I believe it's time to put a real "No Child Left Behind" law into effect, as our president originally intended. I think that schools with low test scores for a subsequent number of years, should be forced to either improve within a time frame or close. Currently, we have a similar structure in place, only the times for schools to comply are so lengthy, they have no effect on the quality of education. We need a 3 strikes and you're out rule. If a school fails to meet test score quotas 3 years in a row, the school should be forced to close. All remaining students should be allowed to attend the school of their choice within the district. Thoughts?

Then those schools' scores would be brought down as the low-scoring students move in.

It's kind of a catch-22. We want to educate kids, but there are some that just don't want to be educated. When do we draw the line? Must we sacrifice the good kids to attempt educating the bad?

However, I teach in a charter school with great scores and a limited enrollment lol. Whatever the public schools choose to do, then that's up to them. We'll keep on taking their best and brightest.

We keep getting kids from the "new" John Marshall...not really important, it's just on my brain.

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Still corrupting young minds

i do think kids need to be better educated, but i believe that such a law would have unintended side effects. in order to stay afloat, i think that schools would be tempted to teach kids how to take tests instead of just teaching kids. in the end, the solution wouldn't really solve the problem. you'd have a generation of kids who knew how to take an exam, but really didn't know much else.

i don't have all the answers, but what makes best sense to me is competition. allow concerned parents to 'shop' for their school of choice with their tax dollars. schools would have to compete for students and therefore the market would pressure performance. -M

We're already seeing that, mmm. Teachers "teaching to the test" and such. We'll lose a whole generation of kids in this testing upswing.

But, as we all know, there is a down to the up, and eventually less emphasis will be put on the testing issue as it acts much like a pendulum.

My school competes for kids and we're doing quite well. But not everyone is all for that kind of competition. Too hard to say what's going to happen in the future...

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Still corrupting young minds

oh sure, no surprise that some currently teach the test... it was happening when i went to highschool, luckily not the classes i was taking. sad thing is that many kids i went to school with were being short-changed and they didn't even know it. i guess my point was that it'd be more likely to happen and would be more widespread under such legislation.

i see little argument for those against competition. those against seem to be more concerned over job security than achieving the goal of education.

i, too, would love to know where things are headed. i see little avenue for improvement under the current system. -M

Maybe "those schools" would have more incentive to invest the time it takes to teach those "special kids." I believe all children can learn, regardless of background, home life, etc. It takes special teachers to teach those from less privileged backgrounds that may not have as much parental support.

Do you have any better ideas?

Maybe a better method would be to allow parents to send children to a school of their choice.

Believe me, I'm well aware and agree with you on that point, CC. I actually *do* work in a school with many of those "special kids" who need an extra hand and don't have the parental support. Many of our kids have their dream of going to college and being successful despite really crappy home lives. We do our best to get them at least into college to help them along their way to achieving their ultimate goal.

My only problem with your proposed solution is this: What do we do with the small, rural schools? I grew up in Marietta, a town of about 2,000. I graduated with about 60, though that was a smaller class. There were only two other high schools in our county. Now, they could consolidate those school districts (yes, they were separate for some stupid reason) and improve the Marietta campus (by far the largest of the three) to accomodate more students. However, this may not be a viable solution for all. All three of those schools would probably be on the "needs improvement" list because, and this is just one reason, it is difficult to recruit really good teachers into such a small area--there's NOTHING there. Closing all three of those schools would force an entire county of children into another county, at least 15-30 miles away.

It's all very hypothetical, and I know that the schools should step it up and improve if they are in the "needs improvement" category, but at what cost?

Maybe financial incentives would be a better way to go, instead of simply closing the school? Or how long would we be waiting for a school to close?

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Still corrupting young minds

Sounds reasonable.

I want to say that they have proposed this before...I was more against it when I worked in a very low-scoring public school lol. It's interesting how your mind can change so easily :P

But would they give these incentives to alternative schools? Not necessarily private schools, which receive funding in different ways already. But charter schools receive federal funding and compete with public schools--would they fall under the same category even though they are a "school of choice?"

I hate to always bring up the charter schools, but they are often misunderstood by the public, and since I work at one, I always like to see what the general public thinks about them.

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Still corrupting young minds

I would say this system should apply to any school receiving federal funds, regardless of who those funds are handled by, parents or the district.

See--you're too nice. A lot of people don't think of charter schools as "real" schools. Our API score is very real, however.

And I don't think this was ever clarified--which test scores would we use? The overall API, or the EOI scores? Or the CRT's for elementary? There are a lot of "tests" and "scores" out there, so we would have to define which ones the government would deem important enough to consider.

I would say the API, because it gives a pretty accurate score of how the school is doing overall, and it is difficult to receive a high score (highest being a 1500) I'm not sure if elementaries follow the API in Oklahoma, however. The EOI's can be affected by many things...sometimes you have "that" class that just seems to barely slide by no matter what you do as a teacher and a mentor. Believe me, I know...I was part of "that" class in high school! Labeled from the 1st grade on...

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Still corrupting young minds

NCLB, is a well intentioned failure. It was never adequately funded.

But closing the schools doesn't help anyone. Its like cutting off your foot because of an ingrown toe-nail.

They receive the same funds as schools across the district, only the district isn't managing the funds for the school. Regardless, it's a publicly supported school.

Somehow that bothers people, though. They see charter schools as this like, demon thing that's going to take everything over or something. But mostly those are just people who are at the SDE.

At least they passed the legislation that gives the district some money for the students in the charter schools. That was their main problem--we were "stealing" funds away. They were more than happy to let us have their kids, but my god, we shouldn't be getting any money for it!

Okay, I'll stop ranting about charter schools lol. I do have to agree with okieopus--NCLB was a well-intentioned, under-funded failure. They can't expect us to work miracles with no funding whatsoever, or expect us all to implement more programs with no money. I know it all comes down to good money management, but at least in OKCPS, I think we can all agree that in the past they have not shown themselves to be good financial managers!

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Still corrupting young minds