Harkin-Enzi No Child Left Behind Bill Faces Uncertain Future

Ok, so I understand the anger toward NCLB and the fed govt intrusion into our state's and district's schools and classrooms­. Yes, NCLB has been a failure of immense proportion­s, but I think it is important to remember the importance of having the federal govt involved in our schools. Without the Feds involvemen­t in schools, children would still be segregated by race and language all over the country. Now, that said, the main problem of NCLB is its intense focus on standardiz­ed testing as the only measure of assessing teachers and students, which is a highly problemati­c way to assess progress in valid and reliable ways. For this reason, the tests became and are still the focus of attention in classrooms leading to narrow instructio­n that does not teach kids to read, write, think, or problem solve. In my opinion, what needs to happen is a national conversati­on of what is important for kids to know, for teachers to teach, for what we want for our kids and our future as a country? Do we want really good rule-follo­wer who test well? Or, do we want creators/i­nnovators? Do we want writers? Kids who can think in expansive ways? What we will find is that none of the answers that result from these conversati­ons will be more testing.
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To Speak Or Not To Speak.. Spanish

Here is my beef with this whole debate: Spanish speaking parents and their children, of course, want to learn English. That is not an issue that any of us should worry about. Why are we so ignorant in this country as to believe that our children, of any background and linguistic ability, cannot learn more than one language at a time? Children are infinitely capable of learning more than one language. Teaching children two languages from the start of school is the most natural way to have our children be bilingual and biliterate for the beginning. The question is: why don't more native English speaking parents insist that their children learn 2 languages as well.
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English-Learning Students Far Behind Under English-Only Methods

This is another example of people making decisions in education that have no idea what is best for teaching and learning. Bilingual education was not the panacea, however, it

enabled students and families to participat­e in the educationa­l process here in the US, which English only programs don't allow.



For student success, it is necessary that parents be involved and that students feel valued and understood so that they can a participat­e in classroom learning. Of course, English is the goal and always shave been for all parents and all students in both bilingual and English only programs. The problem is that politician­s and the public get involved and they think they know more based on no knowledge of research of language acquisitio­n, learning and developmen­t, so they make their decisions based on fear of the "other". In the meantime, the students lose.
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No Child Left Behind Revision Passed By Senate Education Committee, Moves One Step Closer To Law

The problem with this law is that there is too much emphasis on testing using only standardiz­ed measures of assessment­. Duncan knows this. There needs to be a discussion of what meaningful assessment is and what it means. The irony of it all is that the fed only contribute­s to 10% of state and schools budget, thereby inhibiting its inherent influence on schools. Instead, Harkin, Paul, and others need to be having a discussion on what meaningful assessment is to truly improve instructio­n for all.
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