Comments about ‘Ed board won't accept test averages’

No Child Left Behind is an under-funded but federally mandated program. It was doomed to fail. If the program had any chance of working it would have been completely funded....apparently that wasn't the goal.

Here in Georgia we have students that enter the school system in 3rd grade or higher not only illiterate in English but also in Spanish. Yes they are illegal. The teachers and the school reputation are then ruined when , by the end of the year, that student is not up to grade level as reflected by the necessary NCLB testing.

My special needs son was also removed from his small group of 10 students in the classroom into a regular education classroom as part of NCLB. All small group classes were dissolved. Great, now a special education students looks "normal" but isn't getting the individual attention to keep him at grade level which he was performing with the other program.

I look forward to the day when a nail can be put in the coffin of the NCLB program.

One angry Momma,
Ramona

Basically what this article is saying from the comments of the board members was, well we found a way to get around the system and now that we're caught we'll work on finally getting better education to students. The law needs to find a way to make students succeed, whether it be mandatory passing of school or something else that will make kids less interested in wearing abercrombie & fitch and more interested in being an adult. Kids these days are very unintelligent, I am only 19, out of high school 2 years and I recently spoke to a 11th grader, I felt like I was talking to someone that had the mentality of an 8th grader. Students aren't allowed to pursue the things they want to study, because they are forced to take classes they aren't interested in, thereby making kids vulnerable to playing on youtube all day and not doing their homework. The government needs to make "Class" mandatory, but not make classes kids aren't going to use mandatory, such as chemistry or algebra 2 to a student that is interested in being a chef, for example. Basically stop letting your kids slack in school !!!

This program needs to be a local input thing as the population demographics are sometimes of varying sizes..there needs to be an area for addressing the illegals as they are putting a strain on the system that is payed for by the taxpayer..isn't that a form of over-taxation? Bush totally failed on this one..time to go back to school and pay the teachers more as utah lags way behind and this program adds a huge amount of demand on the real heroes who hold the true answers to the problems that should be dealt with from the local level!

No child left behind is the worst educational program ever devised in American history. It takes the very good student, the average stdent, the below average student and even the special ed student. Put them all together and you produce a very average out come. Ya everybody passes but no one excells. If I didn't know better I would say this idea came from an enemy of the USA not our own legislators.

The truth is Utah public schools are a catastrophic failure. Rather than face facts, Utah officials have used improper statistical misrepresentations to make it look like their schools were meeting (exceeding minimal) NCLB standards when if fact a large proportion of Utah schools have failed every year since NCLB was first enacted.

Our ignorant Utah parents are all too willing to look the other way. They would rather hear reassuring lies than let go of the denial and do the hard work of finding solutions (like vouchers). Utah really has failed its IQ test in the education arena, and our children are losing their futures.

find a smarter way to ensure no student gets left behind. The current law has the effect of dumbing down education for the majority of students.

Dumbing down the classroom, you hit the nail on the head with NCLB. The point is to make everybody function at a basic level and those that would normally excel in a class are forced to wait to move forward until the average student "gets" it. My special needs son is put in a regular ed. class instead of small group so he "looks" normal but isn't getting the once individual attention in which he is most capable of learning. It would seem that the only one getting the advantage is the average student while bright and struggling students are lost. NCLB sounds good but seems to perform the opposite of what it claims...It leaves massive amounts of children behind.

Our scores continue to be near the top of the nation all while done with the worst funding in the nation.

Incredible.


I will say that our test scores will decrease exactly equal with the amount of illegal immigrants that show up to take the tests.

Og,

This isn't a uniquely Utah problem. I live in Georgia. Again, NCLB is a federally mandated and underfunded program which sets it up for failure from the start.

My experience is that special needs and struggling students are put in classrooms to make them look "normal." It might be a feel good, but it doesn't help the students. Smaller classrooms with more individual attention helps struggling students. Instead students are tested and not taught for approximately one month out of the school year. That is precious time lost preparing a child to become test savvy instead of taking the time to educate.
We have a local school that is disproportionately illegal immigrants and the test scores reflect that fact. The teachers and the school is already on probation with NCLB. Now how exactly are the school and the teachers to blame for the testing results? Again, students enter at 3rd grade or later illiterate in both English and Spanish. A program that was appropriately funded could work but that just isn't the case so teachers are instead being blamed for the population that was districted to them.

A catastrophic failure? Did you know that utah students scored above the national average on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills? Regardless of the Iowa results you can't label a school as a success or a failure based on only one test. This is what NCLB does. Schools need to improve, but a catastrophic failure? OH PLEASE!

