The Real Problem With ‘No Child Left Behind’

There is another aspect of NCLB that should be discussed more often as a bad idea, although I understand why you would focus on the race equality aspects of the law. The aspect I am referring to is the artificial levels of achievement that are set for each year, then raised again the following year. It is as if the government has mandated that all children in the school should run a four minute mile in order for the school to remain complaint. If the school is not complaint, funds are cut. Whether the children succeed at running that four minute mile or not, the following year they are expected to run a three minute and 45 seconds mile.

Where NCLB has affected my children is the Attendance assessment. Because my children are sick often (we have a weak immunity system passed along the generations), they missed a lot of school. In the past this would not be a problem because they would just catch up with whatever work they missed. But now NCLB demands a set percentage of attendance schoolwide. Since the new hatchetman/principal was called in to get the school into compliance, he revoked my children’s transfer permit since we lived outside the school boundaries. Now we must go to the high risk, lesser quality school nearby or homeschool. There is no forgiveness for being sick, even though my kids completed all their work AND scored high academically, especially my eleven year old who was sick the most.

NCLB is just a terrible thing to do to children. It hasn’t benefited us, or the other 12 families that had their transfer permits revoked. In essence, our children are being punished for getting sick, despite their best efforts to keep up with their studies. Simply insane.

Wow. What a long rant. I appreciate a forum where I can post this. I’m sure other parents are just as frustrated with this law as I am, and as you are.

“The longing to possess what is not ours may cause us to neglect what is ours. ”

That says a lot. I never looked at it that way.

I always kind of doubted the reasoning behind NCLB. When I was in grade school they used to break us up into reading groups based on ability. To me, NCLB is kind of like having all of 3rd grade in one reading group and dedicating your attention to the 2 or 3 kids who don’t get it — who, in effect, slow everyone else down. Does it make sense to drain finite educational resources away from average kids and high-achieving kids in order to bring the bottom end up to simply being marginal?

La Shawn, a couple of questions:

1) What do you mean by: “But in a country with diverse races, some which possess greater abilities than others …”? I want to make sure I’m not reading something into that statement you didn’t intend.

2) Can you explain for me what effect, if any, the fear of “acting white” has on overall black achievement? Where I come from, there’s a largely white demographic, the communities are basically middle class, but the schools are all good and well-funded and there’s still an achievement gap. A news reporter was asking local guidance counselors about it, most of whom gave the standard liberal party-line responses.

Then, he asked the black counselor who gave an answer I don’t think the reporter expected. He didn’t blame institutional racism, etc., but instead talked, among other things, about how smart black kids are afraid to do well in school for fear of being labelled by their black peers as “acting white”.

I wasn’t familiar with that term and am curious what you would make of it.

There are problems with NCLB, no doubt. Still, on the whole, I think it’s a good idea if there are changes that can be made. It needs some tweaking.
I’m a board member for a small fairly rural school (”fairly rural” means that we’re our own school district, close to but still outside a couple of cities) with virtually no blacks (speaking %s) but nearly half of our school are Mexican derived. You could also say that the school’s children are pretty much the children of the owners of local Ag properties and the children of those who work for them. The rich and the poor. NCLB has had it’s impact on us – both good and bad, imo. It has required us to break down the categories so that we can identify as a group those who are not succeeding. Not surprisingly, they aren’t black, white, or mexican – they’re poor(I think the term is “socio-economically deprived”). We are required (because this identifiable group didn’t meet the required standards improvement)to set aside money for individual tutoring from an independent source. This seems like a good idea, but after one year’s application, maybe not. Why not is a different question. I asked our administrator if she thought that the problem was one of family background or if the kids were just “dummies”(defined by me as kids who don’t qualify as special ed, but who are just plain slow learners). In her opinion, the problem is due to the failure of the home environment to adequately socialize the kids and failure to expose them to language. By the time they get to us in first grade, they are already 2-3 years behind in language capability. I asked her if she thought they could _ever_ catch up – she didn’t sound very hopeful, but apparently there is a software program that has been proven very successful. It’s also very expensive – not only in the cost of the program itself, but also due to the fact that in order to benefit from it, we need to nearly double our computer inventory. Fortunately, Calif is providing us with a large amount of “one time” money this year – and that’s where we’re going to spend it. Will we succeed? I hope so. I don’t think the standards are so high that it’s impossible to meet them. The goal of NCLB, I believe, is to counteract the “soft” prejuidice that allows teachers to ignore kids that have a disadvantaged background with the aphorism of “s/he did really well for a __________(fill in the blank)”. This says we have to address the capabilities of _every_ child.

