No, I did not lose my job. This is a diary about No Child Left Behind, it won't make the Rec List and I'll be preaching to the choir.
It is the first Monday of Winter Break. I have several manila folders full of work I need to do before school comes back into session. I work in a job where I'm supposed to do this work on my own time because there is no time between the opening and closing school bells. I hope that will stop any wags from writing how teachers have it easy because we have summers off. Do you have to bring your work home with you? Are you not paid for it? If so, then we can talk. If not, well, breaks are necessary for teachers because we're educating and caring for young people who, by law and custom, are recognized as being unable to make decisions and care for themselves. How hard is your job?
Chapters in this diary:
- Links
- What No Child Left Behind is About
- What My Job Is Like
- Understanding Scores and Their Categories
- California Mathematics: Algebra Early For Everyone
- Testing in California
- Statistics For the State of California and My Individual School Site
- Links
No Child Left Behind wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
California STAR testing results:
http://star.cde.ca.gov/
California Math Standards, adopted December, 1997:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/...
The 25 California Standards for Algebra I:
http://www.aplusalgebra.com/...
California Math Standards for 7th Grade:
http://departments.bcsd.com/...
California Content Standards (if you look at the Word version of the Math Standards, 7th grade begins on page 31):
http://www.cde.ca.gov/...
California doesn't have to test every 8th grader in Algebra three years from now:
http://blogs.csun.edu/...
(Hah! According to the story, the percentage of students taking Algebra and being "Proficient" is "trending upward." I have provided statistics in this diary to show that, yes, the percentage of those taking Algebra is going up. There is by no means a "trend" towards a higher percentage of Proficient Algebra students, however, unless you consider a one-year bump a "trend." Somebody wrote down what they were told and didn't check the facts...)
- What No Child Left Behind Is About
No Child Left Behind is to divide success from failure. NCLB is designed to have public schools fail and fail publicly. I am convinced its name came from a West Wing episode where Toby Ziegler changed the State of the Union message from "the era of big government is over" to something more recognizable to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Since I believe the policy wonks of the Bush administration sat down and watched The West Wing to look for ideas and do the opposite, it makes sense that a Republican government would name a program the opposite of what it was actually supposed to do. The Bush administration has done that repeatedly.
Every child in the United States is supposed to take tests to prove that he or she is "proficient" in every subject tested. Test scores are gathered and published for all to see after being grouped by school district and school sites, plus the overall state scores. These scores come out right before the opening of new school years. "Proficient" and "Advanced" students are prized. "Basic,""Below Basic," and "Far Below Basic" students are failures. They show that the state failed, the school district failed, the school site failed, the teachers failed and the students are failures. No ordinary people thought this up; it is the product of people with many years of education and experience in education policy. It was accepted by popularly-elected representatives and written into law. The inspiration, the intelligence, that created this way of dispensing cruelty must be demonic.
I say that because no matter how much No Child Left Behind is discussed, it all comes down to teachers and students. You say it's a way to hold schools accountable? Administrators hear that and pass that pressure on to the teachers. Meetings are held, committees formed, data reviewed and discussed, directives handed down, "pacing guides" adopted and, in general, teachers are given a kick in the ass to do whatever is necessary to raise some scores so that the school will look like it is making "adequate progress" towards meeting NCLB goals. On the other hand, students are stroked, for the most part. Some schools hold rallies to gin up student enthusiasm right before testing. Some schools hold assemblies to recognize, maybe even reward, students who raise their scores. Some schools hold dances or ice cream parties for students to reward them for a good effort during testing. Take note of the accepted, and acceptable, education policy: Teachers are to respond positively and with renewed energy to being told how they are failing. Students are given hugs.
And it's all about testing. The testing is high-stakes, winners-and-losers testing. There is no accepted alternative to proving that the teachers are doing their jobs and the students are learning. Learning is quantified and a minimum number has been established. It has become so bad that, next year, at least one school district will switch to providing grades totally based upon scores on tests. Effort, participation, growth, projects, papers, learning disability, test-taking anxiety- all that stuff- will be removed from the grade equation. Nothing will matter except for how students perform on ritualized, standards-based, multiple-choice tests. Winners and losers.
