"How broken? Consider the shocking fact that 65 percent of American fourth-grade kids can barely read. "
Google James Lindsay Critical Pedagogy
(I paraphrase) The goal of Critical Pedagogy is not to make good well rounded productive intelligent people. It is make the next generation of Activists.
"How broken? Consider the shocking fact that 65 percent of American fourth-grade kids can barely read. "
Google James Lindsay Critical Pedagogy
(I paraphrase) The goal of Critical Pedagogy is not to make good well rounded productive intelligent people. It is make the next generation of Activists.
There’s a much simpler answer. Under Bush we federalized education. And the same thing happens to every single thing we federalize. No child left behind ranks behind income taxes, the fed, and the patriot act, but ahead of everything else (including Obamacare) in the damage it’s done to the future of this country.
Federalization guarantees failure. It “raises” the floor to ensure the collapse of the ceiling. Doesn’t matter if it’s fiscal policy, education, or insurance - once it’s federalized your goal should be to get as far away from it as possible
I completely disagree -- at least on the testing aspects of No Child Left Behind. I have problems with other aspects of the law, though.
Why should we be against testing students to see if they can...I don’t know...read, for example? Why are schools and states so threatened by that? Oh, it’s because they know they are doing a miserable job educating students. We should not be advocating for sticking our heads in the sand here.
And anyone who thinks that teachers have to “teach to the test” to get students to pass very basic testing, is proactively admitting that schools have failed to teach students basic skills. They also clearly have no idea how to effectively teach. Kids should be able to take and pass the tests with zero preparation outside of learning the standard curriculum. That’s literally what the tests are meant to show. Does a student have basic, grade level skills? That’s all the tests we’re looking at.
I had issues with some of the immediate consequences for schools failing to meet standards. I think it should have looked at progress in scores and required states to utilize certain best practices or assistance rather than keep so much up in the air (open to waivers applications for this, though).
I also think it was ridiculous to allow each state to use a different test and measure of proficiency. It sort of defeats the purpose of standardization. Republicans and their federalism!
I also think the “highly qualified” teacher requirements were not supported and likely made it more difficult to actually staff schools. We see similar bad policies made all the time from state and local governments.
In general, I’m not a fan of federal control and lack of flexibility. However, if an entity has proven that they are incapable of adequately performing necessary roles, then it is called for -- at least when the federal government is subsidizing that entity with billions of dollars annually. Prove you’re up to the job, and requirements beyond testing and reporting should go away.
Every single metric - EVER SINGLE METRIC - has gotten worse since no child left behind. So we completely agree - if an entity has proven that it is incapable of adequately performing necessary roles, its authority should be removed.
According to what data?? Seriously,?what are you basing that on?
There is a reason so many people began to wake up to how bad school closures were last year when the National Assessment of Educational Progress results came out. This is pretty much the only solid tool we have to track student progress nationally over time. Results showed that reading and math scores had dropped so precipitously that it wiped out years’ of gains (ex headlines: “The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading” - NYT; “Two Decades of Progress, Nearly Gone: National Math, Reading Scores Hit Historic Lows” - EducationWeek).
Granted, gains were extremely uneven. Testing data from the ‘70s until the present still shows that there were gains, however. Feel free to look up the stats yourself on the NAEP website. You will find that that is absolutely zero indication that NCLB negatively impacted student achievement based on regular, national standardized assessments.
My strong sense is that it negatively impacted administrators and some teachers who were stressed over the thought and reality of having their performance assessed.
I could care less about the stress on teachers and administrators. Jobs are supposed to be stressful, that's how you get better at them. Teaching should absolutely be a meritocracy. NCLB didn't do that at all. It centralized control, thereby allowing centralized control by the teachers unions as well, thereby making the students an irrelevant input in a battle between the federal government and federal teachers' unions. centralizing AWAY FROM THE CONSUMER is ALWAYS the wrong answer.
You actually want educational advancements? Money follows the students and compete on quality and direction of service. Montessori for some, religious and dictatorial for others, "friends" quaker schools for others, home-schooling and psuedo-home schooling for others and allow the consumer to chose. Then evaluate on outcomes and align accordingly. Markets improve with choice and competition. Every time we federalize we increase the moral hazard and every time we're shocked when the outcomes are positive for the non-impacted parties (more control by the few in government, more money for the teachers' unions) and negative for the impacted parties (less choice for students, worse overall performance relative to the market). It's the same story everywhere...