The reason I am in favor of NCLB is that it provides a national standard against which parents can – if they care – measure the “A’s” their school gives agains the “A’s” that everybody else gives. It’s up to the parents – if they care – to act against their board to get people elected who will change the system if it needs changing. If I were to be able to wave my magic wand and change _anything_, it would be to break down school districts and the boards which manage them so that no more than 1-3 schools would be managed by any one board. I’d do that so that the vote of the people served by that board wouldn’t be diluted, but would allow the voters to make changes if change is needed. It’s true that money spent in administration can be saved by concentration, and often efficiency is increased. That’s a plus, but it must be weighed against the loss of control by the voters. The less local, the less responsive to the voter, and the harder it is to get change. I also think boards should be volunteer, but that’s a different issue.
I know that you, La Shawn, are against public schools – and I understand why. It pains me to hear some of the horror stories I hear. I don’t believe those problems _need_ to exist in the public schools, but I agree that public policy which is controlled by state and federal law ouside the schools’ control can be detrimental to young people and unless we can get a reversal of some of those policies, public schools are going to have a tough time changing anything.
By the way – our very small school – 260 full time students, grades 1-8 – also has a home school and a charter high school(home school). I don’t claim that we’re your typical public school!

LaShawn, as usual you keep it hard hittin’, and you’re dead on. The problem in the underachieving Black community IS lack of adherence to moral and educational standards IN THE HOME.

It sickens and saddens me to see a grown Black male (not worthy of being called a man) living with his Momma, when I know he isn’t trying to better himself. These guys spend their time making babies that they will never support and existing on the fringes of society.

I speak from experience, and I know I’m not alone. I’ve got a brother and cousins and know many other Black males who are just existing and taking up space. They act foolishly because usually their mothers enable them to, and have enabled them to all their lives. There are no fathers to speak of.

I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. No amount of money or social programs will fix this problem. Liberal thinking has destroyed the Black family.

LaShawn says 70% of black children are born into unmarried black female headed households. The U.S. Census Bureau says it’s more like 56% which is still very very bad, but the raw number is about 6.1 million. In unmarried white female headed household it’s only 18% of white children but the raw number is about 8.9 million. So if we compare these two groups, are there differences that are split along racial lines? And if so, are those differences attributable to genetics or access (or denial of access) to resources. I don’t know, but I’m curious if there are studies out there.

I grew up black in a black family with black friends. Went to school with whites all the way up to the professional level. But my daughters attended 98% black Detroit (Michigan)Public schools. My 20 yr. old graduated with honors from high school and is a Junior at Michigan State University. My seventeen year old is, sadly, no longer an all A student but she is like 3.9 and a member of the national honor society. Both of them speak very articulately and ran into a little of that “you talk white” stuff but it didn’t bother them or us, the parents. Most of their friends are of the same demographic; middle class black families. I attribute their success primarily to strong involvement from loving parents/caregivers. I agree that NCLB is failing. Partly because the federal government put a heavy burden on the state and local governments to bring all children to a competent level without providing sufficient funding and resources. But I also agree that it’s nearly impossible to legislate strong, loving parental/caregiver involvement.

LaShawn says slavery in America was not unique, but a close study will show that there were differences. Southern slave owners in particular, broke up families, banned education and wreaked violence on slaves much more so than northern slave owners and those slave owning countries in the Caribbean and in South America. My source was:
Inhuman bondage: the rise and fall of slavery in the New World,(2006) by Davis, David Brion. Black males from other countries will often note the differences they have with American born black males. I’m not making any judgmental statements about the differences but I think the comment by Annie’s husband has a ring of truth: that is, it is different growing up black in a sea of black faces versus growing up black in a sea of white faces.

Another good comment. Re: the out of wedlock birth rate, the oft-quoted 70 percent figure is more accurate than the purported 56 percent rate, which is still high, as we both agree. In some places the rate is closer to 80 percent. – Admin

>>I’m not an educator like suek>>

I’m suek, and I’m not an educator either. Members of the board set policy(when we can – policy is frequently highly restricted and determined by the state)and most importantly hire administration which puts those policies in place. People often think that it is a good thing to have educators as members of the board. I disagree. I prefer to have parents of school children and other members of the community on the board. While I don’t totally agree with that old saw that “Those who can,do. Those who can’t, teach”, nevertheless, I think it’s frequently the penchant of the educated(and over-educated) to intellectualize and debate way too much, and decide too little. That probably includes me…but we also have a hardware store owner(founded 1906), a member who runs the transportation department of a large sod producing company, a former personnel manager, the owner/manager of a lemon grove and me. I have no credentials other than basic education, 5 kids, obviously a sucker since I was the 4-H local leader, and at the time we all were elected to replace the board which was recalled at the same time, the only female. I was the “token” female, but I never let that bother me. As I said, it’s a small school. Small town. Good place to be.
Only one of us now has a child still in the school, but we all did at one point or another.
Sometimes board members run for election thinking that’s a good way to get into bigger and better political office – fortunately none of us presently on the board are so inclined. We all look on it as a job _someone_ has to do and for now, we’re IT.

