Policy Proposal

History of NCLB
-Signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush

-Bipartisan Congressional Support

-Goal that schools and teachers would be held accountable for student performance

-Aggressive piece of legislation

Intended Impact
-Stronger accountability for results

-Increased flexibility and local control

-Expanded options for parents

-High quality educators

-Quality education for all children

-Use of proven education methods

Actual Impact
-No national assessment standards

-Lack of funding

-Limited parental and community involvement

-Emphasis on test taking

-Lack of evidence based programming

-Ignores social and family contexts

-Punitive consequences for schools who do not meet their AYP goals

Curriculum Limitations
-Teaching a test

-Disregarding the arts

-Lack of funding for classroom materials etc.

-Norm Referenced testing vs. Criterion Referenced testing

-Stifling critical thinking

How can children be expected to learn if…
-They go to school hungry

-They are being abused

-They cannot understand the language

-They are being bullied

-They have special needs that are not being addressed by their IEP

-Their parents are in the middle of a divorce

-They have recently lost someone they love

-Their parent is deployed

-Their single mom works three jobs and is not home to provide supervision in the evening or ensure that they catch the bus in the morning

Proposal Goal
-Provide services to meet the behavioral, social and emotional needs of children and youth through the creation of social work jobs in all schools, specifically those which do not meet their Annual Yearly Progress Goals under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Proposal Objectives
-Focus on a holistic approach to education

-Address issues such as truancy, drop-out, school violence, bullying, healthy decision making, eating disorders, family dynamics, and individualized learning needs (part of IEP team)

-To advocate on behalf of at-risk children and youth

Role of School Social Workers
-Ensure that a child’s basic needs are met (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)

-Address a variety of emotional, behavioral, and social issues within schools

-Promote healthy decision making and positive programming for youth

-Serve as a liaison for students, teachers, administrators, and parents

-Create programming related to crisis intervention, self-efficacy, problem solving and peer interactions, grief & loss etc.

Feasibility & Funding
-Funding would come from a combination of federal and state dollars

-American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

-Current Department of Education Funding

-$250 million allocated to funding otherwise specified

Incentives for Equitable Education

The US Education Department (USED) will soon be writing checks totaling more than $100 billion (yes that's a b) to states and districts. About 95% is just backfilling budget holes -- a good thing given the precipitous and potentially disastrous drop in state and local revenues. Unfortunately, USED will be criticized because the money didn't come soon enough, wasn't enough, wasn't fairly distributed, and won't last forever.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-vander-ark/incentives-for-equitable_b_183562.html


Comments?

Enhancing School-Based Prevention and Youth

A comprehensive mission for schools is to educate students to be knowledgeable, responsible, socially skilled, healthy, caring, and contributing citizens. This mission is supported by the growing number of school-based prevention and youth development programs. Yet, the current impact of these programs is limited because of insufficient coordination with other components of school operations and inattention to implementation and evaluation factors necessary for strong program impact and sustainability. Widespread implementation of beneficial prevention programming requires further development of research-based, comprehensive school reform models that improve social, health, and academic outcomes; educational policies that demand accountability for fostering children’s full development; professional development that prepares and supports educators to implement programs effectively; and systematic monitoring and evaluation to guide school improvement. To be effective, schools must concentrate on their fundamental mission of teaching and learning. And they must do it for all children. That must be the overarching goal of schools in the twenty-first century. (Ravitch, 2000, p. 467)

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~orp/essential_readings/Greenberg%20et%20al%202003.pdf

• How beneficial are school-based prevention and youth programs (ie. including social workers) in improving the quality of education of students from inner city schools?

Comments are greatly appreciated!

Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis

In an increasingly competitive, global economy the consequences of dropping out of high school are devastating to individuals, communities and our national economy. At an absolute minimum, adults need a high school diploma if they are to have any reasonable opportunities to earn a living wage. A community where many parents are dropouts is unlikely to have stable families or social structures. Most businesses need workers with technical skills that require at least a high school diploma. Yet, with little notice, the United States is allowing a dangerously high percentage of students to disappear from the educational pipeline before graduating from high school.

Nationally, high school graduation rates are low for all students, with only an estimated 68% of those who enter 9th grade graduating with a regular diploma in12th grade. But, as the table below makes clear, they are substantially lower for most minority groups, and particularly for males. According to the calculations used in this report1, in 2001, only 50% of all black students, 51% of Native American students, and 53% of all Hispanic students graduated from high school. Black, Native American, and Hispanic males fare even worse: 43%, 47%, and 48% respectively.

This is an interesting look at the graduation rates amongst minority groups.

Take a look!

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410936_LosingOurFuture.pdf


Questions-

• How deep and widespread are the racial disparities that exist at the state and district level?
  

• How has the misleading and incomplete reporting of this issue obscured both the magnitude and racial dimensions of the crisis?
  

• Can state and federal accountability systems, as implemented, be appropriatley structured to improve high school graduations rates, especially among children of color?

• How does the graduation rates among minorities relate to No Child Left Behind?

