WP today says it far better than I could. I doubt many are listening to him anymore than they have listened to the bloggers raising the alarms since Arne was appointed to his position. Denial is the usual position by Democrats online because admitting the harm done would reflect on the administration.

The guest columnist is "Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit organization created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. This appeared on the institute’s website."

A bet on No Child Left Behind

Diane Ravitch is a glass half-empty kind of gal, while I suffer from excessive Panglossian tendencies. In the spring of 2007, we made a bet. The payoff is dinner at the River Café, at the foot of Brooklyn Heights, overlooking New York harbor and the Manhattan skyline, tucked neatly under the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge.

.."For example, I said to Diane, consider the law’s absurd demand to prohibit the normal variability of human ability so that all children, from the unusually gifted to the mentally retarded, must achieve above the same “challenging” level of proficiency by 2014. The only way states could fulfill this requirement would be to define “challenging proficiency” at such a low level that even the least talented of students could meet it. NCLB enthusiasts would then cry “foul” and insist that a reauthorized law allow Congress to dictate a national proficiency standard.

..."What I had not anticipated was that a secretary of education (Arne Duncan, it turned out to be) would use his authority to grant waivers to states (now all of them) unable to meet NCLB’s requirements, conditioning the waivers on states’ agreements to adopt accountability conditions that are even more absurd, more unworkable, more fanciful than those in the law itself. Mr. Duncan’s philosophy has been revealed: if a policy fails, the solution should be to do more of it.

Here's how he's doing it.

So the secretary is now kicking the ball down the road. States will be excused from making all children proficient by 2014 if they agree instead to make all children “college-ready” by 2020. If NCLB’s testing obsession didn’t suffice to distinguish good schools from failing ones, states can be excused from loss of funds if they instead use student test scores to distinguish good teachers from bad ones. Without any reauthorization of NCLB, Mr. Duncan will now use his waiver authority to demand, in effect, even more test-prep, more drill, more unbalanced curricula, more misidentification of success and failure, more demoralization of good teachers, and more needless stress for young children.

Rothstein admits he won the bet on the technical points, but Ravitch won on the merits. He says the glass really is half-empty.

This is a very long column with a lot of good stuff in it. I doubt many will read it. I expect many ignores and unrecs from anything I write now about the education situation. I find myself not really particularly caring. Denial is easier is such cases.

It's just the teacher in me. Retiring doesn't change the deep appreciation I have for the long career which meant so much to me. It just means that I don't have to physically experience the stress and pain and anger that comes with hearing the constant negative attacks against a profession that should be treated with respect.

Arne Duncan needs to be fired for what he has done to public schools and public school teachers in this country. President Obama needs to distance himself from all the education harm done, pick up the damaged pieces and try to put some of them back together.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. K&R

[madfloridian]

6. .....

Thanks. It's alarming.

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[madfloridian]

3. Columnist says Duncan policies will implode. But the damage will remain.

"The Duncan policies, like NCLB, will eventually implode. But the damage being done to American public education has now gone on for so long that it will have enduring effects. Schools will not soon be able to implement a holistic education to disadvantaged children. Disillusioned and demoralized teachers who have abandoned the profession or have retired are now being rapidly replaced by a new generation of drill sergeants, well-trained in the techniques of “data-driven instruction.” This cannot easily be undone."

[tblue37]

34. Charles Dickens wrote _Hard Times_ partly in protest against such

educational practices--and here we are over 1550 years later later making the same mistakes they were trying to undo in the 19th century.

Gradgrind lives.

[Angry Dragon]

4. duncan should have known this before he went wild

time for him to apologize and step down

[madfloridian]

5. Yes.

It is time.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. He DID know. This was the plan all along.

Gut the school system, privatize it, kill the unions.

And this, from a man who claims to be a Democrat.

[madfloridian]

17. Yes, it has been the plan since Bush.

In fact both Democrats and Republicans have been pushing these "reforms" which I call efforts to privatize for decades. It's mainly bipartisan.

Molly Ivins once said:

""Whenever you hear a politician carry on about what a mess the schools are, be aware that you are looking at the culprit."

[DrunkenBoat]

47. I agree. As the other poster said, the plan since Bush. NCLB was the set-up,

this is the touchdown.

Just like reagan's social security 'reform' was the set-up for what's happening today.

[Fumesucker]

11. What makes you think Duncan didn't know what would happen?

:shrug:

I suspect his true agenda is exactly what he's accomplishing.

[madfloridian]

36. Yep, just about what he envisioned.

It's about profit, not about students.

[Electric Monk]

8. wtf?

That can't be real... seriously, is it? That's crazy.

