Depressing Dinner Parties and NCLB.

Dinner party conversations always seem to roll around to NCLB and what is happening in the local schools. If there is a teacher in the group, you’ll hear about the students who come to school hungry and don’t seem to want to learn anything. A middle school teacher might talk about frustration with girls getting pregnant so they can drop out of school and walk around pushing a baby carriage. Principals talk about parents who demand a lot for their children, but don’t seem to support what the school is trying to accomplish with all of the children.

But the conversation sometimes takes a more depressing turn. Principals and teachers in schools that have been making Adequate Yearly Progress are pessimistic about their chances of continuing to make AYP. Principals and teachers in schools already identified for restructuring are even more pessimistic. They know the likelihood of state education agencies taking over the district and being able to provide the support they need to improve is miniscule.

Citizens (e.g., the non-educators at the dinner party) are viewing the district’s report card data and wondering why the schools don’t make the changes needed to raise the statistics used in determining AYP. And the citizens probably do not realize that it will be impossible for most schools to meet the requirements of NCLB.

The EduGuru speaks: All the data collected by the SEAs and the U.S. Department of Education will not make a difference if local educators don’t know how to use the information wisely. Reporting state, district and school data only masks what is happening in the classroom. Until schools know how to use their data to make effective decisions about individual children, NCLB will remain a depressing dinner party topic.

Comments

[Hands of Doom]

2014 looms and yet the progress to meet NCLB's standards is not being made by most schools/districts/states. Much of the use of the data that is being collected is used as more of a shield by education agencies, rather than as ways to identify the areas where improvement is needed. It seems that everyone is busy just reporting the data, rather than using it.

I can't imagine talking about this at a dinner party, as the whole thing makes me lose my appetite.