[DRAFT] No Child Left Behind: A Plan to Dismantle Public Education

The NCLB views schools not as tools for improving student success, but rather as obstacles to that success. Its real purpose was not to improve schools but to destabilize public education, pave the way for mass school privatization, and beef up the military. From that perspective, it's much more of a success: American public education is facile and shallow, students and teachers alike are under record pressure to perform on ever-dwindling resources, and a growing proportion of parents wants to shift their children (and funding) away from public schools and into private ones. No real plan to improve education can succeed on a model of punishment; instead, it must be based on investment.

• intro

  • the US: full of bluster but falling behind
  • enter the NCLB
  • metrics fall even further
  • did the NCLB fail, or was it never trying to achieve its stated goals? I argue it's the latter
  • scope of this discussion: American public elementary and secondary schools
• metrics

  • measuring proximity to achieving goals
  • alignment: does a given metric actually measure what we want it to?
  • example: lines of code as a metric of productivity
• standardized testing

  • the #1 metric in a post-NCLB world
  • alignment issues

    • can't effectively measure high-level reasoning (a la Bloom's taxonomy); most effective at measuring rote retention
    • many students are poor test takers
    • confounding socioeconomic factors (esp. race)
• resources and punishment

  • NCLB sanction steps
  • under what circumstances would you handicap someone who's already struggling to encourage improvement?
  • the NCLB's base assumption is that schools and teachers are obstacles to student success (i.e., every student is naturally equipped with everything they need to thrive in a one-size-fits-all environment), justifying escalating punishments for underperforming schools
  • the strongest predictor of student success is family income
  • schools in high-poverty areas are doubly screwed: their students are more likely to underperform (and thus incur sanctions), and the school already has fewer resources to work with (since they're funded mostly by property taxes)
  • meanwhile, front-line teachers take the brunt of the blame; failing a student can put a teacher's career on the line
• incentives

  • keep the curriculum coverage shallow (only what's covered on the test)
  • focus on fact retention rather than higher-level objectives (which the test can't/won't measure)
  • continue advancing students, even if they shouldn't be (to protect one's career)
• outcomes

  • schools are desperately underfunded
  • teachers have to use personal funds to pay for basic supplies (and often work multiple jobs to keep afloat)
  • the hyperfocus on high-stakes testing adds a mountain of stress onto students (down to elementary school!)
  • increased demand for curriculum, training materials (which are produced privately and sold at a premium)
  • public confidence in public schools is extremely low
  • this is a situation ripe for privatization movements, and that's exactly what we're seeing
• the NCLB: failure or success?