[DrunkenBoat]

48. real as a heart attack. and like you, there are still large segments of the

population who don't even know how crazy it is, nine years down the road from the legislation.

Just like they don't know how crazy obama's 'reform' of nclb is.

[Honeycombe8]

9. I've never thought about this. I can see both sides, though. In fact...

why aren't the mentally retarded in special ed? I didn't think they could go to regular public schools, or at least go and be in the general population there, for the very reason that they need a special education in order to learn.

But are lowering the standards the answer? I mean, you can either read at a certain level by grade 6, or you can't. I don't think it's an answer to pass someone just because they can't meet the standard, so might as well pass them on. That just makes the problem worse. If they can't meet 6th grade standards, they will continue to have problems in 7th grade.

If there aren't standards, then a diploma doesn't mean anything.

It's sort of like when the kids go out in the world to work. Should a company not be allowed not to hire someone if they don't have certain skills? Or should a company have to hire them because, after all, that's the best that person can do, even though it means they can't really do the job?

It's a dilemma. I think special ed. may be the answer. But that costs money.

Of course, the author may be referring to kids who are somewhat slow, and not technically mentally retarded. I guess the real question is whether there are kids who are so mentally deficient that it must be accepted that they can't get a regular high school diploma? That is the case with real mentally retarded kids. Besides, I didn't think the correct term these days was "mentally retarded." Isn't it something else?

[wickerwoman]

12. They are in special ed,

but in many schools special ed is still handled by the school. And the new testing regime includes *all* kids in the school including those in special ed.

The problem with "standards" is that they assume that there is only one thing that schools are supposed to do. In this case, schools must make *every* child "college ready". And if they fail to meet this (impossible) goal, they lose funding. But the fact is that "college ready" is not an appropriate place for every kid to be at. Should the school be punished for turning out brilliant artists or actors who can't do calculus? Should the school be punished because some kids are passionate about cars instead of history or computers instead of English? Should the school be punished for Olympic athletes who don't have time to prepare for standardized tests? There are all kinds of reasons why a 4 year university might not be appropriate for a kid. Students aren't widgets and you can't turn them out in the same shape and size without cutting off important parts of their inner selves and their potential.

Before all this craziness began, the goal of education was to create well-rounded citizens, not test-approved college freshmen. A diploma meant that you could read well enough to understand a newspaper, that you could reason well enough to participate in a democracy and that you could do math well enough that you wouldn't be cheated at the grocery store. "College ready" means at least two years of a foreign language and pre-calculus. That is a *very* different standard from what students were held to in the past.

And if we look at the most successful school systems, like Germany and Japan, they all use tracking systems. They don't expect 100% of students (including the disabled) to be college ready by 18. In Germany you take a test at 11 that decides if you go to a polytechnic high school or a college prep high school. That has its own problems, obviously, but it does illustrate that NCLB and similar policies have no basis in "good practice" from the nations that are beating us on those international tests that reformers seem to think are so important.

[eridani]

13. Why not everyone college ready?

I mean, geez, the kids of Lake Wobegon are ALL above averege, wo shy can't everybody do that?

[Honeycombe8]

24. I see. Well, I totally agree with you. Not all kids are college bound.

It's true that a college diploma is almost necessary these days to make a good living. That's because a college diploma shows more than education in a field; it shows discipline to reach a goal and persistence. Good qualities to have.

But I agree that some people are just better suited to become mechanics or whatever, where a college degree isn't necessary. And there's nothing wrong with that. As long as the kid is told in advance what kind of money he will, and will not, make in his livelihood, and that most likely, insurance will not be provided by his employer. And that he understands what that means. Point out some houses & make sure he understands that he will, or will not, be living in a house like that, etc. Kids needs to know these things.

As for Germany, isn't 11 years old a bit young to decide whether a kid should go to a trade school or college? BTW, Germany also has a robust apprenticeship program in its country. I don't know if you caught all the negative posts in this forum, when posters discovered part of Obama's jobs plan includes a small apprenticeship program in North Carolina or somewhere, targeted to using long term unemployed. Many posters were horrified that the companies would be getting free labor (the worker would get unemployment comp benefits while being trained at the company). But Germany and other European countries use apprenticeship programs a lot. They are geared toward young people, particularly those not college bound. The kids get paid, but I'm sure it's not much, in return for learning the job and getting a shot at getting hired by that company.

I'm a college dropout. I'd like to see as many kids as possible get a college degree. It means so much these days, and it means more than just the classes you take. It shows you can actually stick to something and get it done. Plus it also makes you just a person who is exposed to more of teh world and different viewpoints and subjects. But there's nothing wrong with going to a trade school instead. Where would we be without plumbers & electricians?