First there are several red herrings in this debate…

RH- Asians are smartest. Huge red herring. The modern Asian immirgrant is a merchant. Their culture _IN THIS_COUNTRY_ is one of being a merchant and educating your child as completely as possible (this too is a stereo-type — growing up in Philly I can tell you, they have their own set of ignorant-yet-dangerous.)

RH- Blacks are intellectually inferior. Huge red herring. The creation two of the most popular American art forms – Rock and Roll and Hip Hop, not to mention Jazz, Gospel and disco (I know. Don’t blame us, you white folks ruined it)– is not the work of an unintellegent person.)

RH-Inner city white =inner city black. Huge red herring. The two are not equal. Black folk make up approximately 70% of Washington DC. But of DC’s poor? Over 90%.

Look, the determining factor in this matter is environment.

And Lashawn, I am disappointed that you so readily concead matters of intellegence so easily. The intellegent “negroid” is no more an anomily than the “slack jawed caucasian”.

Say what you want about public education. But I won’t let your white readers assume that they are just naturally more gifted than I am.

Disappointed or not, I’m going by objective measurements, such as scores and grades. While there are other factors that contribute to the underachievement of black students, I think it’s wise to focus on things like raising IQ scores and standardized test performances. If you don’t like the measurements, don’t take it out on me. I don’t make the rules. I’m just reporting the facts. When I write what I do, I’m always referring to generalities.

At any given point a black student can outscore and out-test a white student. But generally speaking, black students lag behind their white peers. That’s a fact. And speaking of red herrings, where did I say that an intelligent black person was an anomoly? Please don’t read into the post what I didn’t communicate and don’t use my blog as a dumping ground for your frustration. – Admin

“The longing to possess what is not ours may cause us to neglect what is ours. ”

Or it could be used to help drive and motivate us to achieve more.

I’m not dumping a thing, Lashawn. Your preamble about coveting that which you weren’t given may be read in multiple ways. It needed to be addressed.

And the use of statistics does not address the point that you just made…that any single black student has as good if not better a chance to outscore any single white student on any single exam or test.

But when test scores are offered as evidence of something, more often than not, that something takes us down a very un-cool, and un-true, path.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, though!

You knew we weren’t going to agree on everything, anyway.

“Dumping” is exactly how it read to me. – Admin

LaShawn, No Child Left Behind isn’t failing. It’s right on course to accomplishing what it set out to do, create a national standard in education.

We can’t fall into the trap of believing this is about the children. From the state’s point of view that this is about the state. Ed. Secretary calls it “getting a return on their investment”.

This is about the state first and their goals. That is, to create a workforce for the 21st century. That’s why you have people like Governor Jeb Bush of Florida passing a law recently to require 14 and 15 year olds to declare a career major like you do in college. Most kids can’t decide what to wear to the prom let alone decide what to be when they grow up. Yet, that state and South Carolina both require it. Michigan, my home state, is headed in that direction too. You watch, more states will follow suit in the next few years.

If we were serious about educating in the best interest of the child, we would quit testing and start teaching. Black, white, and everyone else. Instead, we test, test, test. This benefits no one but the state and the union leaders who elect them. Most rank and file members hate the testing aspect of their job.

In a public Q&A recently, I asked Micheal Flanagan our State Superintendant of Public Instruction what it meant to be “well educated”? He stammered and said, he hadn’t thought much about it. No one had ever asked him that before! I’m serious. My only regret was not having my video camera handy. It was a comedy routine. Except that it was sad. Here’s the man in charge of educating the children in our state and he couldn’t tell me what it means to be “well educate”!?! Yet, he was there to give a talk on reforming our education!

Don’t be fooled, this isn’t about what’s best for the children. No Child Left Behind leaves ALL children behind at the benefit of the state. We all suffer when we allow the state to have this much control over the minds and hearts of our nation’s children.

>>If we were serious about educating in the best interest of the child, we would quit testing and start teaching.>>

How do you know what the child knows if you don’t test? How can you teach if you don’t know where to begin?

>>It’s right on course to accomplishing what it set out to do, create a national standard in education.

This is about the state first and their goals. That is, to create a workforce for the 21st century.

Don’t be fooled, this isn’t about what’s best for the children.>>

These three sentences jumped out at me…I’m very confused by them. What do you see as best for children? What’s wrong with a national standard for education? Don’t you think children need to be raised to work to support themselves and their families in the future?

>>… he couldn’t tell me what it means to be “well educate(d)”!>>

So…what does “well educated” mean to _you_?

