As is so often the case with government, the No Child Left Behind initiative started from a perfectly reasonable concern that there ought to be more accountability in the public schools. But at least in our state it has morphed into an unreasonable monster.
This week my grade-school grandchildren are supposed to spend four hours a day all week long in intensive testing. The testing is not designed in any way to help the individual students, but simply to help the school administration meet bureaucratic guidelines. And in preparation for these tests, their teachers have been forced to spend most of the year to this point cramming into them the narrow field of facts covered on the tests, instead of nurturing their curiosity and creativity and problem-solving skills and writing skills and the other things which really matter in education.
Proponents in Washington may delude themselves that these tests are for the benefit of the students. A friend of mine who is a teacher told me how the teachers in her school just got back the test results for the children in their class, so that they could use the results to guide remedial work with those students --- except that the results were for LAST YEAR’S class, students who have already moved on to another school.
Just today I heard about a local mother whose third grade daughter is home ill with anxiety. It seems she is an outstanding student who dearly loves her teacher, and that teacher has made it plain to this little third grade girl that her job depends on the girl doing well in the tests, since her results improve the class’s standing. THIS IS SICK!!!
The politicians in Washington may think this program is doing great things. Maybe it is somewhere in the nation, but not anywhere I have heard of, and certainly not here. This is a classic case of a government agency undertaking a perfectly reasonable initiative, and then botching it thoroughly in the execution. It’s also another classic demonstration that government bureaucracies – local, state and federal – will always, by their very nature, care more about their own internal politics than the public – in this case our children – that they are supposed to serve.
Parents who are paying attention and who care about their children ought to be up in arms about this. I’m proud to say one of my daughters is rebelling, and has been holding her children out of school during the testing periods so they can do something more productive and educational. I suggest more parents need to be proactive in defense of their children.
Posts