Right-wing politicians love No Child Left Behind because it symbolizes the victory of the "schools should be run like businesses" reform movement that took off after A Nation At Risk was published in 1983. They also love it because quantified, publishable results allow politicians to declare how the public schools are failing, the teachers are failing, tax-paying parents should be allowed to choose schools for their children especially if those schools are run by for-profit organizations (business opportunities) or non-profit religious organizations. By the way, these schools do not have to prove their success. They do not have to accept every student who wants to attend and they do not have to test and publish results. If the public schools are failing, it is a sign of wasted tax money. Public school "failure" is a prime tool for the school vouchers movement. And if the teachers are failing, it's a sign of how the teachers' unions are protecting the weak and incompetent and draining resources (money) from the state. Right-wing politicians, some of them, also love how a buck can be made from public school "failure." Millions of federal dollars are set aside to pay for private tutoring companies and educational computer software to provide services to students in school districts that don't have high enough scores. It's not just Social Security that the right-wing wants to privatize in order to get access to big chunks of public money.
Left-wing politicians love No Child Left Behind because it gives them political cover. By supporting NCLB, they can pontificate about accountability, better schools and better opportunities for (in particular) students of color. "Closing the achievement gap" is a common buzzword. Some talk about getting "better teachers," as if this isn't a crude and vile slap against the teachers who are already working. Left-wing politicians also have cover about education issues when facing right-wing criticism or during an election. They get to look like they are actually doing something. They have ready-made photo opportunities at those test-success rallies and ice cream parties. Sure, most left-wing politicians will say they want teachers to be paid more. What they don't say is how working conditions should be improved, lay-offs prevented, decent insurance ensured nor do they address what public education really is: it is the most visible service provided by the government. Is the goal universal college education? Is the goal to compete against other countries (if so, then we need success in only a certain percentage of students; what shall we do with the rest?)? Is it to prepare students for the working world (please tell me where in the working world are workers evaluated by taking tests)? Is it to make students into active, informed, participating members of the electorate (then why are history and government classes being cut and why is "social studies" not tested every year?)?
A common position, right now, in left-wing politics is that No Child Left Behind is flawed and underfunded. If it is tweaked, a patch here and a patch there, and funded, then it is just fine and should be renewed. I said this is a common position; I know that there are politicians who oppose NCLB but they are not in the majority.
The initial language of No Child Left Behind caused severe hardships and had to be readjusted and toned down. At first, the Bush administration defended everything as if it were religious canon but once red state governors were taken to task for "failure," things changed. It's still a mess; a school or school district can look like a prize winner but be "failing" because of one subject area or one demographic piece. States have been rebelling against Washington leadership and, at best, communication between governments has broken down.
But most important of all is the issue of an extremely visible, government-provided service that has been in a death-grip of the wrong people for the last eight years. These people did not want government-provided education to succeed. They wanted to find a way to force acceptance of privatization and cripple, dismantle, if not destroy, the concept of public education.
- What My Job Is Like
No false modesty here; I am a talented teacher who draws on years of learned skills and techniques, some of which I have blatantly stolen from colleagues and improved upon. I'm really good at what I do in a class of 35 to 38 eighth graders. I'm good at what I can do with a summer school class of forty-some high school students who have all failed Geometry at least once; practically all passed.
But this year, due to adjustments and cuts, I have no class with less than 41 students. Those extra students throw me off. Their physical presence affects students with attention problems. The extra students have increased the always-present sexual tension. Those extra students require just that much more energy, attention, classroom discipline, resources and patience. When it comes right down to it, I believe every student over forty in a classroom is not just an addition; each extra student is a multiplier of needs.
I don't need computers in my classroom. I don't know where I'd put them. I need another Math teacher on staff so that my numbers will go back down to the level where I can produce what people have come to expect me to produce, including myself.
I need another Special Education teacher available to help my students.
I need another full-time school counselor available to help with students with problems.
I need a basic skills teacher to help with my eighth graders who cannot add, subtract, multiply or divide but are expected to succeed at Algebra.
I need another certificated teacher to come in and take some of my students out of the classroom so that I can concentrate on working with students in small groups or one-on-one.
My current work situation stems from an economic decision that is masquerading as an education decision. It began in some schools a year ago but this is the first year that all of my school district's intermediate schools are doing the same thing: All of the students have two class periods a day of English/Language Arts and all students have two class periods a day of Mathematics. All of the "education professionals" have patted themselves on the back for this bold move to raise student scores...er...provide more time for a rigorous curriculum that will expand student achievement.
In my seven-period academic day, I now have three two-period classes instead of six one-period classes. It would seem as if I see three less groups of students; what has really occurred is that my classes are now all forty-plus. My colleagues who teach the same thing are also all forty-plus.
By not spreading the number of students more thinly (as far as I'm concerned, somewhere in the low to mid-thirties), my school has eliminated the need for one eighth-grade math teacher. Now add the corresponding positions in the sixth and seventh grades. That's three teaching positions in one school, which saves the school district somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000, depending on how someone would calculate the combination of salaries and benefits. Spread that savings across six or seven schools. That's eighteen to twenty-one people who aren't hired. All of this was entrenched in the English/Language Arts departments about five years ago.
