Today, our Education College held a public forum on ??No Child Left Behind.?? I attended. I try to keep up on general policy issues, but there are clearly many individuals who have a much more comprehensive view of major issues. I felt the dean’s comments were quite insightful and would like to summarize them here. I cannot claim responsibility for these ideas, nor can I guarantee that I have captured what the dean intended.
I think it would be fair to conclude that the UND Dean of Education is very concerned about the long term of NCLB and feels a responsibility for voicing concerns that others are unwilling or unable to express. Having taken this position, he was quite careful to recognize that NCLB was a law with broad support from both sides of the aisle. Those in positions of preparing teachers must operate in compliance with the provisions of NCLB, but must also use their professional knowledge and skills to make recommendations and raise critical issues in relationship to any legislation that is not truly in the best interest of all learners.
A good part of the presentation concerned an attempt to identify assumptions that seem to form of the basis for NCLB. As you might expect, the point was that these assumptions are either flawed or simplistic.
Assumptions:
1) Teachers are the problem
2) Teacher education programs do a poor job of training teachers
3) Anyone with a major can teach (Note: this assumption violates the assumption (2) that there are few essential pedagogical skills to be learned)
4) All students can perform at grade level
5) The mean class average in any given class will improve each year
6) It is productive to make an example of bad schools
7) Parents pulling their children out of a bad school will improve the quality of that school for others
Why are we in this position? My understanding of the dean’s comments would indicate that he feels the present situation results from a combination of a political agenda on the part of a specific group and the concerns of a different group that there are truly poor schools in some settings (i.e., inequity in student opportunity). The concern is that those making decisions are unable or unwilling to recognize that these two groups have very different long term goals and that these groups fundamentally believe in very different things.
The Dean provided a handout outlining key Provisions and Timeline.
