Wednesday, October 26, 2016

RESPONSIBILITY AND TOP-DOWN SCHOOL REFORM


Gary K. Clabaugh
Professor Emeritus of Education, La Salle University

23 October 2016

School reform efforts typically employ key terms that are vague and undefined. Consider the late unlamented “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001. What exactly did “left behind” mean? That remained conveniently obscure. It came to mean that any child, including special education students and non-English speakers, who failed to pass high stakes tests in math and reading had been "left behind." But that is clearly nonsense. How in hell can a child pass a reading test when they don't understand English? How about a badly damaged special needs child with a 30 IQ? Were they left behind because they failed a high stakes math test?
Who established such  mindlessness? An unholy amalgam of crafty politicians, federal and state bureaucrats and professional test makers. All of whom were far, far removed from the realities of the classroom.
Here's another thing. In the past learners had at least some responsibility for learning. This “reform” placed the entire burden on educators. Even youngsters who adamantly refused to learn had no responsibility for failing. They were victims, carelessly, even callously,  “left behind.”
I once heard a youngster defiantly tell a teacher: “You aint gonna teach me shit.” Was he being “left behind," or willfully refusing to get on board? Youngsters like this young man were not a rarity then, nor are they now. Nevertheless, the NCLB Act placed 100% of the responsibility for learning on the shoulders of his teachers. How did such a one-sided  arrangement ever become reality? Well, for one thing the term “left behind” was a slogan.
  Slogans are useful if we want to establish a broad but very shallow consensus among people of varied interests. That is why they’re employed in harmless ceremonial situations such as marriage, award ceremonies, ship christenings, building dedications, funerals, and so forth. They create the momentary solidarity necessary for common celebration. But it is an entirely different matter when slogans are used to sucker voters, justify wars or, as in this case, sneak entirely unrealistic education “reforms” goals into law.
 So what will the next generation of presently gestating “reforms” produce? If past is prologue, they will produce nothing but distraction, wasted time and superfluous effort on the part of frontline educators. But at least they will provide protective cover for wily politicians and busy work for a lot of otherwise largely useless bureaucrats.




[1] These numbers are based on 2016 Oklahoma averages as compiled by the National Center for Educational Statistics. http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/SASS/tables/sass0708_2009324_t1s_08.asp

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