there's been a big pushback from schools that have lots of bilingual students because the rules of the no child left behind act are that EVERY student should meet certain minimum requirements for succeeding in education. however, this pushback could lead to a separate-but-equal system where children whose primary language is not English are passed into society without succeeding in basic English skills. how well did separate but equal work the last time we tried it?
many teachers and principals i've met in chicago are not happy with the leave no child behind act. in fact, special education teachers and administrators especially want to exempt their worse-performing students from the standardized testing standards because they do not perform as well as other students. for example, if a school has a large percentage of non-english speaking students, they're graded on the same test that native english speakers take, and their scores are averaged with everyone else. this can pull a school's cumulative score down, and end up with that school being labeled a "non-performing school". this usually ends up with teacher layoffs, school "reconstitutions", and a general unease in the community who would prefer high-quality neighborhood public schools with experienced staff instead of expensive private education or some kind of social experimentation which seems to be the norm here in Chicago. but is their plan to exclude non-english speaking students and special education students from standardized tests a worthwhile goal?
it seems likely that a school system which provides "separate but equal" education might do better, as the students who do not do as well as the others would be placed into classrooms with more resources and more attention. this could help them to achieve according to their own self-set limits. but i think this is a short-sighted plan, because when you lower the bar for success, you then limit these children from achieving at the same level as their peers. in fact, as our racist past experiences with separate but equal have proven, it may take decades or longer for children from families of limited means to reach the same "success rates" as measured on standardized tests. so should we throw out the tests? or continue to sink more money and resources into the failed no child left behind plan? there should be another way, a better way.
perhaps instead of investing in the kids who do not do as well on standardized tests, we should invest in ALL the kids in the school, and have the student leaders help to tutor their peers who are not doing as well. while i'm personally opposed to giving tons of free handouts to the children of illegal aliens, it does make a certain amount of sense to teach these children so they don't become an underclass like their immigrant parents. perhaps in these tutoring sessions, the spanish-speaking kids could spend half their time teaching spanish language skills to teachers and their classmates? that way everyone benefits from being on the same track, and nobody is actually left behind.
so what about kids in special education programs? i still haven't cracked that nut. obviously children with special needs may require special attention. but after dating a woman for a year who was a long-time special education teacher in a high school, i'm more confused than ever about what kinds of help these kids really need. some kids have physical limitations, others have emotional difficulties, still others have mental handicaps. I don't think it's fair to lump them all together under the same classification, but I also recognize that there's only so much funding available to go around. perhaps president obama can make this vice president clinton's task -- fix our educational system, STAT.