Alaska left out of program to tailor No Child Left Behind act
Published Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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Stumble It!WASHINGTON -- Six states are getting the OK to write their own prescriptions for ailing schools under the Bush administration's signature education law. Alaska applied for the program but wasn't chosen.
It's a softening from how No Child Left Behind currently works — with schools having to take certain steps at specific times for missing math and reading testing goals. Critics have complained that the approach is too rigid and treats schools the same regardless of whether they miss the mark by a little or a lot.
The states getting more freedom under a pilot program are Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland and Ohio. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings made the announcement during a speech Tuesday in Austin, Texas.
The states that won approval have come up with plans to more closely tailor solutions to individual schools' problems and focus resources on schools in the worst shape.
"We expect to see a closer fit between the causes of school underperformance and a focused attention at repairing those sources of failure," said Margaret Raymond, director of an education think tank at Stanford University and the chair of a panel that reviewed the state proposals.
Examples of changes the states plan to make include requiring schools to offer tutoring earlier than is currently called for and a greater reliance, in Indiana for example, on testing throughout the year to catch academic weak spots.
In Florida, schools with low-performing students will likely be assigned teachers who have experience teaching similar students successfully.
Maryland is placing more emphasis on training principals. It's common under the law for failing schools to replace their principals. "We think principal leadership is key. It's not just changing a principal, it's ensuring principals have the necessary skill sets," said Maryland schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick.
In Georgia, the state is spelling out that schools can become charter schools, which are public but operate with broad independence, earlier than is currently called for, said the state's superintendent of schools, Kathy Cox.
Some critics worry the changes, specifically the focus on the worst-performing schools, will take the pressure off schools that are generally doing well but having trouble with one group of students — such as a minority group or kids with disabilities.
"I don't think it's taking the pressure off. I think it's allowing focus," Cox said.
Spellings has said up to 10 states will be allowed to try to participate in the pilot program. The Education Department plans to review additional state proposals this fall.
The six states that won approval were among 17 that sought it.
The states that didn't win approval were Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Spellings said in an interview that the efforts by the states that won approval to try new approaches will be closely watched and will shape any future rewrite of the six-year-old No Child law.
"We're trying to set the table for a strong and sensible reauthorization," Spellings said. "We're going to learn some things."
Community Discussion
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Very disappointing, Alaska should have been in on this.
The feds shouldn't be involved in schools at all.
It's only because of the elected and non-elected money whores (and the sheeple who actually think money is the answer to all the schools problems) that we allow them to set our rules.
Quit accepting fed dollars, and we quit having to follow their laws.
Corinne, I was in a private school for all but three yrs & one of those three was a home school year. Also, the two yrs I spent in the ASD were in alternative programs. Anyways, it was quite a while ago that I graduated.
I definitely agree that the feds have mucked it up. I have always really liked the idea of immersion programs & NCLB does threaten those, especially in northern Alaska it seems.
Extremely dissappointing...we have such a diverse need in this state that needs addressing and we're still unable to makes steps to help those students and teachers that want to succeed but don't have the capebility due to the harsh constraints placed on them by No Chile Left Behind. I think the program has done more harm than good in this state.
That part that I caught, correct me if I am wrong, was that they made the selections based of the states school districts ability to not only show the cause of why the testing scores where low but how they planned to address the issue to a successful end. It is most probable that Alaska was not selected, based on this information, because they did not show a plan that would solve the issues leading to low scores in Alaska.
I agree that Alaska should be on this list because we have such a diverse culture that covers an enormous amount of land.
From what I read on the last report card Alaska got one of the main issues what that we did not have teachers who where teaching only the classes that they went to school to teach. We have typing teachers who are instructing economy classes as an example and there has not been an answered laid out that will resolve this issue in the short term. This is just one of the issues, but I do think that our school district should lay out a list and see if we cant get that corrected to better suite our states needs.
No Child Left Behind needs to be renamed: Every Child Left Behind. Thanks for nothing President Bush!
You know? I find it to be very unfortunate that the federal government is overlooking the fact that a large percentage of Alaska's schools are in the bush, and those students attending the bush schools do not use English as their primary, home language. I also see that Louisiana has not been granted more freedom or leniency in the NCLB testing. Louisiana is a state filled with poverty, and the poverty is even more alive since the storm. The poverty down there is like a poison infiltrating the lives of the children and handicapping their academic success. It should also be mentioned here that children's lives were turned upside down after Katrina hit the state!
Louisiana and Alaska should have been near the top of the list when the feds considered states which would be granted leniency, Alaska for her language obstacles and Louisiana for her poverty and turbulence caused by the storm.
It is my hope that these two states will be added to "the list," in the fall. For if they are not, the possibility of meeting the NCLB requirements will eventually have a 0% probability.
The entire no child left behind act should be thrown out. We have thrown billions of dollars at an education system that used to work very well, and it has done nothing but diminish its effectiveness. We used to lead the world in education, not because of what we spent, but because of how our society functioned. It is not the education system that has failed. Kids fail to take advantage of the resources available to them. It is a problem of motivation. Declining education success numbers are a reflection of the lack of discipline in people, not a lack of available quality educational tools and facilities. People used to learn more in a wood shack with dirt floors than kids today learn in air conditioned palaces with state of the art technologies. Maybe if we spent less and went back to more humble surroundings, kids would be more appreciative of what they have and put forth the necessary effort to take responsibility for their own education.