I am staggered when I remember that Abe Lincoln had only about 2 years’ total schooling (and perhaps it only added up to as little as one year).
And yet he knew Shakespeare and the Bible and the Noah Webster Dictionary and Euclid.
Like most men of his era, he was mostly self-educated (sometimes in a cabin, reading by firelight). But at least he had the best stuff to read!

Imagine if he had been raised by the state–told that as a poor farmer he was the “victim” of eastern factory interests; that he was given dumbed-down books to read with easy vocabulary he was never expected to progress beyond; that he was told the only reason he would want to study Euclid was because he wanted to ape the Eastern factory crowd (and hence he would be accused of selling out); and so on.
What might he have become?

George Washington only had about a 6th grade education. Yet his letters are examples of elegance in prose. He must have something other to read better than “Hiawatha had two mothers”.

No Child Left Behind fails because was is needed is No Family Divided. Begin with that, and then feed the kids with the “meat” of our civilization instead of pablum. And don’t waste our future Lincolns.

Since we just cant seem to get away from classifying problems as just problems, but rather in skin color…..though I agree in part with what has been written…

I must be different because I grew up with alot of incredibly smart black peers who were consistently in the top 10% of the class in a majority white school. One of them became valedictorian.

Then again, I had both parents who stressed education and achievement and I was a great student. I was blessed to have this. I have four brothers and we all graduated with honors from college. I even equated my self-worth with getting good grades all the time.

I no longer think this way. It is infinitely important that kids today off all races learn that getting good grades and achieving great things in school and life is not all that matters.

Joseph C. Phillips says that black kids want to be basketball players and hip hop stars rather than doctors and lawyers…but so does every other color of kid…what is so wrong with that?

I’ll bet he wanted to be a ball player of some sort at some point in his childhood. We all did.

First and foremost, kids today of all colors need to learn about Christ, about morality, about character, telling the truth, honoring their parents, their elders and etc. Very few are being taught these things. Is this part of the NCLB law?

Black families, White families, Asian, all colors and creeds worship the almighty dollar. Worth is determined by what you own and how much you have. It’s all about me me me. Even christians talk about being successful in life and business all the time. We worship the blessings of life, not the One who does the blessing. Achievement in school, career and business is the measuring stick today.

It wont matter if you got into Harvard or made straight A’s when you pass away…it will matter if you believed on Christ.

The family unit is being destroyed by bad decision-making, deception, idolatry and a lack of morality. It is in no way unique to “black” families. It is just evidence of our downward spiral as a nation in these last days….

Now, I’m the anti-intellectual…

Spunky said “Sure I do, but that’s not the goal of education. That’s the fruit of a well educated person. When the goal is “job training” the mind is closed to learning beyond the scope of that occupation.

Hmmm. Or, you could have it backwards. A student with no idea what he wants to do has no impulse to take hold of his education at all. You can tell a kid who wants to be a mechanic, “learn this because it will help you in this way.” But there is no handle at all for a child who just plain doesn’t want to do anything.

That’s why choosing a “career major” at a young age is so damaging to our society. An auto mechanic may never need poetry but he is a better individual and better educated if he studies the great poets. Limiting his education to job usefulness limits our whole society from greatness. “

I don’t recall any initiative that said that the kids in mechanic track could not take English. That straw man is a little silly.

TWillOO, my comment was referring to the choosing a “career major” in ninth grade. Sure they take English but that’s not the focus or concentration. We are moving towward carerr cluster high schools. So a child who declares a major is then tracked for the next four years and beyond.

And to your first point, The goal of education is not a job. That type of motivation works well for a time, but in the long run it locks kids in and is actually a demotivator toward work in long term.

These are things that require quite a bit of background information to totally understand completely. It is so hard in a one or two comments to fully establish the concepts completely.

Baltimore City College, a high school, has a high concentration of poor students who are Black.

The same high school scored in the top 5 in Maryland on the Maryland tests.

The KIPP charter middle school in Baltimore is the only middle school in the city where most students performed at or above grade level. KIPP students are mostly poor.

Why am I writing this “ancedote”?

Because poor kids, even if they come from single family homes, can learn.

Too many people don’t expect them to learn, so they live down to those expectations. Even those who claim to be concerned with education, have low expectations for these students.

On a personal level, I am seeing the affect of those “kids from single mother homes are most likey to fail” comments. People don’t realize, or care, about the added damage they are doing.

I do care.

It’s one reason why I try to keep positive. It’s one reason why I point out the studies that show the “acting white” claim is overblown.

But what do I know? I’m called a “liberal”, a “pollyana” or it’s said “I have my head stuck in the sand.”

How many of you have talked to a poor Black “kid” who is achieving, and have listened to that kid say they get discouraged with the comments that because of their background, they are not expected to achieve?

You want to say that’s liberal comments only? Take a look at this thread.