[wickerwoman]

27. I think there's a perception

that a college degree is necessary but it doesn't really match the reality.

I have three college degrees and *wish* I made the salary and had the job security I could have gotten as a plumber or electrician. I know plumbers who make six figure salaries. And I didn't get health insurance in my last three white-collar jobs. And with the student loans I had to take out to finance my education, I wasn't able to afford a decent house either.

New professional jobs in the future are in 1.) computer programming 2.) engineering and 3.) bio-medical research. If you don't have an aptitude for any of those things, you'll be competing for an ever shrinking number of marginally white-collar jobs with hundreds (if not thousands) of other people. And the truth is that *a lot* more people than our dominant cultural myth will ever admit will take their college degree and the associated debt to Target or Mickey Ds and be damn glad they could find anything to cover the rent.

We're never going to have a society of 100% doctors, engineers and computer prodigies. And even if we did, we couldn't find jobs for all of them. So why push and push kids who just fundamentally aren't ready or don't have the aptitude down a path that is just going to send them deep into debt that they'll never be able to pay off. Why define *every* job as requiring a college education- even cops and lumberjacks? It used to be you got a general liberal arts degree and then your company trained you to do your specific job. Now companies have offloaded the costs of vocational training onto the public education system at the expense of the traditional liberal arts education. Who needs to learn civics or critical thought? Lets spend three hours a day drilling math problems on the assumption that everyone needs to be able to go on to training as an accountant or an insurance adjuster.

I do kind of remember the apprenticeship thread. I think there's a difference between a sixteen year old who comes in one or two days a week to get some job experience in a trade like welding or forklift operation and a thirty year old who is asked to "apprentice" for forty hours a week as a receptionist replacing a job that used to pay four times as much. What's to stop the company from firing all of their entry level people and replacing them with a new batch of "apprentices" every six to eight weeks? It's bad enough that workers have to compete with prisoners who make .15 cents an hour. And a lot of the companies that participate offer pretty dubious "job skills". How long do I need to "apprentice" to learn how to put together cardboard boxes? Do we really need an "apprenticeship" program for grocery store checkout or shelf stocking?

I was a middle manager in my last job but have been out of work for three years. Do you know what I would think if someone offered me a chance to "apprentice" as a cashier? It's not "wow, what a great opportunity to learn job skills!" It's "you stingy bastards... how long before you dump me for someone cheaper?"

I'd like to see everyone be able to get a high quality education that lets them explore their interests and potential to the fullest. But high quality education is not the same thing as a four year university for many, many kids. It's possible to be happy and successful without a tertiary degree. Lots of jobs, objectively, don't require the kinds of skills taught at the college level.

[Honeycombe8]

70. Wow. You opened my eyes to the disadvantages of a college degree (or 3)...but

regarding the apprenticeship program here, that is geared toward the long term unemployed, I don't look at it the way you do. I have a personal insight to it, maybe. My sister (who had an acctg degree, BTW) was long term unemployed. Reaaaaallllly long term unemployed (long story). Anyhoo, when trying to find a job, she found that the business world had advanced so much, that she was no longer qualified to get a job in her field. She didn't even know how to use computers much, except for a few specialty old programs. Couple that with her long term unemployment....she was, in a word, unemployable. Permanently.

She ended up standing in a line to apply for a "sausage filler" blue collar job, competing with a loooonnnnng line of illegal immigrants willing to take the job for next to nothing. And they were younger and healthier. She was middle aged and overweight and overqualified.

She ended up getting a job as a "day sitter" for elderly people or disabled people. She didn't do anything. She just sat there all day. And made less than minimum wage.

An apprenticeship program for her would have been a godsend. She had no way to learn the new accounting programs or computer skills. She couldn't afford to pay for that, and besides, employers want someone with hands on training or experience with those skills. She would've jumped at an apprenticeship, which would lead to a chance at getting hired by that company. (Of course, she wouldn't have qualified, because she no longer qualified for long term unemployment benefits, which I think is a requirement.)

The apprenticeship program is targeted for a select group of people who are in dire straights. They will probably not get a job any time soon, if ever. They have been pigeonholed into an occupation for which there is no longer a need. And no way to learn a new job. I'm thinking more along the lines of..someone who had been a cashier for 20 years, could get an office job and learn basic typing, computer skills, telephone etiquette, etc.

As for insurance for your jobs, it's unusual not to get ins. with a white collar job. Were they small businesses? Most mechanics don't get paid insurance benefits, I think, as well as other blue collar jobs. I wish someone had explained to me in stark terms the importance of salary, and how much it takes to buy this or that, or live a certain lifestyle. I had no clue when I was young.

