Category Archives: No Child Left Behind

Paper Chase

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I got the word from the administration this week that I used 4100 sheets of paper during the month of October. That seems like a lot to me too, until I divide it among 170 students. Then it works out to about 25 sheets per student during the course of a month, or about 1.2 sheets of paper per student per day.
We use papers to give students information sheets with material they need to know, either to supplement or replace the textbook. I passed out a four page reading on Manifest Destiny, for instance. We use paper for tests. My kids took an eight page test on the American Revolution. We print out graphic organizers for the student to fill in. And we use them for worksheets. We’ve heard a lot about worksheets lately, and some of them are pretty lame, but we spent our very limited money last year to find some that taught the many individual objectives we had to teach and also presented the information the same way that the CRTs (Criterion Referenced Tests that students must pass for the school to be listed as adequate under No Child Left Behind) do. There are many topics in History that lend themselves to some really fun activities– “Taxation without Representation” and the Civil War. But we also have to teach Marbury v. Madison and Joseph Walker.
One wonders whether carpenters are told they use too many nails or doctors are told they use too much suture. My guess is that they are probably respected enough as professionals to know how much to use.

No Child Left Behind

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The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 plays a big part in my life and in the lives of teachers around the country. So what is it? There is a very good page that covers is quite well on Wikipedia here.

Here is a brief description of the law from that article.

NCLB is the latest federal legislation (another was Goals 2000) which enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, formerly known as outcome-based education, which is based on the belief that setting high expectations and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education.

In other words, No Child Left Behind provides for testing students, in the hopes that this will make them achieve more and hopefully learn more. This is the same philosophy that imagines that if you simply step on the scales every day, you will lose weight.

The other big part of NCLB, is the increasing levels of expected performance. In order to meet NCLB a school must show that 50% of its students are proficient in Math and Language Arts. Then the next year, students must be 60% proficient. And the levels increase each year until at some point schools are to have all students testing proficiency. This moving target is called AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say AYP, I could retire and hire a private tutor for each of my 165 students.

Staff Development

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Well, we’ve just had another staff development day, and since I teach at an N5 school (listed as needing improvement for five years under the federal NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND Act) we spent most of our time trying to figure out how to improve our students’ performance on the standardized tests. Unfortunately, we are spending a great deal of time trying to figure out how to fix a problem that we can’t even touch. The students have no motivation to pass the tests. Most of them don’t even try to answer the questions. They sit and randomly bubble answers. What happens to them if they don’t pass? Nothing. The school fails, but it doesn’t affect them at all.