In the mid 1970s, Dexter Manley was graduated from Jack Yates High School, an inner city football power house in Houston. From an academic point of view, he was totally illiterate. Of course, he also spent four years earning passing grades at Oklahoma State. In the mid 1980s, Manley was the poster boy and the chief piece of evidence for education reform in Texas. From then on, any person who wanted to be elected Governor of Texas had better be extremely outspoken on behalf of education reform.
Calls for reform led to calls for more money. Calls for more money, led to demands for accountability. Comprehensive testing is seen as being the most efficient way to promote and implement accountability. The interesting thing about the No Child Left Behind Act is that it not only impacts money, but the very life of a given school.
The concentration on test scores impacts the pay and job security. Good deal, right? Not so fast.
Three examples:
Superintendents are hired based on promises to improve test score. There is much turn over. Their deservedly high salaries are greatly influenced by 200-2000 employees. A thoughtful professional will protect the family’s income by moving to a less problematic district as soon as issues of concern appear on the horizon. In six years, I worked with 3 superintendents.
Building principals are given yearly goals and are paid bonuses or fired based on test achievement. I worked for years in a high school whose student population was undergoing vast and constant demographic change. I worked under 4 principals in ten years. Most principals have a plan, a bag of tricks that has worked for them. Yet, they are keenly aware of the diminishing marginal utility of their plans. So again, they come in, work their magic and get out before the trend line drops (farther).
In Texas, part of a teacher’s pay is based on scores and now the legislature want job security so attached as well. Let’s take my old district – school A is in a great long established upper middle class neighborhood with a history of superior test results; school B is in a “transitional” neighborhood with many highly mobile families and English competency issues. These kids need great teachers. However, a blue chip candidate for a teaching position would be silly to consider school B if school A was on the table as well.
This is just one small slice of the harmful unintended side effects caused by NCLB.
In view of this, as I scanned an overview of John Cornyn’s remarks at the Heritage Foundation I felt a rush of hope. Soon I was to find that his comments were just a tad bit longer than the name of the bill he is cosponsoring, the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) Act of 2007.
I felt teased. Important notions were only vaguely hinted at:
Calls for reform led to calls for more money. Calls for more money, led to demands for accountability. Comprehensive testing is seen as being the most efficient way to promote and implement accountability. The interesting thing about the No Child Left Behind Act is that it not only impacts money, but the very life of a given school.
The concentration on test scores impacts the pay and job security. Good deal, right? Not so fast.
Three examples:
Superintendents are hired based on promises to improve test score. There is much turn over. Their deservedly high salaries are greatly influenced by 200-2000 employees. A thoughtful professional will protect the family’s income by moving to a less problematic district as soon as issues of concern appear on the horizon. In six years, I worked with 3 superintendents.
Building principals are given yearly goals and are paid bonuses or fired based on test achievement. I worked for years in a high school whose student population was undergoing vast and constant demographic change. I worked under 4 principals in ten years. Most principals have a plan, a bag of tricks that has worked for them. Yet, they are keenly aware of the diminishing marginal utility of their plans. So again, they come in, work their magic and get out before the trend line drops (farther).
In Texas, part of a teacher’s pay is based on scores and now the legislature want job security so attached as well. Let’s take my old district – school A is in a great long established upper middle class neighborhood with a history of superior test results; school B is in a “transitional” neighborhood with many highly mobile families and English competency issues. These kids need great teachers. However, a blue chip candidate for a teaching position would be silly to consider school B if school A was on the table as well.
This is just one small slice of the harmful unintended side effects caused by NCLB.
In view of this, as I scanned an overview of John Cornyn’s remarks at the Heritage Foundation I felt a rush of hope. Soon I was to find that his comments were just a tad bit longer than the name of the bill he is cosponsoring, the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) Act of 2007.
I felt teased. Important notions were only vaguely hinted at:
more decision-making power to parents and teachers… cutting the red tape and bureaucracy… eliminating the regulatory burden that invariably attends Washington control.
http://cornyn.senate.gov/index.asp?f=record&lid=1&rid=237281
Soon I will be reading the Senate bill (I attended public school in Ohio) to find out just how they plan to do those wonderful things listed above.
Its worth noting that Cornyn is up for reelection in ’08. While there is little indication of who his main competition will be, he undoubtedly knows that he needs more in his resume than his (formerly) rabid support for the war and all things Alberto Gonzales.
