To believe that early intervention (Headstart), Race to the Top, Common Core, conditional tenure, mentoring, more money, parental activism, intensive tutoring, technology, punitive measures, business models, European models, extreme testing, magnet schools, summer schools can seriously alter the above calculus is tilting at windmills.
Report by Paula Antolini
December 2, 2015 8:51AM EDT
OPINION: The Futility of “No Child Left Behind” by Frances Pulle
President G.W. Bush’s (2001) “No Child Left Behind” initiative sounded great on paper. Quixotic, even. All children would be held to the same high academic standards, teachers would be held accountable for their students’ performance, schools would provide an empowering environment free of the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” parents would be supportive, testing would assess progress and correct inequities, students would get with the program.
What’s wrong with this picture? Plenty.
Let’s start with the kids. Children show up at the starting gate–Kindergarden–equipped with a sizable range of abilities and talents. There are notable variations in personality, temperament, physical and mental health, family stability, socioeconomic status (SES).
Some children present with a working vocabulary of several thousand words, others a few hundred (vocabulary deficit). Some children are more motivated than others, some have more grit, some have higher EQs (emotional quotient) and are more adept at working with others. These observable markers increase over time–aided, of course, by the factors that birthed them–and result in measurable and seeminglyimmovable achievement gaps.
Given these inherent and acquired and sustainable differences children will move along at dissimilar rates. Some will leap ahead and nimbly navigate the course. Some will eventually catch up as they huff and puff over the finish line. Many, however, will fail to reach these arbitrarily set standards and, for want of a better term, be left behind.
To believe that early intervention (Headstart), Race to the Top, Common Core, conditional tenure, mentoring, more money, parental activism, intensive tutoring, technology, punitive measures, business models, European models, extreme testing, magnet schools, summer schools can seriously alter the above calculus is tilting at windmills.
And dreaming the impossible.
Frances Pulle
Bethel
Leave a Reply