I generally like the No Child Left Behind as it was supposed to lead to the eventual control of federal education dollars by parents. However in most of Alaska it makes less sense and Alaska should have been on the alternative states list. Most likely our representatives just didn’t supply the DoE with what it wanted to see.
The best solution would be to simply allow parents to control federal education dollars now but the teacher unions are too powerful a lobby.
Alaska once again, out of sight, out of mind.
All because we're half the size of Texas, floating in the Gulf of Mexico with Hawaii (just with a slight temperature variance). They haven't got a clue about the lifestyles here, so we just don't matter.
Although.... 2 schools in Alaska not only met NCLB benchmarks, but went on to become Department of Education Blue Ribbon Schools -- Kenny Lake K-12 and, a year later, Glennallen Elementary. The year Kenny Lake achieved Blue Ribbon status, it was 1 of 2 K-12 schools in the entire nation to do so. My kids went to Kenny Lake and it was an amazing place with lots of parental involvement -- no one there believed it's solely the government's job to educate kids. I'll home school the kids where we are now, but I admit to being happy with the education they were getting at Barnette in Fairbanks. I'll also admit that I volunteered at school and was involved. If you want to know what they're teaching your kids -- be there and make sure you're communicating. Don't rely on the government to educate your kids. I could put something derogatory there, but I'll leave it to your imagination... :-)
This stinks of politics.
Gee are tutors held up to the same outlandish standards as "approved no child left behind teachers". If so I guess Alaska cannot use the increase in tutor ploy. However, I am not a teacher and am interested in: what sly ways the 6 other states used to escape no child left behind upset them most? Also, what can they learn from the tactics used to get needed exemption can help them to get exemption in the future?
Idaho and Montana tried to be in that group but didn't make the cut, either. Apparently, Idaho is one of the worst in the nation for test scores, and then it turned out that their tests were faulty. My whole problem with this is that it's based on standardized test scores, and the only ones getting rich off it are the testing companies. Teachers teach to the test -- how to take the test, etc. I was in a private high school in NY state and had a whole class (3 hours/week) devoted to how-to-take-the-SAT. Needless to say, most of us aced it. What they're not looking at is how to teach kids to think critically -- how to interpret propaganda and use common sense.
Sadly, AKsoul I had the same experience. It is not what you know, but how to play the game.
Bush's Administration wrote off Alaska...HUM-M-M?
Wonder if the States that get to modify the "No Child Left Behind Act" are swing States with Electoral College votes?
HUM-M-M, Maybe what we need is a BIGGER percentage of In-Lew-Of-Taxes for the federal property in Alaska...with no strings attached. Let's see, how much land does the federal government own in Alaska? Yep, we might have a MIT or a HARVARD built in every Alaskan community that has a student.
When our schools get their act together, and teach the basics instead of going so fast the kids can't keep up we won't need tutors for basic subjects. I couldn't believe it when I discovered my kid was adding fractions and doing division but couldn't recite basic multiplication tables. Because she couldn't keep up she was assigned to a tutor. Instead of focusing on that weekness the tutor was having the students do speed math with addition problems.
Maybe my experience is an isolated incident, but it is an indicator to me that the teachers aren't focused on the students' learning. They are focused on the curriculum to get their funding and by the way she was above average on the math portion of the standardized test, but is still strugling with her multiplication tables.
Federal Funding took the FUN out of FUNding when I was in the Los Anchorage School District.
When I was growing up I had been to private school, home school, and public school. I will tell you than in these experiences money only matters to buy the BASIC materials and GOOD teachers. I don't feel that my education was "enhanced" by having Television in the classroom, overhead projectors, computers in every room (that actually detracted), blah blah blah. I will say that they are valuable educational tools, but students are actually getting dumber and dumber evry yeer becuz thay cant spell vary good since the compyouter does all the work four them.
A student needs a good textbook (I recall senior year in '03 having a '77 textbook in one class). The textbook is the source of much learning in the primary education and still quite a bit in secondary and post-secondary. Students need access to source douments as well, beit computer, library, or otherwise. Wikipedia is still not a primary source last I checked.
The source material builds the foundation of education, but the walls and the roof are not built until a good teacher motivates the students to learn and then guides them through the learning experience. This guidance decreases at the higher grade levels as students must shift from memorization to analysis. Thus the motivation.
Least of importance is self-esteem. If schools were concerned about self-esteem they would fail students when it was not so harsh. Tell me: Is it better to be told by a teacher that has an investment in helping a student learn and wants to invest further "I'm sorry, YOU didn't pass my class." or to be told by prospective employers and society in general "I'm sorry, as far as we are concerned, you are worthless."
I feel that No Child Left Behind has done more damage than good for our education system. It sets standards at such a low level and forces schools to spend so much time getting 100% of students to pass and keeping records that there is little attention given to the students who really want to excel.
The greatest way to improve education is completely ignored by NCLB and that is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. (Not with a parent having the choice to move their child to a different school, but actual involvement.) If your child's education is not going the way that you wish, go into the school and see what you can do or work with your own child outside of school. For me that meant driving my daughter from Nenana to Fairbanks 4-5 days/week for classes at UAF and an internship at the museum, but it was worth it!
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