As for degrees....I do know that employers sometimes use that just to screen applicants. I'm a paralegal. I'm a college dropout, but I do have enough hours that that would translate to an associates degree. Even so, to be hired as a paralegal in a city these days...they generally only look at college degreed. I wouldn't be able to get the job I have now, if I applied today.

Being a mechanic or plumber, etc., is good, honest work. Maybe you know some who make six figures, but I think the stats say that most plumbers make about $50K with experience. That's pretty good, considering they don't have a student loan to pay off. But that's not six figures. Maybe that's in New York.

[InkAddict]

79. This was a local hospital "volunteer" opportunity

ED Triage – Serve as the first point of contact for patients in ED waiting area; make and answer phone
calls for physicians – must be 18 years or older, must have health assessment

Really?

Here's another:

Inpatient Rounding – Visit with patients on each unit, assist with stocking supplies in each room, use
outlined questionnaire to gain specific information, record responses by taking notes then prepare a
more detailed report of specific comments needing attention by staff.

[jwirr]

43. Thank you for that summary of what should be. As a parent of a

developmentally disabled daughter who cannot even talk let alone get ready for college I want to say that I have always thought that NCLB did not deal with reality. But I put it down to the fact that it was developed by boooosh and com. Now this sounds even further from reality. Thank you Obama for another idiot.

I to believe we should emulate the European system of education and that special ed children should be exempt from these idiotic testing. My daughter went to public schools special ed programs long before this shit about testing was even considered. I have long ago realized that many of the people who talk about our schools failing as compared to private schools were completely discounting the fact that public schools accept disabled children and those private schools do not. Thus if we are going to do any competition between schools it should only include the students they have in common.

As to accountability regarding the disabled students - I suggest we leave that up to the parents. Almost any special ed teacher will tell you that us parents are the roughest critics she has ever dealt with. We have learned to advocate for our children. Not to mention special ed teachers and their students have an instrument that judges the advances the student make - ISP - tailored to the individual student and reassessed every 4-6 months this instrument set to goals and measures them. No other students have this personal instrument to deal with their progress.

I wonder if Duncan has ever even set in on a special ed class?

[madfloridian]

44. Thanks for your post.

You are so right. They have set nutty unrealistic goals, and our schools are suffering.

Duncan is not an educator. He is a tool for reformers.

[DrunkenBoat]

50. Actually, a lot of Europe is moving toward the same kind of system we are.

It's a system that will allow international capital to run schools all over the world. Seriously, that is what's in the works. It's a system that will be designed to cream off the "best & brightest" across the globe to work for global capital & relegate the rest to shit schools & shit prospects unless they have money.

Serious as a heart attack, if you don't see it you're not paying attention.

[jwirr]

63. Anyone who has ever been to college has seen this skimming the

cream of the crop happening for years. We blame those foreign students who find some way to stay in the USA but if they were not promised jobs they would be going home. I have always wondered if one of the reasons the programs that brought those students to the USA schools did not work was because the very people who could solve the problems in developing countries are not going home after their education is complete. You are probably correct about where schools are heading,unfortunately. That will eventually mean that only those who excel in their early years will be educated. Public schools would be closed and if there is any type of education for the masses it will have to be local funded and run. Like the old one room schools. Very sad situation.

My children are angry that I am saving educational books - trying to set up a home education system that they think will never be needed. I support the public school system but I want a backup just in case Kunstler is right.

[DrunkenBoat]

49. Also those international comparisons are highly suspect, and at least one (PISA)

seems to have been instituted specifically to make the kind of invidious comparisons "league tables" to justify bush-type 'education reform' internationally.

[LWolf]

15. "Somewhat slow."

Technically, a score of 90 - 110 on a cognitive abilities test is considered "average." That's what the parents of my students on IEPs are told; that their child falls in the "average" range of intelligence.

Many of them barely make the 90 in some areas, and are in the 80s in others.

They may not fit the standard definition of "mentally retarded," but they are MORE than "somewhat slow." If the average student needs to do something 10 times, they need to do it 20. Or more. If the average student needs to spend 30 minutes, they need to spend a few hours to achieve the same result.

Somehow, nobody has figured out how to differentiate time; pesky time just keeps marching on, the same for all. The school day, week, and year is the same length for all. We haven't figured out how to create more time for those who need it. Making sure that they get it means taking time away from something else. In the end, there is no way that they will graduate from high school with the same body of knowledge and skills that those who didn't need as much time will.

Laws say that students are to be served in the "least restrictive environment." That means the regular classroom for most students, for most of their day.

