Teacher Leaders Network - NCLB - (Page 9)

Susan Graham, a middle grades family and consumer sciences teacher from Fredericksburg, Virginia, raised another emerging and rather insidious side effect of the law’s AYP provisions: Some school systems I know are now playing a numbers game — re-zoning to keep the troublesome subgroups in one or two schools. They will take the hit for one nonperforming school and proclaim success in all the others. Other schools identify the “borderline” kids who might pass with intense drill and focus attention on them. They don’t worry about investing in the “sure thing” students and they cut their losses by not investing in the “long shot” kids. Linda Emm, a teacher-coach from Miami-Dade, also acknowledged that some of NCLB’s side effects can provide convenient cover for educators unwilling to commit to the hard work of positive change. In her experience, many schools that are truly concerned with progress can advance toward AYP goals by focusing on improvements in teaching practice: Schools that manage to crawl out of the “failure” stigma have done it by igniting the teachers’ creative passion for their professional practice and by finding ways to actually engage students in work they find meaningful. The students acquire the basic skills through hard, intensive work, not as an end of itself, but as a means for grappling with real-world issues that intrigue, anger, and entice them to learn more and do more than a basic skills curriculum could ever imagine for them. Ironically, this strong focus on the complexities of effective teaching is not a central NCLB tenet. Does “Highly Qualified” Set the Teaching Bar Too Low? One of the most important aspects of NCLB is its demand that states ensure a “highly qualified” teacher for every child. Teachers of core academic subjects are expected to have a bachelor’s degree, full state certification, and proven competency in the subject area(s) they teach. The “highly qualified” teacher provision offers one critically important standard – content knowledge — to ensure equitable student access to quality teachers. However, teacher leaders and researchers have raised a number of legitimate concerns regarding the rigidity of the content requirements for teachers of multiple subjects (especially in small schools) and the inadequacy of supports for developing an adequate supply of teachers. Indeed, while the “highly qualified” teacher provision is intended to raise teaching standards, the NCLB requirement may be actually lowering them by creating an incentive to short-circuit teacher preparation. To address the teacher supply issue and promote alternative certification programs, the law actually declares teachers “highly qualified” when they enter rather than finish alternative certification programs, even when they have learned very little about effective teaching strategies or have not demonstrated they can teach. This provision, as currently written, creates scenarios that boggle the imagination — where a 23-year old Teach for America recruit, with little preparation, can be deemed highly qualified, but a National Board Certified Teacher, with 20 years experience and extensive evidence of classroom effectiveness, is labeled unqualified. “I see no evidence that being ‘highly qualified’ has anything to do with teacher quality.” - Betsy Rogers, 2003 National Teacher of the Year observing the minimal impact of NCLB’s teaching quality provisions The Teacher Leaders Network members uniformly called for more robust definitions of the “highly qualified” teacher — and new measures that can capture what it means to be effective. For these accomplished teachers, both content and pedagogy are equally important, and they cannot be measured simply by a paper and pencil test that students or teachers take. From Page 9

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Teacher Leaders Network - NCLB

Executive Summary The Future of American Education in the Making It is Time to Align NCLB Intentions and Consequences The Teacher Leaders Network Encounters NCLB from the Classroom NCLB Demands Results and So Do We Attention Alone Does Not Equal Effective Accountability Standardized Tests Fall Short of 21st Century Demands For What Future Is NCLB Preparing Students? As Testing Expands, the Curriculum Shrinks The Drive for Data Presents Potential for Significant Change Data Systems Don’t Keep Pace with Real-Time Instructional Needs AYP Highlights the Good, Bad, and Ugly of NCLB Does “Highly Qualified” Set the Teaching Bar Too Low? Teaching Quality Must Be More Than a Number Every Student Deserves a Highly Effective, Well-Trained Teacher Conclusions References

Teacher Leaders Network - NCLB

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