Teachers Address Education Law

Accountability is obviously important, but is individual student performance on a uniform test a way to determine who or what is accountable? I think the tests do not clearly predict or demonstrate what students know or have learned, or better, what they are capable of.

I join you, Leslie, in celebrating the many positive changes that No Child Left Behind brings to our nation's classrooms. For the first time in a long time, our nation is talking about the importance of education and about how we can best prepare children for their future. For the first time in a long time, teachers are emerging from their classrooms and wanting to know what other teachers are doing well so that they can learn from them. Most importantly, for the first time in a very, very long time, every child in this nation is receiving more academic and emotional support than they did before the law. This is a critical component, and one that cannot be undervalued. For too long, it was acceptable to have a small (or large) group of students who failed. I know that millions of teachers, like you, Lauren, are proud to be part of the push to prepare every child for his or her future. We have a long way to go, but NCLB helps provide the starting push that gets us moving.

There are lots of things that need to change about NCLB, and there seems to be a critical mass of federal policymakers who are aware of this need and are aware of ways to make the legislation work better for our nation's children.

I also believe in accountability. Truly, who doesn't? Just please don't mistake rhetoric for good legislation. It's not that simple. Here's an analogy.

Imagine if we judged doctors solely by their patients. Then imagine the doctor that specializes in working with the obese. Imagine this doctor does all he can. He cajoles, inspires, does house call, yells, befriends, reaches down deep into every bag of tricks he has yet still, his patient continues to eat jelly doughnuts for dinner. Is he a bad doctor? Should he be "held accountable" for the circumstances of his patient's weight? Should we run him out of business, publicly shame him, label him and his entire medical practice a failure?

Of course not.

But when you enter a class and take a 10^th grade student that reads at a 4rth grade level (not uncommon at all!) and improve that student's aptitude so that by the end of the year they read at a 7^th grade level, that's 3 years of improvement in one single year. Impressive, right? But the tests they give to this child label you a failure as a teacher because sorry, that 10^th grader does not read at a 10^th grade level and that's all the test measures - not growth, but absolutes in a pass/fail manner. Really, how are you going to feel about this at the end of the day? You did all this good work and still, public fingers point at you at dismiss your professional efforts are inadequate. It can be maddening.

NCLB tests measure whether or not your students are at grade level. They do not measure growth; they measure against a barometer that's based on age. So for all the good work teacher's are doing, their term "accountability" is being used as a political code to say in a sub-textual way, "Buddy, you are not cutting the professional mustard," without taking into account any of the extenuating circumstances.

But don't worry, your colleagues will understand. However, the neighborhood realtor will lower the community's housing prices, the district superintendent will turn the screws on your principal and the President of the United States will paint you out to the rest of the country as the reason that students in classrooms like yours are failing. If only you did your job better our kids would perform better. In some ways it's almost laughable.

Accountability is great if measurements are equitable, fair and intelligent. The positives of this law lay within the theoretical potential of what one day might be if a great many changes are made to public education in the United States. But the negative impact this law has thrust on classrooms right now is hard to look beyond in the immediate moment as we're mired in a host of poorly thought out by-products of this legislation.