September 2007

Someone My good friend and quite awesome blogger Joseph IM’d me this quote from Bush yesterday. Another classic example of how it is possible to have some sheepskin hanging, but still not have a fucking clue:

“As yesterday’s positive report card shows,” Bush said, “childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”

Here is something the President’s report card won’t show you and something he doesn’t want anyone to know. No Child Left Behind is engineered in such a way as to leave behind a group of kids you wouldn’t think we’d want to leave behind. The gifted.

Personal story. Both of my girls have been identified as gifted. I’m sure this has more to do with their mother than I. She, afterall, has a dual set of sheepskin while I got nuttin’. No certification of any sort of intellectual prowess (lucky for me, I’ve not tended to need them really).

My youngest is way ahead of the curve and some disturbing things are starting to happen. First, she is in a reading group of one because of where she is relative to her class. A reading group, I might add, where you are supposed to pick a partner. I’m hoping this doesn’t induce some sort of talking to herself madness. It has also become apparent that she does not get the attention that other kids get precisely because she is so far along and there is no worry in getting her to levels prescribed by “My Child Left Behind”. What about moving her ahead? Gotta test her for that and they are not allowed to do that, we are told, until later in the year. “Is this another limitation of NCLB?,” we ask. “Don’t get me started,” the teacher tells us.

NCLB is a fraud and a sham. Bush sold it as a system of accountability, but this begs the question. Was student progress NOT tracked before? I seem to remember it. I remember knowing right where I was in terms of grade level, expectations, and how far above or below it I was. I also seem to remember teachers being able to do what is necessary to challenge kids. I read with a grade higher in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. Maybe this is what Emma needs too. What she gets with NCLB is a reading group of one and a teacher who is unable to challenge her with books that she is asking for. You read that correctly. She is asking for harder books because she knows she can read them, but the teacher is unable to give them to her because she can’t test for comprehension on the current ones…due to the system of accountability.

The result? A bored kid who went from loving school and reading to having morning anxiety about going and issues with getting in trouble once she gets there. Heckuva job, Bushie.

Congress is considering changes to the system and I hope they are successful. It’s broken. The ways in which I’d like to see it change will probably never happen. I’d like to see public school run more like Montessori schools with highly trained teachers who learn and cater to each individual kid and let the kid determine more of the curriculum on a daily basis. Politicians and Teacher’s Unions are probably both equally to blame for our lack of vision in that regard.

Bush, in response to recent talk of changes to NCLB:

My call to the Congress is: Don’t water down this good law

I say to Bush: Don’t water down my kid because you want to have something – anything – stand as a legacy for your domestic agenda. NCLB is dumbing down our kids. It might be bringing some kids up to a higher standard…and those kids desperately need that. But a system that does not also take into account that there are kids that don’t fit your square holes of a learning roadmap does a great disservice to our educational system at a time when American kids are falling farther and farther behind kids in other developed nations.

Bush might feel more comfortable if everyone were to dumb down to his level – especially as it concerns grammar – but this system seems to be geared toward giving teachers an uncomfortable incentive to create a modern class of mediocres. No thanks.

We used to sit the troublemakers in the corner by themselves. That’s apparently now where we sit the bright kids.

Share on Facebook

{ 7 comments }

On average, 15% of incoming college freshmen do not have a parent who attended college. At Ohio State, that number is nearly 23%.

Ohio State’s numbers are fantastic, because we know that many of these students come from families that haven’t traditionally considered college,” said Tally Hart, director of the Economic Access Initiative.

According to the Ohio State Web site, the creation of the Economic Access Initiative further marks the university’s ongoing commitment to ensuring all qualified students, regardless of income, can make the dream of college a reality.

“I knew I always wanted to go to college, but I also knew finances would be an issue,” said Amber Ballard, a first-generation student and senior in human ecology. “Luckily, in sixth grade I was nominated for the Young Scholars Program, so the door was opened for me. Without that, my chance at a college education would have been very slim.”

Unfortunately, it’s not all roses and lollypops.

Despite rising enrollment among first-generation students, graduation rates are still lacking on a national level. Ongoing studies by the Institute of Higher Education Policy show many first-generation and low-income students who do attend colleges and universities are less likely than counterparts to obtain their bachelor’s degree.

In 2005, the National Center for Educational Statistics reported that compared with students whose parents attended college, first-generation students consistently remained at a disadvantage after entering post-secondary education – needing remedial assistance, earning lower grades and completing fewer credit hours.

However, these students have one thing I, as a relative child of privilege (both parents have Masters degrees, both grandfathers attended prestigious Universities – Notre Dame and Carnegie Mellon) did not have: an appreciation for the opportunity to attend college. Due to my background, I grew up thinking everyone went to college. To me, it wasn’t a big deal. These kids have a better understanding of how privileged they are to be going to college, and consequently they often work much much harder at succeeding.

“There is a lot of pressure that comes with being a first-generation student,” Ballard said. “Sometimes you get caught up in the odds being against you, and your family can’t relate to all the things you’re dealing with.”

Ballard said the title of being the first in her family to graduate is enough to motivate those students to give it all they have.

“It’s important for me to graduate because I know I can’t let my family down,” she said. “I’m starting a new era (of college graduates), and that gives me motivation to succeed.”

Share on Facebook

{ 0 comments }