Yes, the complaints about interference need to stop. In accepting federal money, one accepts federal interference. A standardized test should be just that - standardized. I remember taking Iowa test back in the 70’s, and they were the same everywhere. Calling a test that is different in every school district is, well, substandard. Teach reading and math. Kids pass tests. They will figure out sex in high school.
I’m not defending federalization, which I agree always produces bad results, but the schools were a disaster long before Bush. It wasn’t federalization that caused the problem. The problem is within the system itself.
I think the Bush reference is to No Child Left Behind. My gifted and talented daughter was in 4th grade at the time. It completely disrupted everything she was used to. I was stunned at how fast the changes were wrought. But I think the problem goes back to the creation of the federal Department of Education. If anything should be local it is education. If the rationale for federal control was that some kids suffered as a result of their geography all that has been accomplished is that every kid now suffers regardless of geography
This times 1,000. The diversity of our education system was one of its largest strengths. I wrote a stack discussing this exact economic phenomenon and how important it was And it's more true now than ever. We decided everyone should do STEM and now we have a million "software programmers" who can't program and zero plumbers at a time when plumbers are desperately needed. Diversity, real diversity, not the faux kind that requires analyzing melanin and then guessing that someone's descendants are from Africa, was the bedrock of what made America special.
it is not only okay that kids in San Fran specialized in robotics and kids in Texas learned about oil and kids in the midwest learned about farming... it was that specialization and the combination of it that created combine harvesters that changed food production forever. When everyone does and learns the same thing, we get the worst of everything and the best of nothing. That is federalization in a nutshell.
P.J. O'Rourke once pointed out what "public" really means in service by using the paradigm of the public restroom. Do you really want the people who run public restrooms running your life? Especially after the San Francisco public single occupant restroom for $1,000,000 fiasco?
"How broken? Consider the shocking fact that 65 percent of American fourth-grade kids can barely read. "
Google James Lindsay Critical Pedagogy
(I paraphrase) The goal of Critical Pedagogy is not to make good well rounded productive intelligent people. It is make the next generation of Activists.
There’s a much simpler answer. Under Bush we federalized education. And the same thing happens to every single thing we federalize. No child left behind ranks behind income taxes, the fed, and the patriot act, but ahead of everything else (including Obamacare) in the damage it’s done to the future of this country.
Federalization guarantees failure. It “raises” the floor to ensure the collapse of the ceiling. Doesn’t matter if it’s fiscal policy, education, or insurance - once it’s federalized your goal should be to get as far away from it as possible
I completely disagree -- at least on the testing aspects of No Child Left Behind. I have problems with other aspects of the law, though.
Why should we be against testing students to see if they can...I don’t know...read, for example? Why are schools and states so threatened by that? Oh, it’s because they know they are doing a miserable job educating students. We should not be advocating for sticking our heads in the sand here.
And anyone who thinks that teachers have to “teach to the test” to get students to pass very basic testing, is proactively admitting that schools have failed to teach students basic skills. They also clearly have no idea how to effectively teach. Kids should be able to take and pass the tests with zero preparation outside of learning the standard curriculum. That’s literally what the tests are meant to show. Does a student have basic, grade level skills? That’s all the tests we’re looking at.
I had issues with some of the immediate consequences for schools failing to meet standards. I think it should have looked at progress in scores and required states to utilize certain best practices or assistance rather than keep so much up in the air (open to waivers applications for this, though).
I also think it was ridiculous to allow each state to use a different test and measure of proficiency. It sort of defeats the purpose of standardization. Republicans and their federalism!
I also think the “highly qualified” teacher requirements were not supported and likely made it more difficult to actually staff schools. We see similar bad policies made all the time from state and local governments.
In general, I’m not a fan of federal control and lack of flexibility. However, if an entity has proven that they are incapable of adequately performing necessary roles, then it is called for -- at least when the federal government is subsidizing that entity with billions of dollars annually. Prove you’re up to the job, and requirements beyond testing and reporting should go away.
Every single metric - EVER SINGLE METRIC - has gotten worse since no child left behind. So we completely agree - if an entity has proven that it is incapable of adequately performing necessary roles, its authority should be removed.
According to what data?? Seriously,?what are you basing that on?
There is a reason so many people began to wake up to how bad school closures were last year when the National Assessment of Educational Progress results came out. This is pretty much the only solid tool we have to track student progress nationally over time. Results showed that reading and math scores had dropped so precipitously that it wiped out years’ of gains (ex headlines: “The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading” - NYT; “Two Decades of Progress, Nearly Gone: National Math, Reading Scores Hit Historic Lows” - EducationWeek).