Not sure whether this comment is for my benefit or whether you’re responding to someone else. But let me address a few points. I never said poor kids couldn’t learn, and the terseness and absurdity of such a remark leaves me speechless. But I’ll force myself to continue. My point is that kids growing up in unstable, low-income homes where education is not a priority have a much harder time succeeding academically. Not only that, but because of living in fatherless homes and “fatherless” neighborhoods, these kids have an even harder time learning and internalizing the qualities that give them a good fighting chance earning a decent living and becoming married fathers and mothers themselves. Traditional values, so to speak, are not instilled and passed down through generations of families that don’t bother getting married before they produce offspring. Since I don’t want to risk misreading your comment, as you sometimes misread my posts, that’s all I’ll say for now. – Admin

“the longing to possess what is not ours may cause us to neglect what is ours”- absolutely brilliant LaShawn!

Now on to my points…

Point 1: Anti-intellectualism is running rampant in MAINSTREAM American culture. Any mention of black American anti-intellectualism should acknowledge that it is a microcosm of the dumbing down of mainstream, white America.

Point 2: Southern culture in its origins, is anti-intellectual, and continues to be so to this day. Recall the ideological differences between the Puritans who went north, and the other colonialists that went south. The former was focused on developing intrinsic human capabilities through liberal education & moral groundings, while the latter was focused on improving materal life through labor and capital.

Point 3: To say there is nothing unique about the black experience in the West is to claim that all slave systems have been identical throughout history. Any thorough reading of history shows this to be false. I think even Thomas Sowell would acknowledge this. What differentiates slavery in America from various other forms of slavery worldwide was the destruction of social norms surrounding gender relations/breeding. A common misconception among conservatives is that the primary reason for the plight of today’s black underclass is the decline in family values and rise in out-of-wedlock births. While this is true, the assumption that the black family was once strong is false, at least when compared to whites in America. Yes marriage rates were higher 50-100 years ago, but slavery made it difficult for blacks to adopt normal marriage customs, and gender relations. 100 years ago black marriage rates were substantially lower than white marriage rates, as they continue to be today.

Read Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson’s Rituals of Death. Take solace in the fact that Patterson is definitely not a liberal, and often criticizes the liberal/ feel-good tendencies of his discipline…which is why he’s one of the few sociologists that is widely respected outside of the field. He is probably the best contemporary scholar on slave societies worldwide.

Point 4: To say that we can’t blame Jim Crow for the achievement gap is akin to saying that environment means nothing. “Culture” is a prouduct of environment…it’s not innate, as racialist scientists would have you believe.

While I’m critical of liberal policies rooted in white guilt, reasoned compassion calls for further attempts to remedy the injustices of the past. LaShawn I agree with you on government sanctioned wealth redistribution…I have trouble believing that financial reparations are the answer to black America’ problems. Like your companion Star Parker, I believe that black America’s problems are America’s problems on a much smaller scale.

-the progressive conservative

La Shawn, no wonder there is so much of a time lapse between your posts. Not only are you a busy lady, but you provode such profound discussions! WOW!

I agree with Liz’s opinion of one weakness of NCLB. The focus is on low achieving students. I was a pushy enough mother that I made sure my kids qualified for the gifted program by junior high. I knew that there would be fewer discipline problems and less repetition because teachers wouldn’t have to deal with students who didn’t do the work.
Tracking students according to skill level is held in very low regard by most administrators today. But I think it is essential. In every other field, we put students in classes according to skill level: music, dance, athletics. But in academics, high achieving students are expected to sacrifice their own potential to bring the low achieving students up. And I don’t see any evidence it works. And why would it. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I recently took tap dance at age 50. I was not good, but there were people who were worse than I was…they were frustrated by their lack of progress and dropped out. The better ones were bored; they also dropped out. We were down to the two of us middle people, who stayed because basically we don’t like to quit things in the middle, and we really wanted to tap dance. This illustrates what happens in mixed classrooms…only you have mandatory attendance, so now you have discipline problems.
We need to somehow influence administrators to see the importance of tracking.

But let me address a few points. I never said poor kids couldn’t learn, and the terseness and absurdity of such a remark leaves me speechless.

You think it terse and absurd. I agree it is terse, but that’s my nature. I don’t say a lot when a little will get the point across. You think it absurd, but I don’t because of what I hear some young Blacks say about the “conversations” about them. This is from mostly direct conversations. So, while you wonder at the absurdity of the comment from me, can you also wonder how those young people have derived their thoughts from the conversations of older people about them?

