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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Senator Sipes and the Shell Game
It seems that state Senator Connie Sipes of the 46th district would like enact a law that would change the way graduation rates are calculated. I do not know the exact equation, but I bet the outcome is more federal money. Now we all know that the more money a school receives is directly proportional to the IQ of the students - right? I would like to take the focus off of what we must do to get more money and back onto teaching kids to be leaders and problem solvers. Elementary school kids waste a month each year studying for and taking the ISTEP exams (two months in the 08-09 year). Passing this exam is the most important thing to the teacher's union. Second most important is making sure teachers never have to be tested themselves. I'm not against testing our kids. I am against teaching our kids to memorize and learn testing formats for the sake of passing a test instead of teaching them common sense and problem solving skills. What good is a graduation without the simple skills that are needed to navigate through life? 12% of Hoosiers have not completed high school. Senator Sipes would like to lower it instantly. The brain drain, however, will remain high.
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3 comments:
Your primary issue with ISTEP is not with Connie Sipes or the Teacher's Union. ISTEP is the testing mechanism used to test schools as a result of No Child Left Behind. NCLB ultimately penalizes schools that do not 'make the grade,' so to speak. Ultimately the schools most penalized are urban schools which have a staggering drop out rate.
It is easy to make the state legislatures, local school boards, teachers, and the teacher's union whipping posts, but NCLB is ultimately a federal program enacted by a Republican President and a Republican Congress with, sadly, foolish Democrats joining in.
My hope is that whoever the next President is, that he or she makes it a priority to repeal this awful program.
Repeal the program and shut down the Department of Education. States can educate better by keeping their own funds and local schoolboards in control of the curriculum. Why does the DOE employ 5000 people? Why won't teachers prove that they are profficient in what they teach? Why don't teachers get paid according to how effective they are instead of how many years they have been teaching? Valid questions indeed.
"States can educate better by keeping their own funds and local schoolboards in control of the curriculum."
But Indiana's current Republican property tax proposal includes state control of school funding, taking it away from local authorites.
Both our current national and state Republican administrations have consistently decreased local control in favor of increased federal and state involvement in education and many other issues.
Lately, it's Democrats who, for the most part, have opposed such measures. And, yet, R's around the country continue to demonize D's as "big government" advocates during election cycles.
It just goes to show how ridiculous the two party system is to begin with, especially when paired with the irrational bias of some voters.
Local control is one the few supposed Republican principles with which I sometimes agreed. Based on current party representation, that principle no longer exists in practice.
FYI, ISTEP existed long before NCLB, since the 80s. NCLB just made it worse by tying it to funding and threatening to further penalize those schools that are already struggling, often, as John mentioned, due to factors entirely out of their control.
Most local teachers with whom I've ever discussed the issue reject ISTEP and NCLB on the exact same grounds as Daniel, i.e., the success or failure of teachers and students is largely measured by those test scores to the detriment of actual education.
One of the biggest problems with public education is parents (or lack thereof). They refuse to have their children judged by nearly any standard, regardless of what that standard measures or where it comes from. There's tremendous pressure from parents (and therefore administrators) to pass students who aren't worthy of it.
If you want to pay attention to test scores, pay attention to the ones that clearly point out that U.S. students are falling farther and farther behind as we continue to ease up on our curriculum essentially to coddle parents who don't take education seriously enough to stress its importance to their children.
The same is true of taxpayers in relation to educational capital projects. Over and over again, people choose to move far away from existing schools and then pressure the school system to accommodate them. That's where new school buildings and huge transportation cost increases generally come from. It's not unusual for school systems across the country to spend more on transportation than they do on actual curricular activities.
Those same people, though, scream about school related tax increases, taking no responsibility for having made the choices that lead to them.
According to them, they're not responsible. Their children aren't responsible. The school is responsible. In a lot of cases, that's bologna.
Which leads to a conundrum: Is local control of schools a good answer in communities where adults obviously aren't willing to take responsibility for education and its public and private costs?
Should we test parents? Hold them accountable for preparing their children for school and overseeing their progress? What happens when they fail? Should they pay more taxes to offset the expense of the additional work the school becomes responsible for?
People are quick to organize over potential additional funding. When was the last time anyone saw a group of parents demonstrating in favor of their children being judged by higher standards or voluntarily agreeing to pay more because they realize their choices place an additional financial burden on the school system?
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