NCLB, No Child Left Behind, a kind of wrecking ball converting our school systems into cruel testing centers, is gradually purging all non test subjects out of the school systems.
From Salon, an essay called:??School: It?s way more boring than when you were there. Here?s a paragraph -
?When decisions are made?about layoffs, decisions are made?about which subjects are necessary ? the tested ones ? and which are expendable?those that don?t count on the federal scorecards. So librarians are cut; art and music teachers are cut; testing budgets are not touched,? she writes to Salon. ?The research is not clear but a great deal of anecdotal evidence suggests that affluent districts are preserving a balanced curriculum, while poor and minority students are likely to have larger classes and a bare-bones curriculum.?
I remember in school the times I spoke before class in Speech, acted on the state (twice) and did a mock debate between the current presidential candidates. Those things did a lot toward shaping me into the teacher that I am today. What kind of memories and personality shaping do you get from constant drilling on test questions?
When school is shorn of recess, of noon hours, of breaks, of arts, of science?!, of humanities, what?s left? What you get is a?a?shell that makes students take the same tests over and over again. It can?t be?much fun or very successful for anyone. But it?s the corporate model. You don?t do stuff because it works, you do stuff because it generates numbers for the higher ups.
Generating good numbers is not the only value or every a very good value.
Why don?t have a real discussion about what schools are supposed?to be?doing instead of using financial penalties to condition schools into testing centers just like Pavlov?s dogs were taught?to salivate?
James Pilant
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