We've got a couple of students now whose teachers and parents believed would be best served at our district's "independent living" program, where they focus on, not academics but how to manage a life in the faster-moving world. We couldn't get them in. They weren't quite "slow" enough.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. In my state you no longer have to have average range ability to be LD

You can have a 70 and if your achievement scores are 48 or below, you're considered LD.

Isn't that ridiculous?

[LWolf]

58. Yes.

Are these 70s supposed to be making AYP along with the rest?

[madfloridian]

16. I know the "correct" term. I was quoting a column.

Under the new "reforms" all kids must pass tests.

I taught over 30 years, and it is impossible to have that happen.

There is no excuse for this except that it is forced failure to benefit those who want to close public schools and privatize them.

[madfloridian]

18. Did you realize that NCLB standards were raised when success happened?

That and the 100% success rule meant the failure of the schools. You can't succeed when they keep raising the bar.

I still believe Howard Dean said it best in 2003.

"The president's ultimate goal," said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, "is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he's starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools."

"The standards are so ridiculous that every single public school in America will be deemed to be a school in need of improvement or a failing school by 2013," former Vermont governor Howard Dean said in a teleconference yesterday. He said the law, which he has pledged to dismantle, was "making education in America worse, not better."

..."As governor, Dean opposed No Child Left Behind and said Vermont would have to raise $80 million more from property taxes to implement it. Yesterday, he called the law an "intrusive mandate" and said Democratic candidates who voted for it were "co-opted" by Bush's agenda, which Dean says aims to "put public schools out of business."

"every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school."

[Eddie Haskell]

22. I suggest you go volunteer your services to a special ed class.

If one day on the job doesn't answer your questions, keep helping. These teachers need all the help they can get. The standardized tests aren't geared for individual disabilities.

It's like asking a paraplegic to run up steps.

Many of these students can't function w/o drugs ... drugs that can't be administered in school w/o the parents authority, and many parents won't give that authority. My wife struggled with one such student for two years. When she could no longer control the child, her supervisor sent the young man (7) to her "model" classroom. The student was given one-on-one instruction. They hired a big guy to help with restraint. Within a week the teacher was on disability with three broken fingers. She never returned to the classroom. Good luck.

[Honeycombe8]

26. But, my point is...if the child can't meet the standards, then that is a fact.

If the standards are reasonable, then someone either meets them or not, as a factual statement. Like applying to become a police officer or fireman. They have tests, both written and physical. You either pass or you don't. I don't agree with the proposition, which was bandied about long ago, that the standards for those tests should be bent to accommodate, say, women.

If you bend the standards for some, then the diploma doesn't mean anything. If you walk into a job interview with a diploma from a certain high school, that diploma should mean you've met certain minimum standards. If everyone knows that you get a diploma, even if you don't meet those standards, then the diploma isn't that helpful.

Just as not everyone can, or should, go to college...maybe it's true that not everyone can, or should, finish high school. Those would be rare instances, but in some instances, that is certainly true. I had a boyfriend once who had a sister who was mentally disabled. Everyone knew that she would never get an education. Her brain just wouldn't function at that level.

I don't think it does anyone any favor to pretend that someone made the grade, when they didn't.

[Eddie Haskell]

28. Many of these kids will never pass a test.

And, I don't give a shit who you get to teach. Why punish the schools? Why blame the teachers? Why discourage the student? My wife has a kid who's a math whiz (above grade level), but ask him how he got the answer and he hasn't a clue. Do the tests take his disability into consideration? Absolutely not! Instead, the correct answer is given almost no credit and the kid fails miserably. Now this is a kid that gets nearly every answer right.

This kid doesn't have much to crow about, but he's by far the best math student in his class. The test does nothing but demoralize the students and the staff. Fuck your testing! You want answers, go help out.

[Honeycombe8]

71. They aren't MY tests. If a child really has a disability, they are supposed to be

in special ed, aren't they?

It's a sad situation that some people have disabilities. They should be helped to meet their full potential. But their potential may not be a high school diploma. Did their parents insist they go to a regular school, I wonder? It offers a lot for such a child, but this may be one of the drawbacks.

It's not right to hurt the rest of the students by lowering the standards.

I'm not in favor of the tests that I hear about. OTOH, maybe the tests were instituted because of some schools passing kids on, when they didn't meet certain standards. When I was growing up, there were times where there was a really older kid in our grade; he wasn't passed on 'cause he couldn't or didn't make the grades. They kept him in the same grade.

