Education and Schools Are a Focus for Edwards

[JohnLocke]

Education and Schools Are a Focus for Edwards
By Julie Bosman--New York Times
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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DES MOINES, Sept. 21 — The Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards laid out a proposal on Friday to overhaul the education system, saying that the current No Child Left Behind law was not working and that poor children were still being sent to schools that are “separate and unequal.”

Speaking at Brody Middle School here, Mr. Edwards outlined a plan that he said would evaluate students more effectively, reduce class sizes and reward teachers who work in high-poverty schools with up to $15,000 in incentive pay, initiatives similar to those championed by education officials in New York City and elsewhere.

He also called for universal preschool, the creation of a national university that would become a “West Point for teachers” and an initiative that uses what he described as “education SWAT teams” to sweep in and rebuild failing schools.

“First, every child should be prepared to succeed when they show up in the classroom,” Mr. Edwards said. “Second, every classroom should be led by an excellent teacher. And third, every teacher should work in an outstanding school. These three principles should guide our reform.”

He revived his campaign slogan of what he calls the “two Americas,” applying it to racial and economic disparities in education.

“More than a half-century after Brown v. Board of Education, we still have two school systems, separate and unequal,” Mr. Edwards said. “There are nearly 1,000 high schools where more than half of the students won’t graduate — they’re called ‘dropout factories.’ ”
(...)
In addition to calling for making preschool available to all children, starting with those in the poorest areas, Mr. Edwards said he would support local partnerships to promote better health care and child care for young children. He said the federal government should help states retain new teachers, many of whom leave the profession after a few years.

Addressing one of the most criticized aspects of the No Child Left Behind law, he said he would overhaul the approach to standardized testing as a means of tracking the progress of students and schools.

Rather than what his campaign called “cheap standardized tests,” Mr. Edwards’s plan would develop “higher-quality assessments that measure higher-order thinking skills, including open-ended essays, oral examinations, and projects and experiments.”

Mr. Edwards made his education proposal at the end of a week in which his campaign expressed frustration with the attention being paid to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan.

At a forum in Davenport, Iowa, on Thursday night, attended by five of the top Democratic candidates, Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton both noted their health care plans, but Mr. Edwards fought to remind the audience that he introduced his own health care plan months ago.
(...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/us/politics/22edwards.html?ref=politics

[LWolf]

1. No plan that retains testing is adequate.

Edwards' plan still relies on high-stakes testing.

I'd like him to contact this man to talk about plans for public education:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1854641

[SoonerShankle]

3. Even the NEA recognizes that testing...

has to be part of the model. It just should not be the only measure.


The California Teachers Association, an affiliate of the NEA, has spent the past summer promoting the following concepts for ESEA/NCLB reauthorization:

that "...the rewritten law include accountability measures that use more than just test scores as indicators of success, and,
...that the rewritten law use growth models that recognize school progress, student improvement, and student needs, and,...that the rewritten law offer assistance and resources to schools instead of sanctions, and,...that the rewritten law offer resources to reduce class sizes and that it support other proven reforms that improve student learning."

Since Nancy Pelosi and George Miller have come out with a draft of the reauthorization bill, CTA and NEA now are asking all teachers and parents to urge their elected officials to vote AGAINST reauthorization. Our democratic leadership actually took a bad bill and made it worse.


Edwards plan offers many good ideas that are already supported by teachers, such as universal pre-school, and investing in schools and recruiting,training, and retaining highly qualified teachers. His plan actually tries to get at the issue of the achievement gap, rather than just punish schools for performing poorly on tests. Edwards wants to use authentic assessments to identify problem areas to aide schools in strengthening student learning. Its nice to hear a candidate talk about the need for quality education rather than the need for performing well on tests as compared to Asian and European countries.

Hopefully, voters won't discount candidates just for mentioning the word testing. As an educator, I do not care for the amount of time and resources poured into high-stakes testing, but I do see the benefit in using test results to drive my lesson planning so long as the tests are aligned with the standards and curricula of the schools. There is an appropriate way to use test scores. Our government just hasn't figured that our yet.

