Jul 18 2008
The road less traveled (so to speak)
Yes, another detour (so to speak) from our Road series on Logan Boulevard. I really wanted to get more pix, but couldn’t because of the rain, the busyness and because, well, I plum-forgot. But I saw at the NYTimes something that is definitely up our alley (so to speak).
The newly elected president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is calling the No Child Left Behind movement too weak to change and too dangerous to remain . The AFT is, if not the largest teacher’s union in the US, certainly one of the largest. Nearly every public school teacher in Chicago is a member, including myself (though I guess not so much anymore. But that’s not related to this, so I digress). NCLB is a federal government law compiled with the theme of making schools more accountable for the success of their students. And there’s nothing wrong with that motive (although there are other motives in play). Neither is there anything new in Weingarten’s critiques - although her suggestions for a new federal law on education are a bit… “wacky” is not the word. Maybe “extreme” and “self-serving”?
The truth of the matter is that teachers have long acknowledged that the problem isn’t accountability. Nor is the problem wanting all of our children to succeed (although some may argue that some kids, well…). The problem is in how this is expected to be carried out. Because everything hinges on high-stakes testing, teachers feel the heat to concentrate principally on testing to get the class’ learning on. Practice tests are the norm nowadays. And I don’t mean that to say that practice tests are performed after class, or with a tutor, or once a month. These practice tests are done All The Time. Actual learning (which, by the way, does not only occur when the teacher is ‘teaching’ but when the children are ‘doing’) is not taking place because - and I’ll say this real slow - Nobody. Learns. From. Taking. A. Test. How. To. Do. Anything. But. Take. A. Goddam. Test.
Teachers aren’t just worried about losing their jobs here. They’re worried about having control to do what they fundamentally know what is right to do and what they were born to do: to improve our children’s lives. We, as fathers, need to stick up for them and tell the media and Washington that our children, their friends and their futures depend on them shooting down NCLB before it destroys our future.