Later on, though, I heard that those instances didn't happen, anymore. Complaints that kids were being held back, preventing them from finishing school. Causing them to drop out. So the schools were passing them on. Which meant they got out of high school without even being able to read well, much less do math or know anything about science. Not a favor to the kid. Not a favor to the other kids who held the same diploma and DID have good reading skills and such.

[pnwmom]

38. What you don't understand is that NCLB fails whole schools

if 100 percent of the kids in all categories -- including special ED and ESL -- don't meet the required standard by a certain year. It's an INSANE law.

[Honeycombe8]

72. Yes, that doesn't sound right to include ED. I don't know what ESL is. nt

[wickerwoman]

73. English as a second language.

:hi:

[jwirr]

45. The majority of special ed children are not like that last student you

are talking about - I have worked with special ed clients for 55 years and have met exactly two violent students - one who was also mentally ill and the other was abused by his father and had learned the lesson well.

[pnwmom]

37. Forget the labels. Even among typical learners, there is a wide variation

of developmental readiness. By forcing all first graders to the same standard, you are boring some to tears and making others feel like failures -- though if they had been allowed to learn at their own pace, they might have learned to love reading!

What a horrible system. The only people who benefit are the test manufacturers.

[sulphurdunn]

57. Almost all special needs children

are educated to the extent possible with their non-disabled peers. It is one of the most enlightening aspects of federal education law. They are no longer shut away in windowless rooms in segregated wings or in the basements of schools. NCLB has perverted this system by requiring most of those children to meet the same academic standards as their classmates. NCLB is an evil perversion, well intended or not that aides and abets the destruction of public education.

As for standards: People tend to forget that K-12 education is compulsory. We've imposed this requirement in the belief it would produce responsible citizens, not just skills for the labor market.

[quaker bill]

10. The bottom line is simple

Regardless of how you measure it, roughly half of our children have less than average intelligence, a small portion are average, and roughly half are above average. Some are born ahead and some are born behind. It is our nature and nothing education can do will ever fix this. Every child deserves good and appropriate service from public education, but this can never mean that they all come out the same, because it will never happen.

No one wants to admit that their own kids are less smart than average, so it is easier to blame the system, the teachers, the politicians... This is why one does not make education a political football.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Life is a bell curve

Can't get around that.

[quaker bill]

31. Instead you need to recognize it

and deal with it. Some of us will never be rocket scientists or biochemists, this does not mean they should be poor or treated poorly.

[DrunkenBoat]

52. yes, you can. I'm sorry to hear that you as an educator agree with that poster.

IQ tests = the bunk.

Pseudo-science.

[quaker bill]

55. meaure it anyway you want

Having raised some, kids are not born equal. Many have talents that are not academic. One can and should attempt to make the most of each child, but they are not ever coming out equal. There is nothing "wrong" about this, each should be celebrated for their gifts with the understanding that they are not the same.

[DrunkenBoat]

56. no one said they were 'equal' if by 'equal' you mean the same.

that's irrelevant to the question of whether some abstract quality of general intelligence exists which is measured by intelligence tests and lines up on a bell curve in populations.

[quaker bill]

78. Walk about in reality

it does not actually take a test to figure this out. Limbaugh has many fans, figure it out.

Argue with any testing instrument you care to. Any testing instrument measures something, one can endlessly aruge about what it actually measures, and that is fine.

In science this is called a method error, the result is real, but the inference taken from it is false. I have lived long enough to have met many people that education, regardless of what one might do with it, were never going to be rocket scientists or biochemists. There may be no instrument that measures this observation adequately, but the observation remains valid.

There is no good evidence that whatever this is, and however you care to measure it, will not be the result of random assortment and have a relatively normal distribution.

[tblue37]

35. No--you are confusing the mean with an average. Average intelligence is

the level that MOST people are at. A small percentage will fall under or over the average, a smaller percentage will fall a lot below or above the average, but the average is average precisely because it is where most people fall.

Example ( with money):

If 101 people are in a room, and each person earns a different amount of money, list those amounts in a column. The amount that ranks #51 is the mean. Every amount below #51 is an income "below the mean." every amount above it is "above the mean."

Now, assume that every single person but one makes $20,00 per year. That one exception makes $100 million per year. The AVERAGE income for that group is $196,274,509, even though all but one person makes only $20,000 per year, because the average is figured by adding all 51 numbers together and then dividing by the total amount earned by the group, which is $100 million + $100,000 (i.e., 50 x $20,000).

Oh, and the reason why the Bell curve has such a huge hump around the middle is that MOST people fall within that range, which is the average range.

[DrunkenBoat]

53. The reason is because the tests are designed to create that pattern.

The assumption being that

1) the tests measure something 'real' about something called 'intelligence' and
2) this abstracted something called 'intelligence' *should* fall out in a bell curve.

unfortunately for those assumptions, entire populations regularly fall out of the 'correct' pattern over time (miraculously getting smarter) & the tests have to be renormed to make them give the 'correct' result once more.

