News-Record.com

Arch, thank you for your letter. It says a lot of things we need to share. I have always thought constant standardized testing and basing "success" on these scores have deteriorated our children's learning. Teaching to the tests, which teachers are forced to do, creates kids who can spit back facts but have not been taught to think and reason.

Test scores are then used by politicians to say "we need more money" or "look what a great job we did".

I was a business teacher, and most of our tests related totally to the subject and were things the kids needed to know, so that made my job easier. I could teach to the test and still teach what they needed to know. I listened to co-workers in English, science, and social studies, and knew they did not have the same situation.

Well....now I have a perspective on why students are having problems in English. It's the teachers. The last paragraph starts out with major comma splice problems. It could have been divided into three different sentences.

My son's 11th grade english teacher at Weaver had the kids doing cut and paste projects.

We hear much about the evils of testing and the problems that it causes in public edcuation. Mr. Aitcheson's letter only confirms what I view the problem to be. The tests themselves are not the bad actors here; it's the central office administrators and school boards that insist upon "teaching to the test". If we were doing the job of educating students, rather than playing social games, students would have the toolset to pass the tests. Tests became necessary to establish a degree of accountability in the public schools, which wasn't there before in most school districts. I do not fault the teachers for this problem in Guilford County, as they are merely doing that which is required of them by central office.

We always hear the school board and Terry Grier bemoaning the federal unfunded mandates of NCLB. Well, the mandate is accountability for accepting and using federal funds without achieving any results. There is nothing wrong with that mandate. What is wrong is how the school district uses our $500 million per year and produces a negative return to the community on it. This school district always willingly applies for and accepts federal grants, but when the time comes to account for the results, all that you hear is excuses. Let's stop playing social games in our schools, and really educate all students, then we won't have to worry about accountability tests.

Well said Oak!

It is estimated that over $9,000 per child is spent to educate North Carolina's students in the public school system. In contrast, a local private school can produce higher scoring students at half of that cost. However, most working families cannot afford to send their children to the more efficient private schools without tax credits (vouchers). If the state of NC is really concerned about educating its students, they will allow parents to choice the best path for their kids and stop pandering to the powerful, political teachers unions (the NEA and NCAE endorse Democrats nearly every election, so let's be clear where the true political agenda lies).

that should have read, "$9,000 per child, per year"....thanks.

Thomas,

I have to disagree with you somewhat. Teachers are not unionized in North Carolina, although they do have an asssociation. That association doesn't have the political power wielded by teachers' unions in other states. The problem with the public education process in this state has more to do with the administrators and school boards, especially in Guilford County. These people are concerned about everything imaginable, except education. All you have to do is attend a school board meeting to know that is true.

I would exempt teachers from criticism in this state, as they aren't the problem. They can only do so much, as central office and the board let's them. And, even in other states where teachers are unionized, it is not so much the teachers themselves that present a problem, but the unions themselves. It's the unions that are the political powers. They don't always represent the best interest of all of the teachers in that case, but rather the interests of the union itself.

For all you Johnny Come Lately's out there, here is President Bush's NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND principles applied to football:

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all will win the championship. Any team not winning the championship will be on probation until becoming champion, and the coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities.

ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

3. Talented players will be asked to work out 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.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

5. 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 ninimal goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.

NOTE: There will be some who blindly worship at the throne of "W" that will claim NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND was authored by Ted Kennedy. After you finish laughing, just remember what President Bush said after he pushed it through the congress---he claimed it "the centerpiece of my education initiative".

Not right for education. Not right for America.

DD, loved the football story. Didn't get to comment on it originally. It really puts educational expectations in perspective. Saw one similar once which used a dentist and his patients.

It is really difficult to have your success dependent on the performance of another. As an old coach once said, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken ****.

So as not to confuse the facts:

No Child Left Behind

Kennedy was a major player in the bipartisan team that wrote the controversial No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which according to both Kennedy and President Bush, was a compromise. He( that means Teddy) then worked to get it passed in a Republican-controlled Congress, despite the opposition of members from both parties.

(NOTE: the total of 51 votes in both houses came from both parties. The record will show that the main votes against came from those representing states with strong union alignment)(mrp)

NOTE: There will be some who blindly worship at the throne of "W" that will claim NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND was authored by Ted Kennedy. (Deamon Deacon)
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NOTE: There will be some who are intelligent enough to read the facts as presented above and following:

What is the matter Deac. don't you want Teddy get some credit for the mess education is in today?

