Sunday, October 28, 2007
Please share how No Child Left Behind has influenced your educational organization.
In North Carolina, every educational buzz word revolves around NCLB. I know that there are good points to the federal mandates on NCLB. In the big picture, it is great to think that by 2012, every school age student will be performing at grade level. When we are in the age to promote and advocate diversity, it is ironic that diversity of ability performance is not a choice. Unfortunately, many educators are experiencing frequent burn out because of the federal and state mandates. For example, at my middle school, the educational teachers and team celebrate making "High Growth" according to the NC ABC's model. This means that the students based on their performance exceeded the academic state performance utilizing the standardized test data in reading and math for 2006-2007 school year. This is a big deal. Each certified teacher received the state bonus of $1,500.00. Then on the next page, it reads the school did not make adequate yearly progress for 2006-2007 school year. However, the school met 18 out of 19 target goals. No recognition from NCLB. Educators find it difficult to support two models, but this is what must be done. In addition, Title I schools in our LEA are experiencing sanctions for not meeting AYP. As for the middle schools in the LEA, they are not labled Title I, so no sanctions are at stake. Personnel in my school must meet the highly qualifed (HQ) guidelines according to NCLB. I have actually seen teachers leave the profession because of these mandates. Now, finding HQ teachers is a difficult task. NCLB has made positive attributes with accountability measures. I am glad to see that accountability of students, parents, and the school are working together. In writing, that is great!
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NCLB really hasn't had that much of an impact on my current organization (a K-8 elementary school in the suburbs). My previous school, however...
My former school is a Title I (about 75% free and reduced lunch) in a low socio-economic area in eastern San Diego. When I showed up last year, we were in our fourth year of program improvement, which meant that parents received a letter letting them know that they had the right to opt their students out of our program and send them to one of the district's other three middle schools.
At the same time, county and state advisors came in and "suggested" sweeping changes to the instructional program and the campus in general. Some of these changes (doubling our math and English instruction at the expense of social science, p.e., elective, and science) scared the incoming sixth grade parents, and several of them actually asked to opt their son/daughter out during jumpstart.
The end result of NCLB's meddling was that our less transient, higher achieving students now go to other schools because they were given the opportunity complete with transportation. The school went from an enrollment of 1,300 to less than 1,000 in only two years.
Also, it meant that good staffers were let go as enrollment dropped, and that future applications dwindled since they perceived less job stability at the site.
While I am all for educational accountability, many of NCLB's components worked in direct contrast to what we were actually trying to accomplish. I am happy to say that the staff (and students) worked their tails off last year and we did see some gains, but it's going to be a long, hard road.
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