[The ABSURDITY I was speaking of, DS, is you thinking I wrote or implied that poor kids couldn't learn. You are so quick to be contrary that you don't read carefully enough. I never said nor do I think that poor kids can't learn. You are misreading my words once again. And I have no doubt whatsoever that some kids feel discouraged when people quote negative statistics, but it doesn't mean we should ignore facts and pretend it's all about money or teachers' attitudes. The primary problem, in my opinion, is in the home. As long as I'm able, I won't stop writing or talking about it, and my doing those things doesn't stop anyone else from doing or saying what they believe is important. - Admin]

My point is that kids growing up in unstable, low-income homes where education is not a priority have a much harder time succeeding academically.

Yes, and my thought is the grouping of these young people into a group that is more likely to fail, potentially kills the spirit of those kids who have potential.

A husband and a wife, loving and respecting each other and their children, leading a household is the best atmosphere for children. But given that is not the case for some, right now, now what? What is a solution from that point?

If you have a parent that doesn’t place an emphasis on education, how do you help the children of said parent?

An interesting stat that I heard years ago and have heard supported, is that Black kids respond more positively or negatively to the attitude of the teachers than white kids. So if the teachers are down on them, even if the parents are not down on them, the Black kids seem to take the teachers comments “to heart” more.

So what happens when the schools that Black kids are in are filled with new teachers, teachers who are known to under perform, or teachers that jyust don’t care?

YEARS ago it was “Black liberals” who were saying urban schools were filled with these types of teachers, now conservatives are saying it and it’s an issue.

How can a single-parent home school?

What is the solution for that situation, now?

On the “anti-intellecutalism” of the “subculture”, I can’t understand why people don’t see this anti-intellectualism throughout the American culture as a whole.

I lived in Montgomery County and heard from people I knew who were teachers or married to teachers about the kids, white kids, who did the minimum to get by, who cheated using the internet, who felt entitled to get a good grade “just because.”

I’m in contact with university/college level profs or teaching assistants who are blow away by the masses of students who do nothing, then are shocked when they get a D or an F and call mommy and daddy to complain, only to have mommy and daddy then call them.

The word “nerd” is not looked upon as a good thing, is it? Is the use of “nerd” a “Black thing”?

I talked to the wife of a teacher in Howard County, Maryland. The wife, white, said the husband thinks within 15 years, Americans are going to realize that many white children don’t take education seriously when they wake up and see colleges and the bosses at their jobs dominated by Asians and Middle Easterns.

Has anyone ever spoken with a Black kid who was accused of “acting white” and asked them if the person doing the name calling was someone who did well in school or were they doing poorly?

I’ll bet you it’s from those who are doing poorly. And if I’m right, what does that say?

Meanwhile, in D.C., Mother’s Day causes D.C. streets to be jammed with Black families celebrating the graduation of their children from UDC and Howard.

NCLB stinks because a child can enter middle or high school, have the school placed on the list for needing improvement, but the child can’t transfer until his last year if the school doesn’t improve.

Then they can only transfer if there is space in another school. If they can’t the parents have to decide if they can afford to place the kids in private school.

I work with 2 people who are in that situation right now and are paying a lot of money to have their children in private school. Both parents live close to an achieving public school but both are zoned for a school that is under performing.

I’m done. That was a rant that I hope makes sense.

I am a high school chemistry teacher in Prince George’s County, Maryland. I have some issues with NCLB, but NCLB has been a godsend in showing us what is going on in our schools.

No matter what you think of the goals or solutions of NCLB, you must see the collection and reporting of data on the public school systems as a good thing–more than likely the best thing–about the law.

We have been allowing students who have no business graduating or even going up to the next grade level to pass on for decades and decades now. Due to not having to report or even clooect any data, we have been able to hide our fraud from the public. Well, NCLB has outed us big time! We have been passing kids who can’t read or write their own names. And now, we are being shamed for it.

The shame of the data is the real reason so many teachers and the like don’t like NCLB.

“NCLB has been a godsend in showing us what is going on in our schools.”

Yes.

“A husband and a wife, loving and respecting each other and their children, leading a household is the best atmosphere for children. But given that is not the case for some, right now, now what? What is a solution from that point?”

Oh, yes. This is why I support public education and I’ll continue to do it if it means I have to hand in my conservative pin. Public education isn’t necessarily about getting your particular child educated. People who care have all kinds of options, from public to private to homeschool. It’s the parents who can’t or won’t take a hand in their kids’ education that absolutely require that we maintain the best public school system we can. Every single American child deserves his or her crack at the American dream, even the illegitimate offspring of the crack-smoking teenager in the projects. I posted about this here.