[Obamanaut]

59. I consider myself to be of average intelligence, and your example

confuses me.

If 100 of the 101 people make $20,000, and the other makes $100 million, would one divide the total earnings by the total people (101) rather than only 51? And the earnings of the 100 would be $2,000,000 (100 x $20,000)?

Then, $102,000,000 / 101 = $1,009,900 (and some change) for an average, but 100 of the participants are way down on the lower leg of that bell curve. Way.

[tblue37]

74. That's because the average includes one person who is so far outside

the norm that he skews the average.

The concept of average intelligence refers specifically to the average intelligence of most people in the population, without concern for someone way outside the norm. No one has an intelligence 50 times the average, so we don't have that sort of skewing. But in the income example I was just using the average achieved by dividing the overall total by the number of individual units as a way of showing the difference between average and median, though I stupidly used "mean" when I should have used "median." (I always screw that up!)

The median is the middle value in a list of numbers.

The mathematical mean, or average, is what I was showing with the income example.

But the word "average" has a different meaning, too, and that is that it represents the NORM, the most common value in a group.

In the case of intelligence mmeasurements, the score that represents the norm (or average) is 100, because the tests were designed so that most people would score at or near 100. Anyone far above or below that score would be outside the average, but most would be right around it.

[Obamanaut]

77. Not only does the one guy skew the average, but I think some of your

numbers are not quite right.

Here's my question again: "If 100 of the 101 people make $20,000, and the other makes $100 million, would one divide the total earnings by the total people (101) rather than only 51? And the earnings of the 100 would be $2,000,000 (100 x $20,000)?"

It looks to me like your example is erroneous.

[tblue37]

80. Yes, of course. I was rushing in and out, and I screwed up by conflating the

#51 that was the median with the 101 total number of people I was using for both the median and the average. I just shouldn't mess with numbers when racing from one errand to another!

[markpkessinger]

65. I don't think that's quite right ...

If 101 people are in a room, and each person earns a different amount of money, list those amounts in a column. The amount that ranks #51 is the mean. Every amount below #51 is an income "below the mean." every amount above it is "above the mean."

No, I think you're confusing "mean" with "median" here. Technically, an average can be expressed either as an (1) an arithmetic mean (which is what most people mean by the word "average," where you take the sum of a group and divide it by the number of members in that group), (2) a median (or the exact midpoint of the sample above and below which 50% of the sample will fall), or a mode (the most frequently occurring value in a sample.

[tblue37]

75. Yes, I am--I always do. Don't know why. But the median is what he was

referring to, and that is different from "average" in the sense of "norm," which is what "average intelligence" refers to.

[pnwmom]

39. Yeah, but the people making this law must have scored in the bottom half

of the logic scale.

[DrunkenBoat]

51. No, the bottom line is *not* simple at all. I agree the goal of education

shouldn't be to make kids come out the same.

But not because half have less than average intelligence and half have above average intelligence.

If you know how intelligence tests are constructed and normed and redesigned and how this supposed "intelligence" has steadily risen since those silly tests were first created, you know that IQ tests are the bunk, designed to justify & reinforce the artificial hierarchy that preexisted them, not because they represent anything real having to do with "intelligence".

entire populations regularly fall out of the 'correct' pattern over time (miraculously getting smarter) & the tests have to be renormed to make them give the 'correct' result once more.

not to mention that the results of individual iq tests vary over the lifetime of the individual and that intervention (or lack of it) & familiarity with test forms can raise & lower scores.

[chervilant]

60. hmm...

Our co-opted system of public education has--for decades now--convinced two-thirds to three-quarters of us that we have 'average' or 'below average' intellects. This is a load of El Toro Poo Poo, as is demonstrated by contemporary research on timed IQ tests. When the 'timed' aspect of an IQ test is eliminated, most test subjects score 'near genius' on the test.

I contend that humans learn in different ways and at different paces. The most powerful evidence I have for my contention is my work with my students. When I remind them that we all have fully functioning brains, FULLY capable of learning whatever we WANT to learn, profound things ensue. But, first, I have to help them overcome the psychic wound inflicted--I believe--by years of poisonous pedagogy, wherein we are relentlessly told that most of us have average or below average intellects (hmm...I wonder whose is THAT agenda?). Importantly, I take the hierarchy out of intelligence, helping the majority of my students 'unlearn' several myths about their intellects.