Let me take a quick tangent for what observers should look for in their local schools. Have the schools recently expanded the time students spend in one or more types of class but not others? Has it been sold as some kind of educational benefit? Have other programs, such as art, music and drama, been cut back at the same time?
Those are lost jobs. That's budget-cutting.
- Understanding Scores and Their Categories
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the goal for all students is at least a level of Proficient. Advanced is nice but it doesn't affect the overall requirement of all students being Proficient in all subjects. At the same time, a student may have a personally successful year and acquire enough skills to rise back to grade level capability, perhaps after years of being at less than grade level. This student may then test Basic, the highest this particular student has ever tested. According to No Child Left Behind standards, this student is still considered a failure.
California uses pretty much the same scale for all subjects and it goes like this: The top is called Advanced and this requires better than a 75% score on a particular California State Test. Each level drops at a rate of about 15%, such that Proficient is above 60%, Basic is above 45%, Below Basic is above 30% and Far Below Basic is below 30%.
Consider what those percentages really mean. A typical NCLB test has about sixty-five questions. For every five questions, a pattern develops. For an Advanced student, he or she will make a good effort at all five questions and likely be correct on at least four of them with only the occasional missed extra question. For a Proficient student, he or she will go 50-50 on four of the five questions but have enough skills and knowledge to correctly answer the fifth question. A Basic student will go 50-50 on all questions. A Below Basic student will go 50-50 on four of the five questions but, as the flip side of the Proficient student, this student will not have the skills or knowledge to correctly answer the fifth question.
Consider what it would be like to be someone who scores Below Basic on one of these tests. At some point, it must be obvious to the student that he or she doesn't know what to do about most of the questions that are being asked. By luck, cunning and the occasional chance recognition of something familiar, this student is able to answer correctly about one out of every three questions on a test that may take an hour and a half to two hours to complete (with a break half-way through). Students who score at this level are most often among the first finished; one has to wonder what they think of the students who continue to work at the test for another half hour or more.
And then there are the students who score Far Below Basic. For question after question, these students are faced with a mystery that they cannot understand, let alone solve. Merely marking the same answer (not "C" anymore; the test-makers now avoid that choice as the default answer) for every question should, on a properly constructed test, produce 20% correct. Since the threshold for rising to Below Basic is only 30%, students who score Far Below Basic are very low-ability students indeed.
- California Mathematics: Algebra Early For Everyone
California adopted its Mathematics Standards in December, 1997, after years of warfare between rival groups that sought widespread adoption of their methods and agendas. It's a bit simplistic to say it was a war between people who favored inquiry, discovery and group-learning versus those who believed in rote-memorization and direct teaching. There were many subgroups who made and unmade alliances: those who favored "practical math" versus those who favored college-preparatory math, those who favored tangible manipulatives versus those who wanted rigorous paper-and-pencil work, those who favored widespread use of calculators versus those who felt that calculators were both a crutch and a hindrance to understanding math concepts, those who felt students could and should learn concepts without concern over "the basics" versus those who felt students could not and would not learn concepts until the basics were mastered, and so on. An overlay on top of all arguments was a popular idea that an early learning of Algebra was a ticket to the right math and science classes in high school that would lead to college entrance. In some corners, early learning of Algebra was defended as a civil right because children of color were not meeting requirements for college entrance. Algebra was considered to be the gateway class.
According to the adopted California Standards, math in grades one through seven is preparation for Algebra in grade eight. California has been slowly moving towards meeting its own requirement and recently locked horns with the Bush administration over testing all eighth grade students in Algebra three years from now. California officials resisted (Governor Schwarzenegger was all for testing) and tried to adopt a test of somewhat dumbed-down Algebra; the federal Department of Education resisted the resistance and went so far as to hold the money gun to California's temple; test or California doesn't get the money. A judge finally put a stay on testing after education and parent groups claimed that students would not be ready. In the "links" chapter is the most recent news, but these older accounts add details:
http://articles.latimes.com/...
http://www.sacbee.com/...
http://cbs13.com/...
What is most interesting about the controversy is how news organizations acted as if the Algebra in eighth grade was a new idea. The December, 1997, Standards were quite specific; Algebra is no longer a first-year high school class and is now, and has been since 1997, considered to be an eighth grade class.
- Testing in California
When the "Standards Movement" hit California, at first California responded by having students take the Stanford 9 test which was "normed" according to national standards. Starting in 2002, the Stanford 9 tests were replaced by California's own tests based on Standards adopted by the Legislature. Below are scores for the State of California for three groups: Eighth graders taking Algebra, Eighth graders taking "General Mathematics" (a euphemism meaning students not ready to nor capable of succeeding in an Algebra class) and Seventh graders, practically all of whom take Pre-Algebra (fractions, decimals, percentages, solving up to two-step equations and inequalities, simple graphs, some Geometry using formulas and Statistics).