DarkStar asks the question that I ask myself several times a year and have asked myself since I began teaching. When I taught at a school that had the highest tuition in the area, I had to figure out how to engage the students. And I still wonder how to make the kids care when most of the kids I’m teaching have probation officers. (Like DarkStar also says, the anti-intellectualism is not only seen in poor schools.)
The Admin. says that the problems go back to the home. I agree. I also think most parents want their children to do well, be respectful, and be successful in school. Some just aren’t good parents. But as public school teachers, we teach everyone. Good parents, bad parents, or no parents. What’s the answer?
I always go back to Truth and Grace. Jesus said the Truth will set you free. And he came in Grace and to give us Grace. We have the obligation as Christians to tell the truth and to do it with Grace.
I work hard; I make my classes relevant; I expect all my students to do their best and to behave in a way that respects others. I test them and expect them to learn. What else can be done?
Don’t you think Christians could have an enormous impact on public schools by praying for them every week? Also, how about helping out?
One of my daughters went to a poor elementary school, one to a wealthy one. At the poor school, there were 4 of us in the PTA. I was the only parent who helped out weekly. At the other school, there were probably 50 that attended the meetings alone. And more than that helped out at the school. Wouldn’t it be great if groups in a church adopted poor schools so these kids could also benefit from the attention of the community?
I would love for businessmen to come in and talk to my classes about work ethic, possible careers, and how language and learning will affect their ability to earn a living. I tell them, but I’m like a mom. We certainly have credibility, but it helps to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
I agree NCLB gives us data, but we have to make sure we react to the data in an appropriate way. Unfortunately, the biggest impact so far is to have students do a lot of test prep and to focus everything on the standards that are tested. We have to make sure that the tests aren’t the focus of learning.
Regarding the issue of race which was LaShawn’s original emphasis: I’m also concerned about continued low scores for black students. I hate to sound like an old lady, but I think we can’t ignore the effect of rap music, the hip-hop culture, and intellectual apologists like Michael Eric Dyson. A young white girl I know who dropped out of school and had a baby who needed two DNA tests to determine the father talks about how she wants her baby dressed in only brand name clothes so he looks like a pimp or a little “g”. This is her goal for her son. This doesn’t come from her family, but it does come from the music she hears and the TV she watches. How much harder would it be for black kids to avoid this when they are also told that it’s not just cool, it’s part of being black. It’s a lie, but when kids listen to the music hours a day, it can seem real..especially at a time when they are trying to get a handle on who they are and their place in the world. What do you think? Am I over-reacting, or is the hip-hop culture a huge part of the problem?

>>I believe the hip hop culture is indicative of America’s cultural problems in general, not just among African Americans.>>

Two tv shows I saw over the weekend that are about as far out as you can imagine, and yet still offer some thought on the problem within the culture:
1) Animal Planet, Saturday night. “Killer Elephants” There is a preserve for elephants. I didn’t hear the beginning, but apparently they established it with small herds of female elephants. The young males that had been born in the preserve(young, in this case, is about 20-25 years old!) were apparently going into “must” (a condition of very high sexual impulses) and challenging rhinos – also protected there – and killing them. Apparently, normally the young males challenge other more dominant males, and when they are dominated by them, the “must” period is suppressed. These young bull elephants were all close to the same age and size. They were entering into this period of sexual activity earlier than “normal”. They proposed to control the killing of rhinos by the young bull elephants by bringing in mature bull elephants that would dominate the young bulls and cause them to drop out of “must”. As they closed the show, they didn’t have any answers as to whether they were going to be successful, but one young bull that had been closely observed had apparently joined with one of the mature bulls and had ended his premature “must”.
I think that as unrelated as this may seem, it shows that the absence of fathers in a population can be a contributing factor to delinquency. I know we knew that, but haven’t seen it quite so specifically addressed in the animal kingdom.

2) National Geographic, Sunday night, “High Security Prisons”
The inmates – to a certain extent – run the asylum. These are all violent offenders. They form gangs that are based on race. It is absolutely impossible to be in a group that is not of one race, and personal safety is nil unless you belong to a group. The reporter asked a prisoner about some particular day to day interactions, and the prisoner said he wouldn’t answer. The reporter persisted, asking the same question a different way, and the man said basically “I told you I wouldn’t answer. You just disrespected me by asking again. I wouldn’t do anything to you “this time” because I know you’re ignorant, but if you were in here and did that … ” left unfinished, but not unclear.
These people finish their terms, and return to their “homeys”. I’ve wondered at the “s/he disrespected me” violence/excuse that is so common – maybe this is where it comes from? and the racism. It’s like a poison we are continually pouring back into our society.
I was appalled.

Doc, how are you going to contribute to these kids’ education if you don’t know they exist? The kid I posted about – if he’s sitting at home wrapped in a bedsheet, how will you know about him? You could pay his tuition, but if his mother’s in a drug-induced fog she won’t pick out a school or see that he goes. Without public education you won’t have the truancy people finding kids like that and threatening to jail their parents if they let the kids sit home and rot. They will drop right off the cliff – except they won’t, they’ll be hanging around in the streets, uneducated and unemployable. And won’t that be a positive thing for our cities and for the economy.