Granted, gains were extremely uneven. Testing data from the ‘70s until the present still shows that there were gains, however. Feel free to look up the stats yourself on the NAEP website. You will find that that is absolutely zero indication that NCLB negatively impacted student achievement based on regular, national standardized assessments.
My strong sense is that it negatively impacted administrators and some teachers who were stressed over the thought and reality of having their performance assessed.
Here's a couple of resources:
1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/ - This shows that basically all of the gains were made prior to NCLB. From when NCLB was implemented until 2017 things remained essentially flat, and were already trending down, well before any interruption from school closures.
2. No child left behind essentially gave federal oversite of school but was ALL stick and no carrot - this is a good summary - https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/no-child-left-behind-an-overview/2015/04#:~:text=Under%20the%20NCLB%20law%2C%20states%20must%20test%20students%20in%20math,student%20population%20as%20a%20whole.
3. No child left behind DIDN'T fix the problem (school funding) but by giving national standards it empowered national unions to fight against it (rather than concentrated at the local/state level) thereby increasing the bureaucracy and the control of the teachers unions to fight against it and get all kinds of waivers, elimination of burdens, reduce performance thresholds, etc... - https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-no-child-left-behind-was-signed-20-years-ago-this-month-why-its-making-educations-covid-recovery-so-much-harder/
4. Here's a paper on what could have maybe worked that was at least interesting - https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20511/w20511.pdf
I could care less about the stress on teachers and administrators. Jobs are supposed to be stressful, that's how you get better at them. Teaching should absolutely be a meritocracy. NCLB didn't do that at all. It centralized control, thereby allowing centralized control by the teachers unions as well, thereby making the students an irrelevant input in a battle between the federal government and federal teachers' unions. centralizing AWAY FROM THE CONSUMER is ALWAYS the wrong answer.
You actually want educational advancements? Money follows the students and compete on quality and direction of service. Montessori for some, religious and dictatorial for others, "friends" quaker schools for others, home-schooling and psuedo-home schooling for others and allow the consumer to chose. Then evaluate on outcomes and align accordingly. Markets improve with choice and competition. Every time we federalize we increase the moral hazard and every time we're shocked when the outcomes are positive for the non-impacted parties (more control by the few in government, more money for the teachers' unions) and negative for the impacted parties (less choice for students, worse overall performance relative to the market). It's the same story everywhere...
Yes, the complaints about interference need to stop. In accepting federal money, one accepts federal interference. A standardized test should be just that - standardized. I remember taking Iowa test back in the 70’s, and they were the same everywhere. Calling a test that is different in every school district is, well, substandard. Teach reading and math. Kids pass tests. They will figure out sex in high school.
I’m not defending federalization, which I agree always produces bad results, but the schools were a disaster long before Bush. It wasn’t federalization that caused the problem. The problem is within the system itself.
I think the Bush reference is to No Child Left Behind. My gifted and talented daughter was in 4th grade at the time. It completely disrupted everything she was used to. I was stunned at how fast the changes were wrought. But I think the problem goes back to the creation of the federal Department of Education. If anything should be local it is education. If the rationale for federal control was that some kids suffered as a result of their geography all that has been accomplished is that every kid now suffers regardless of geography
This times 1,000. The diversity of our education system was one of its largest strengths. I wrote a stack discussing this exact economic phenomenon and how important it was And it's more true now than ever. We decided everyone should do STEM and now we have a million "software programmers" who can't program and zero plumbers at a time when plumbers are desperately needed. Diversity, real diversity, not the faux kind that requires analyzing melanin and then guessing that someone's descendants are from Africa, was the bedrock of what made America special.
it is not only okay that kids in San Fran specialized in robotics and kids in Texas learned about oil and kids in the midwest learned about farming... it was that specialization and the combination of it that created combine harvesters that changed food production forever. When everyone does and learns the same thing, we get the worst of everything and the best of nothing. That is federalization in a nutshell.
And Brandon wants to federalize resort fees. You’ll need a college degree to work in the FBRFR, Federal Bureau of Resort Fee Regulation.
Ha ha ha. But wouldn't that require use of math?
Meanwhile the only ceiling raised is for the debt limit.
P.J. O'Rourke once pointed out what "public" really means in service by using the paradigm of the public restroom. Do you really want the people who run public restrooms running your life? Especially after the San Francisco public single occupant restroom for $1,000,000 fiasco?
Critical Pedagogy
https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-pedagogy/