By convincing the majority of us that we are mental midgets, the PTB remain secure in their economic hegemony. (Plus, this falsehood benefits the uber wealthy further as the basic underpinning of our species' divisive anti-intellectualism.)

Abraham Maslow contended that we humans have an intrinsic need to create or achieve. *WHAT* we create or *WHAT* we achieve is as varied as there are humans on this planet. I would add that we humans fervently desire to be recognized or esteemed for what we create or achieve (which is a likely explanation for our species' preoccupation with personal *power* as measured by *wealth*).

Indeed, our species *thrives* on esteem and recognition. If we hope to help our ignorant slobs fellow humans recognize the stultifying and objectifying Bernaysian mindset cultivated by the corporatists bent on securing their hegemony at our expense, we must extend to our fellow humans the esteem and recognition that is the raison d'etre of our species.

[RegieRocker]

20. Whom or those that wrote this policy are mentally challenged.

[Eddie Haskell]

21. My Republican rep wants vouchers ...

He claims they'll level the playing field. When I pointed out that private schools aren't required to take the challenged ... he shrugged. So much for a level playing field. They're out to destroy public education and saddling the schools with impossible (though seemingly lofty) goals is part of their plan.

[madfloridian]

23. Exactly right.

They don't even bother to disguise it much anymore. I much resent Democrats being part of it, in fact pushing it.

[Eddie Haskell]

25. I agree.

Maybe it's time to admit that no one works for our best interests. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

[chervilant]

61. Already there... n/t

[jwirr]

46. You have hit the nail on the head. They do not want their privileged

children in schools with those disabled kids!

[madfloridian]

29. There's a great comment there by teacherken from Daily Kos.

"teacherken
Diane had it write in early 2009 when she described Arne Duncan as Margaret Spellings in drag - only in so many ways he is worse.

This administration has done more damage to public education in less than 3 years than its predecessor did during 8 years.

I long thought I would continue teaching at least until I was 70. I turn 66 in May and begin to seriously think this will be my last year. What is happening to education makes it harder and harder to teach with integrity. I have been resisting as best I can by blogging, by helping organize the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action, by lobbying Members of Congress personally, by becoming active in my union, by participating in a variety of networks.

I am tired. I am worn down. I find it easy to become depressed. Not only has this administration undercut public education, we have the additional specter of it being destroyed in state after state - Wisconsin, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio immediately come to mind."

From the WP link.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/who-won-a-2007-bet-on-no-child-left-behind/2011/09/26/gIQAwBBi0K_blog.html

[Doremus]

30. Thank you for your diligence in shining the spotlight on these problems. K&R

[WinkyDink]

32. The te$t purveyor$ are dumb like the proverbial fox.

[madfloridian]

33. Test-making companies, test-scoring companies, testing security companies.

Ain't it amazing? All that money from testing.

[pnwmom]

40. Yes. They're the only winners. n/t

[Reader Rabbit]

41. Thanks for sharing this, mad. K&R

[OnyxCollie]

42. K&R. nt

[dogmoma56]

54. F'n psychotic Reich Wingers..

[LibDemAlways]

62. The powers that be in my local district have cooked up a plan

that denies certain privileges to students (no matter what their disability) who fail to do well on standardized tests.

Here's a recent article. Read it and weep.

http://www.theacorn.com/news/2011-09-15/Front_Page/Student_with_disabilities_denied_lunch_privileges.html

[dash_bannon]

64. NCLB Needs to Be Left Behind

How could Democrats agree to NCLB? Seriously, do their corporate masters have that much sway over them so they look the other way?

Republicans I can understand wanting to gut public education, but Democrats? We lefties seriously need to take the Democratic Party over.

[KamaAina]

66. Minor quibble: The phrase "mentally retarded" is considered offensive by self-advocates.

They're "people with intellectual disabilities".

There's actually no reason most such people couldn't perform at a "challenging" level at their grade level, which, by definition, will not correspond with their chronological age. But Arne probably won't grasp that. :eyes:

[madfloridian]

67. I am quoting the editor of the column. I know the pc terminology.

[madrchsod]

68. "mentally retarded" !!!!!!

what the fuck is up with that?!

[alp227]

69. Hmm, I recently found on youtube a commentary

by (I know, I know...) Michael Savage complaining about how schools aren't helping the gifted students enough and are thus wasting potential http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXJ_pfLQSzA&feature=related

[sulphurdunn]

76. Football NCLB League

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, that team will be on probation until it is the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship or are sold to private owners.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time, even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or of their personal disabilities or those of their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL or the team may be sold to private owners.

3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football. Many coaches may retire or go to work for private owners.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. This will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind. If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad football players in public schools which do not yet have private owners.