Finally one of the former advocates, supporters and backers of NCLB (No Child Left Behind) has come to her senses and realized how awful of a program we have in place in our public school system. Diane Ravitch once a conservative advocate has changed her opinion about NCLB.
In a recent interview on NPR she stated, " I was known as a conservative advocate of many of these policies," Ravitch says. "But I've looked at the evidence and I've concluded they're wrong. They've put us on the wrong track. I feel passionately about the improvement of public education and I don't think any of this is going to improve public education."
She finally has seen the "real" results of NCLB, which have turned our education system into another capitalist enterprise where our schools compete against each other vs. work together to help our students. Instead of our schools acting like one big family, they act like different sporting teams, whom are all trying to win the championship- and will do anything to win it. Instead of sharing resources, having engaging conversations about what type of assessments work or ways to help promote good behavior, schools hide that information so they can "win" over the other local neighborhood school.
Her change of heart emerged in Nov. 2006 when she went to a conference in DC where she heard a doxen or so scholars present their analyses of NCLB's remedies. It was at this conference where she realized that NCLB was actually a FAILURE. The conference examined whether the major remedies that were presented in NCLB were effective. Was the NCLB "workbook" working? The presentations that day demonstrated that the state education departments were submerged deeply into new bureaucratic requirements, procedures and routines and the NCLB remedies were not making a difference otherwise.
It was the collection of data from this conference that was so convincing. Initially NCLB wanted to give each student, or family a choice. Give them the opportunity to switch schools if a student was at a failing school. While this all sounded excellent and very helpful- it did not happen in most states, or it happened at alarming rates. In California for example, less than 1 percent of eligible students in "failing" schools asked to transfer to another school. Most districts had only one school at each grade level, and the state's urban districts did not have enough seats available. Many scholars questioned whether choice was even a successful strategy, because many found that choice had little or no effect on student achievement.
Even if choice was a good strategy most students were not transferring schools because no letter informing parents of their rights was ever delivered. Something else that the conference brought up was the most parents did not want their children to leave the neighborhood school, even if the Federal Government offered and promised a better school.
Another aspect to this choice was Free after-school tutoring, and again did not provide any sufficient evidence that NCLB was helping struggling students. The problem with this choice was how few students actually qualified for this service. Only 7% of all students in CA. were eligible and received tutoring. 7% that is it.
I could go on and on about all the failings of NCLB that were brought up from this conference, but that would just continue to bore everyone. The point is that one of the biggest proponents of NCLB has finally admitted how bad of a program it is. With her book out and continual discussions of why it is a bad program maybe change can finally come our way. Maybe a totally new program that really helps to close the gap of achievement can actually be created and implemented into our system. Maybe I am just being a bit too optimistic, but I am really hoping and advocating for change! For my sake as a future Special Education teacher, and for our future students as well!