I’ve had my kid in both public and parochial schools, and let me tell you, both kinds are capable of making breathtakingly stupid decisions. There’s nothing magic about church schools or homeschools. Human beings still run them. They still hire humans as teachers and administrators.

Great reading on a subject very close to home for me right now! I pulled my child from the $22K a year private school she had attended from the age of three. My husband and I are self-employed and the grandparents are all deceased (60 – 80% of the tuitions in the school were paid by the GP’s) so we had to constantly evaluate our return on investment. Up through third grade, we were content. Fourth started a gradual downward trend in our confidence and by sixth I had a concrete list of what I felt was missing in my child’s education. #29 (Spunky) mentioned a school admin. stumbling over the definition of well-educated. I want MY child to be able to evaluate input (print, verbal, media message, etc) from a solid framework of the world’s history/literature and without any emotion distorting his thinking, interpret its meaning and relevance to him, THEN decide how he feels about it. That should help insulate from the cheap liberal tactic of appealing to emotion rather than intellect. Dorothy Sayers said it so well in “The Lost Tools of Learning” – “..they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects…” If interested in reading this excellent essay, here is the link: http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html
Do private schools do better? I think both Kelsey J and Suek had comments about this…yes, assuming concerned parents and the ability to boot disruptive kids. BUT some parents are wealthy and want the exclusivity, beyond that they care little other than that they are not bothered. And some schools will keep disruptive students because they don’t want to lose a wealthy parent. So as parents, we are the best monitors whether our child is in public or private. Caring teachers and smaller classes are definitely an advantage. Also, a curriculum not dictated by the state, presumably.
One of the odd moments that made me realize the incredible dissemination of rapper culture was when I was sitting in carpool line at this private school (98% white). With my window down, I could hear the conversations and was dumbfounded to hear, well…it was the opposite of “He Talk Like a White Boy”. The students, particularly the girls, were peppering their speech with phrases and intonations that were black. I asked my daughter when she got in the car where everyone was hearing this language….and of course it was music and TV. Fresh Prince was quite popular. “Dis” and “What he doin’?” etc. – and yes, I minded…because I didn’t see a comparable ability to speak with any great clarity when appropriate. If they could do that when needed and then wanted to use colloquial speech for fun, o.k. with me. Comment #56 about the white girl and her “pimped out” baby. Why would anyone aspire to this image? If rappers – perps of ghetto chic – were not perceived as cool, would black (and other) students focus on other icons as the epitome of success/cool? Backward caps, ghetto-speak and droopy pants are also a popular look at my son’s 99% white school. Why? Music is a more powerful vehicle/destructive force than we may care to think.
Back to education..comment #50: “Americans don’t take education seriously…..” and various other comments noting the need for standards, measurability and the distortion created by PC imperatives in the public school system. It would be nice if our standard was to educate our citizens in the basics – reading,writing and math – and to appreciate America first, and its’ individual groups later..much later. So instead of my child having to study the Ute indians and their vast contributions to the advancement of mankind, she could study the Greeks and the roots of democracy. Take out all of the PC garbage, replace it with a classical model that uses history as its’ framework and suddenly, there are clear goals and measurable standards. Child should be able to read “X” by this grade and know “Y” by that grade. Can’t be dumbed down…the list is the list. You learn it or you don’t – if you can’t, well there is the reason to have vocational schools. And guess what? All of the idiotic swill forced on us by the graduates of the education schools and the PC police can be dumped. Your child will still have an appreciation for other cultures….he had to learn about them in the natural framework of history instead of having them forced down his throat as a pander to his own race or to that of others in his school. “E pluribus unum”…we are putting the infinite many before the one – does any other country in the world place so much educational emphasis on its components rather than its whole?
I am using the classical model as my standard for my children. At the end of sixth, neither could identify much outside the U.S other than naming the oceans and continents. One seemed stuck at an elementary level of math, bringing home the same fraction worksheets year after year. Both had a good background in American history, but zero frame of reference with which to appreciate it. The reading lists sent home had some good books, a few of the truly classic children’s literature (some Grimm’s were read) and a large amount of current fiction of questionable value. Read, Read, Read was the theme, but I felt the act of reading was overemphasized…content is important, too. I was concerned that perhaps I was asking too much, for example insisting that they be able to fill in blank maps of the world with every country, capital and main physical features, but my children have consistently proven that genius is not necessary to accomplish – just expectations . Demanding less, dumbing down and pandering to PC agendas will not help America remain competitive in the world. At this rate, the next stage of “No Child Left Behind” will be “No American Left Behind”.

But in a country with diverse races, some which may possess greater abilities than others

Could you expand on this some? Are you saying that whites genetically are poorer at sports or asians are better at math by their biology or something?