Facts are facts, he helped author it , and helped get it passed only to turn against it because he claimed it was underfunded. Why? Try he found his butt in a sling with the NEA and ATF and decided to jump ship to keep from losing votes and face. Seems that there were only 10 in the entire Senate who voted against the bill and only 41 in the House who voted against it. Hmmmmm. Seems pretty non-partisian vote to me. So come on Deac, your game on this just doesn't play anymore. . Face the facts and admit it took the whole bunch to pass such a bill as this.

Oh yea, and it is SOP for the sitting president to take credit for things passed on his watch . When he doesn't take credit for it ,he usually veto's it or threatens to veto. Didn't happen here so guess who gets the credit and who gets to spread the credit around? He did take Teddy and a few others to Ohio to sign the bill thus showing what bi-partisinship can accomplish.

What a shame that all that can get accomplished today is to point fingers and play the blame game , all for sake of a vote and a vote against a man who can not even run again. What a flippin joke this congress is and what a flippin waste of time those who join in the "playground" games of children.

Sad part about it, no one should be laughing, I certainly am not. Why are you?

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Now Oak here is the problem with the No Child Left Behind Program. It is spelled Teacher organizations, unions or what ever label one wishes to put on them. Put them in a bag and shake them up and they still come out smelling like unions. The power of such groups does have an impact on NC teachers, no matter if they will admit it or not. Many will privately.

Here is what the linked site had to say about it:

Teachers' unions such as the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have opposed NCLB reforms almost from inception, and have utilized their money and vast manpower in efforts to both weaken the law's provisions and to turn around public perception of the law and its necessity. The unions question NCLB's effectiveness as presently written and funded, and point to a number of difficulties school districts face in implementing its provisions. Supporters of NCLB's reforms on the other hand note that union opposition may actually have more to do with the fact that key provisions of the law will have the effect of reducing union income as unionized school districts with failing schools are forced to reconstitute and teachers are in some cases no longer forced into union contracts. In inner city school districts where public schools consistently under-perform, this union resistance to reform has often pitted the teachers' unions against parents adamant in their desire to improve the quality of local public school education

Information provided by and more available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind.

Mr. P,
You missed this week's story on Wikipedia fighting Washington politicos on both sides for altering entries in its purely voluntary site. This was one of the examples used by an MSNBC blogger as well as one where a Republican congressman was stated to have been the catalyst for legislation that was entered BEFORE they were elected to Congress!

Mr. P,
When I entered your link, the site said it was "updating the entries, try again later". Maybe it is being corrected as we yack yack!
Take Care.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?
Here is the first sentence from the site you cite!
Background
The act is the result of U.S. President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind proposals Bush campaigned on during the 2000 presidential campaign. Several of the proposals were based on the reform strategies instituted by President Bush during his tenure as governor of Texas.

It is W's plan and he can stick it where the sun doesn't shine!
You don't hear him bragging about it anymore because even HIS worshippers do not ascribe to its bureaucracy.

Deac, it does not discount the fact that the plan that the schools operate under today was put together by a BIPARTISIAN group that included Teddy as one of the main contributors and supporters.
The Texas plan which was adopted by the state when Bush was governor is different in many ways. As soon as I can take the time to paste them and post them for comparision you can see.

I am not saying that I agree with the NCLB plan.I frankly think it heads in the wrong direction on many of the guidelines. I am saying that it seems that those of you who wish to condemn the plan want to place it totally on the shoulders of this president and not spread the blame where it belongs. That is my only problem with what you and Denz and a few others seem to post constantly.
Either place the blame where it goes, which is all around or don't place it all. That is only fair and not the non politically correct term for such. hahahha.

Including Kennedy is a far cry from making him an AUTHOR of the bill! Being a ranking member, due to seniority, Kennedy is one who gets his name added to a plethora of bills just like senior members of the other party when they were out of power.
My beef is when some folks out here cannot separate emotion from reason and blame everything on Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton. It WAS a proposal from the Bush Administration just like Welfare to Work was a proposal from the Clinton Administration! By the way, today I heard a talk show (conservative) host saying the Iraq war was entirely the fault of Bill Clinton!
Entirely the fault? Entirely the fault? This is the kind of stuff that, if repeated enough, becomes fodder for the grist mills like this.
Both sides are guilty, but the die hard, "Bush is Lord", crowd is a scary one.