A quick scan of the tables below shows that California is making slow but steady progress switching over to an Algebra curriculum for Eighth graders. The year 2006 was the first year that as many Eighth graders took Algebra as those that didn't. Take note of how, more or less consistently even though a higher percentage of students are involved, one out of every three Algebra students are not prepared to take the Algebra test each year and scored Below Basic or Far Below Basic.
Another trend, if it can be called that, is that even as the number of students taking the General Math test diminishes, the percentage of those scoring Below Basic and Far Below Basic remains consistent (2 out of every 5 students). Since these students are universally dumped into classes of around forty students, this means roughly fifteen to sixteen students in each class go through a year of schooling and learn essentially nothing because the General Math Standards are roughly the same as those for Seventh-grade Math.
- Statistics for the State of California And My Individual School Site
Stanford 9 Testing Scores, 8th Grade Mathematics Scores by Percentage per Category 1. Year 2. (Mean score) 3. Above 75th Percentile 4. Above 50th Percentile 5. Above 25th Percentile
1998 (45) 20 42 64
2002 (52) 25 50 72
Stanford 9 Testing Scores, 7th Grade Mathematics Scores by Percentage per Category
1998 (45) 21 42 65
2002 (54) 28 52 74
California Standardized Testing, 8th Grade Algebra Scores by Percentage per Category 1. Year 2. (Percent of Students) 3. Advanced 4. Proficient 5. Basic Below Basic 6. Far Below Basic
2002 (29) 11 28 30 22 10
2003 (32) 10 29 28 24 9
2004 (38) 8 27 27 30 8
2005 (45) 8 26 29 27 10
2006 (47) 12 28 24 25 11
2007 (49) 9 29 27 25 9
2008 (51) 13 29 27 24 7
California Standardized Testing, 8th Grade General Mathematics Scores by Percentage per Category
2002 (61) 2 18 34 33 13
2003 (60) 3 21 32 28 16
2004 (55) 4 20 33 28 16
2005 (48) 4 22 32 28 13
2006 (47) 4 22 32 29 13
2007 (45) 3 20 36 28 13
2008 (43) 6 25 29 27 14
California Standardized Testing, 7th Grade Pre-Algebra Scores by Percentage per Category
2002 (92) 6 24 31 29 11
2003 (98) 7 23 32 26 12
2004 (98) 10 23 30 27 11
2005 (98) 13 24 27 25 11
2006 (98) 14 27 26 23 10
2007 (94) 13 26 29 23 10
2008 (90) 13 28 29 21 9
California Standardized Testing, 7th Grade Algebra Scores by Percentage per Category
2007 (4) 32 45 15 5 3
2008 (5) 41 39 14 5 2
Scores for My Individual School Site
(2005 was a year we tried "all 8th graders take Algebra, ready or not!" The small percentage of students who took the General Math test were the students with learning disabilities so severe that they were not mainstreamed)
Stanford 9 Testing, 8th Grade Mathematics
1998 (33) 9 26 52
2002 (34) 10 28 52
Stanford 9 Testing, 7th Grade Mathematics
1998 (33) 11 26 50
2002 (44) 17 39 68
California Standards Testing
8th Grade Algebra (Percent), Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, Far Below Basic
2002 (37) 8 29 18 31 13
2003 (37) 14 23 28 30 6
2004 (68) 5 15 26 44 9
2005 (86) 2 9 24 50 15
2006 (58) 2 16 29 41 12
2007 (58) 6 21 31 32 9
2008 (37) 11 31 29 23 5
8th Grade General Mathematics (Percent), Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, Far Below Basic
2002 (58) 0 4 23 52 21
2003 (56) 0 6 36 41 17
2004 (30) 0 2 15 50 33
2005 (4) 0 0 0 62 38
2006 (38) 1 5 21 51 22
2007 (39) 0 2 22 49 27
2008 (61) 1 13 35 34 17
7th Grade Pre-Alegebra (Percent), Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, Far Below Basic
2002 (97) 4 18 31 33 13
2003 (98) 2 17 34 36 11
2004 (98) 3 15 28 36 17
2005 (95) 8 16 21 39 17
2006 (99) 7 22 31 27 12
2007 (99) 6 15 27 38 14
2008 (84) 3 22 34 30 10
7th Grade Algebra (Percent), Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, Far Below Basic
2008 (12) 6 33 50 9 2