Utahs PUBLIC education system was never intended to cater to the wants of every student. It was designed and intended to give every child a BASIC education from which they can build on depending on their interests. It is also hamstrung by the fact that it always has to teach to the lowest common denominator (the slowest kid). Its a good system but was never intended to be able to make everyone a member of the ALPS program. Our education system serves a very basic functional purpose. NCLB may never happen the way it was intended but it has served to sharpen our focus on the issues.

NCLB score manipulation reflects similar tampering with the ACT and SAT tests. Every year, ACT and SAT tests continued to go down in the US, embarrassing the NEA and politicians. The solution? Redesign the tests and scoring so that students would score higher and historical comparison would be interrupted! Out of sight, out of mind!

American public education has failed, and it is getting worse in absolute performance terms every year. But for Americans and Utahns who care to step out of their own little bubble world, check out how badly American students do against other industrialized countries of the world. We are WAY DOWN the list and our students CAN'T COMPETE IN A WORLD ECONOMY.

Given the economic prosperity and small populations of disadvantaged minority students, Utah should be performing WAY ABOVE the US average in comparison to other states with larger poor and minority populations, but we do not.

Oh well, I guess someone needs to pump gas for the Chinese, and it may as well be Utah's rising generation . . .

And we wonder why there is a shortage of teachers to teach our children?? With what is expected for teachers to achieve, it's not fair when they are putting in countless hours for little money. I see too many government departments receiving more and more money when not necessary. For me it's simple, IF our teachers were being high salaries and not performing, then we have a problem. We can't blame the teachers, just the system on this one.

NCLB is the best thing that ever happened to education. No more mr nice guy. Reject the soft bigotry that says that some students such as minorities or the poor cant learn. Students need to be rigorously tested every year and held back if they are not learning. If teachers cant improve students performance year to year after 5 years they should be told to find another line of work.

Merit pay should be for performance not for classes you have taken or workshops attended. Students will always have life issues e.g. divorce,poverty drugs, etc. But if teacher cant improve their learning then out. I have taught college for 30 years and the performance of freshmen has gone down

OG, vouchers will not solve the problem! Parents and local school boards can and should solve the problem. Federal rules do not apply to all situations so let's get busy on a local school board plan.

To Richard Sherlock,

With all do respect if your freshman performance has gone down in college for 30 straight years shouldn't you have found a different line of work.

I think we should all give teachers a break for the hard, back breaking work they do for our children.

I love the merit pay people.

How exactly do you figure out who merits the pay?

Test scores?

O.k. so if I'm a teacher I only work at the best school with the brightest kids. My test scores go through the roof even if I'm a bad teacher.

This makes the achievement gap even worse because the worst teachers will be teaching at the worst schools with the worst students.

Merit pay sounds good to a logical person but there is no way to do it.

I don't like the No child Left Behind. Cause alot of kids are being left behind!! It isn't a fair program at all. It should be abolished.

Mr. Sherlock,
You don't seem to understand how NCLB works. The program caters, not to the brightest children which it holds back, it caters to the average child. Your freshman class reflect this problem that will only worsen the longer NCLB remains. Again, bright children are held at status quo and bored while the rest of the class catches up.

Yes, minorities especially illegals are held back but the teachers are the ones being blamed for not getting them caught up to grade level in one year. Do you not understand that you can't get a child from kindergarten level to 3rd grade reading in 1 year given there are also other students in the class that must suffer as a consequence of the monopolized time with the teacher? Are you volunteering in those high risk schools that are drawn based on socio-economics? No, of course you aren't but you will certainly blame the teachers for not doing their jobs when you have no idea what their jobs have become. As an example, one local school was a blue ribbon school only 4 years ago, yet now is at risk of NCLB accreditation, only the boundaries changed.

Richard Sherlock's point is the incoming class of freshman each year, when they first reach his classroom, get worse every year. Standardized test scores, when not artificially obscured, and comparisons of Utah to and international students, bear out Sherlock's assertion.

Ramona is also correct--NCLB and public schooling holds back the best and brightest in order to cater to the lowest common denomenator. At the same time, lower-performing students don't benefit either.

Polls show the reason most people voted against vouchers was because they wanted to stop the gifted students from gaining "elite" educations and creating a performance gap. Too bad it is a relative few gifted people (Edison, Einstein, Demming, etc.) who provide the ideas and jobs that keep the duller masses fully employed in a vibrant economy. Without gifted minds, the economy stagnates and jobs go overseas.

To "It can't work" . . . stop telling us that "local school boards can solve the problem." Local educrats have had about a hundred years to solve the problem, and despite decades of such rhetoric they have failed. Ever-decreasing performance is what prompted misguided NCLB!

Smaller classes and more education spending yield no statistically significant performance improvement!