Stupid in America

Questions:

• What factors can contribute to the public school system improving the quality of education that students receive?
• Does the amount of money really make a difference?

No Child Left Behind / Testing

Good evening! Thanks for looking at our blog. This blog has been set up to discuss issues surrounding the No Child Left Behind Act. This legislation was enacted in 2002 during the Bush Administration. The purpose of the legislation is to improve the quality of education of children in the public school system.

As an introduction to test your knowledge of No Child Left Behind, we would like to present you with questions.

No Child Left Behind: The Test
by Stan Karp

Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the federal government has mandated that all 91, 000 public schools in the US be rated on the basis of standardized test scores. The new law's unmistakable message is if its not on a test, it's not worth knowing.

Accordingly, the following information about NCLB and U.S. education policy is presented in the form today's policymkaers seem to love best: objective, multiple-choice questions that leave no room for doubt, debate, or complete sentences.

Your goal is to circle the truth witha number-two pencil. You will have twenty minutes to complete the test. You may not look at any other part of the magazine during that time. Nor may you talk, eat, go tot he bathroom, use a dictionary, or have a creative thought. You sweat. .

*Some questions have been copied from the actual test located at http://tiny.cc/dKpY2 *


1. The percentage of schools that did not meet NCLB's "adequate yearly progress" targets for the 2002-2003 school year included:

• A. 5 % of Alabama schools.
• B. 14% of Wyoming schools.
• C. 40%of Illinois schools.
• D. 76% of Florida schools.
• E. All of the above

2. The reason for these widely varying results include the fact that.

• A. States have very different standards that make comparisons essentially menaingless.
• B. The "AYP" targets are so arbitrary and inappropriate that eventually most schools will be on the list anyway.
• C. NCLB actually encourages some states to adopt lower standards to keep schools off the list.
• D. The threshold size for counting student subgroups--like special education students or English-language learners--varies widely from state to state.
• E. All of the above.
  

3. Examples of NCLB's impact on classrooms include:

• A. In Maine, teacher-made, classroom-based assessments are being replaced by standardized tests.
• B. Philadelphia fourth graders read fewer books.
• C. Maryland schools are spending 20% less time on social studies.
• D. Oregon is cutting foreign-language and music classes and spending more time on testing.
• E. A significant reduction in arts-education programs, particularly in urban schools with large number of students of color.
• F. All of the above.
  

4. Which of the following statements about whether NCLB is an "unfunded mandate" is true?

• A. Section 9257 of NCLB says: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize . . . the Federal Government to . . . mandate a State or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act."
• B. 90% of school superintendents have said NCLB requires them to make expenditures NCLB doesn't provide.
• C. The nonpartisan General Accounting Office concluded that NCLB did not qualify as an "unfunded mandate" because states could not accept federal funds if they didn't want to comply with its provisions.
• D. All of the above.
  

5. The approximately $130 billion spent so far on the war in Iraq is:

• A. About 4 times what the federal government annually spends on K-12 programs for all 50 states.
• B. Enough to hire 2.4 million elementary school teachers.
• C. Enough to provide Head Start slots for an additional 18 million children.
• D. Enough to provide full four-year college scholarships for more than 3 million students.
• E. Each of the above.
  

6. According to the Children's Defense Fund:

• A. States spend on average almost three times as much per prisoner as per public school pupil.
• B. 9.3 million children lack health insurance.
• C. Three million children live in households suffering from hunger or "food insecurity without hunger."
• D. All of the above.

7. Which of the following does NCLB specifically provide funds for?

• A. Smaller class sizes.
• B. Multicultural education.
• C. Full-day kindergarten.
• D. Test research.

8. Which of the following provisions is NOT contained in the NCLB legislation?

• A. Greater access to school records for military recruiters.
• B. Greater access to school facilitates for groups like the Boys Scouts that discriminate against gays and lesbians.
• C. Greater access to bilingual programs for English-language learners.
• D. Guarantees of "constituntionally protected" prayer in schools.
• E. Greater access to school funds for faith0based and religious groups.
  

9. A 2003 Gallup poll on NCLB showed that:

• A. 76% of the public knew "nothing" or "very little" about the law.
• B. 66% said a single statewide test was not a fair measure of whether a school needed improvement.
• C. 84% said that determining "reasonable improvement from where [students] started" was a better measure of school performance than a fixed test-score target.
• D. 71% thought it was important to close gaps in test scores among different racial groups.
• E. Only 16% thought these gaps were caused primarily by the quality of schooling they received.
• F. All of the above.

10. A U.S. Department of Education survey of private schools found that:

• A. Two-thirds said they would refuse vouchers if they had to accept studnets randomly.
• B. Over half would refuse vouchers if they had to administer the same tests that public schools do.
• C. Three-quarters would refuse to accept special-needs students or English-Language learners as voucher students.
• D. All of the above.
  

Source: Rethinking Schools Online - http://tiny.cc/dKpY2



Questions:

1. What are your thoughts about standardized testing?
2. Does NCLB really contribute to students being successful?