[LWolf]

6. Being a member of the NEA,

and a former member of the CTA, I'm fully aware of their positions. They are also fully aware of where I, and many of their members, stand.

I've also already read the snips you posted.

Their statements are an effort to insert some of what teachers really want, and an admission that they don't believe they CAN get rid of the testing. Not that they, or their members, don't believe they SHOULD.

Testing does not have to be part of any federal model of educational support. Public ed is a state responsibility. Without getting into a debate over states' rights, I'll say that the greater questions of who should be in charge of public ed, feds or states, or how that power is shared, is part of the underlying dysfunction here.

The stated purpose of ESEA as it was enacted in 1965, and reauthorized every 5 years since, was to "provide targeted resources to help ensure that disadvantaged students have access to a quality public education" (NEA, 2002).

It wasn't to decide how or what to teach, or how or what to measure, or what to do with the measurement data. Or to provide access to students for military recruiters, for that matter. At least, not until 2001, when it took on whole new powers and emerged with a new name, "No Child Left Behind," as well.

There is no reason why providing resources for disadvantaged students has to include high-stakes testing, either.

Suggesting that "testing has to be part of it" is simply repeating the propaganda used to get the changes made to begin with. If you repeat it often enough, that makes it true, right? Just like weighing the cow, or the pig, more often makes it gain weight faster. :eyes:

I agree that Miller/Kennedy/Pelosi are presenting an unacceptable version for reauthorization.

I also agree that there are many kinds of assessments that provide helpful data to let me know how a student is doing, what I need to focus on with that student, etc.. I really don't need the feds making those decisions for me. I honestly don't need the state, and in some cases the district, deciding that for me, either. That's how I get students in middle school who think that reading so fast you can't understand what they are saying, and they can't think about or remember what they've read, means they're "fluent readers." Because some state/district admins decided that DIBELS measurements of "words per minute" were a valid, and desirable measure of fluency, so kids are trained to read too quickly for comprehension in order to show that they are "more fluent" (faster) every year. The standardistas, and the test-dependents, love having "multiple measures." It means we spend more and more and more time every year on measuring, and on documenting the measurements, and less time teaching.

I don't agree with ranking schools. That's blatant classism. Those calling for testing as some sort of tool to serve the disadvantaged ignore the reasons why those students are disadvantaged to begin with, and those reasons have nothing to do with school. We can make a difference with them, but we can't erase their, or their parents', socio-economic status or ed levels, which we know play too significant a factor in test scores to use them as a measure of a school districts' performance.

I don't agree with using those scores to threaten, punish, or bribe districts, schools, or teachers. Any more than I do students. I don't believe in sorting schools into "haves and have-nots." It doesn't work as an effective long-term motivator, it doesn't improve long-term practice of anything, it just provides power holders with a useful tool/weapon.

Students' performance is not an "accountability measure" of the school system, it is a measure of those individuals' performance. The system does not control many of the factors that influence that performance.

If you want "accountability measures," I'd suggest looking at things like whether or not there is a support system in place, given the resources the government has chosen to provide, to help the disadvantaged. That's what the money is for, right? Did the districts spend it on supporting the disadvantaged? Of course, those measures are already in place, and have been there since 1965.

There are many reasons why students don't learn everything we'd like them to. Some of those reasons can be addressed within the education system itself. Some of the solutions will never receive funding from politicians who are making political hay with the blame game. Many of the solutions lie outside the school building, and tptb REALLY don't want to address those.

Edwards' solutions sound good. The bottom line, though, is that he wants to retain high-stakes testing. No matter how you rephrase that, no matter how many different tests or measures you may use, the faulty underlying principle remains.

As an educator, I stand by my original statements and points.

[JohnLocke]

2. Kick (nt).

[Catchawave]

4. Daily Kos has a good analysis by teacherken

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/23/65856/7115

[Forkboy]

5. K&R