5 Comments to 'Zach Wamp wants No Child Left Behind…at recess'
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Zach Wamp wants No Child Left Behind…at recess
Posted By katie allison granju
I heard Rep. Wamp on the Hallerin Hill show this morning speaking very passionately about his belief that the NCLB Act has essentially killed playtime and exercise for children in our schools. He’s apparently on a mission to bring physical activity back into the school day, and I applaud him. He’s 100% correct that at a time when rates of obesity, diabetes, depression and other maladies are on the rise among our kids, we need to be getting them up and moving their bodies in a vigorous way every single day. Plus, as he pointed out, kids who don’t stretch and play and take a little break from sitting in a seat being tested all day aren’t very effective learners. Active bodies make for active minds.
Next, I hope he’ll take on the nightmare that homework has become in this country. No, seriously. Kids are loaded down with too much homework.
Jul 24th, 2008
Katie -
I agree with you 100% on the need for kids to have both physical activity and, especially for the younger kids, some recess decompression time during the middle of the day. However, trying to place blame on the NCLB for its elimination is totally misplaced.
The whole reason that NCLB was even necessary was because in today’s schools, far too many teachers and administrators have decided that they would rather spend valuable classroom time performing social experiments on our children instead of teaching them the three R’s.
When I, and most of us, went to school, it was all about learning the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic; and yet, we still had time in the day for recess and physical education. Now it’s about moral relativism, the pseudo-science of AGW (Or was it global cooling this week? It’s so hard to keep track of which is the latest lie being told.), learning the latest politically correct doublespeak, and other forms of cultural indoctrination first with the basics being crammed into whatever time is left over afterwards. Or, as you rightly point out, just assigned as homework because the “teacher” thinks his or her time is better spent on indoctrination rather than actually teaching. And if that means the kid doesn’t get recess, then let’s just scapegoat NCLB.
So the result is that “Johnny isn’t learning to read” despite having hours upon hours of homework assigned, yet he is able to recite chapter and verse of the latest cultural trend that his teachers have decided is far more important to his “development.”
Here’s a perfect illustration of the problem: Governor Pawlenty of Minnesota had a great idea a few years back to reform the public education system. He proposed that every teacher would get paid $100K per year, but in return they would be subject to being fired for failing to teach the basic curriculum. Genius, right? Everybody should have been happy: teachers would finally get the pay they claimed they deserved and our children would be ensured that only the best teachers were in the classroom. But the NEA fought it tooth and nail and the plan was ultimately defeated because they thought it was more important that teachers be free to indoctrinate their students than it was to give students a quality education.
The basic problem is that too many people take complaints from the NEA (and their political stooges) at face value rather than examining the true motivations behind those complaints and the actual root causes for the problems. People (and far too many politicians) are afraid of being accused of “not suppporting our kids” if they stand up to their particular brand of emotional blackmail and instead demand higher standards.
Our school system isn’t there to teach our kids which “values” they should have. That’s the responsibility of parents, and the school system’s ever-increasing attempts to usurp that role have resulted in a declining state of education ever since it was allowed to start creeping its way into the curriculum. It’s far past time for schools to get out of “values” business and back into the business of actually educating our children.
I agree that it is parents resposibility to instill values in our children and not the schools. It is the schools responsibility to EDUCATE our children. Unfortunately since the inception of NCLB educating has come to mean prepping for TCAPS. My son just finished 5th grade, and if you were to see the weekly cirriculum sent home on a weekly basis. It usually in cluded time for TCAP review. Most weeks he brought home a TCAP review test sheet. I started to ignore them( mainly because he didnt do that great on the weekly test but scores in the to 90-95% on the annual tests.) My point is…. How do teacher have time to TEACH the 3 Rs when most of the school year is taken up REVIEWING for TCAPS. Also if you want some insight (albeit dated) in to the TCAP Standards check out http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/editorials/article/0,2845,MCA_25348_4515544,00.html
I agree Jeremi. My daughter blows the roof out of the TCAP test every year. However, I am not at all comfortable that she is getting anything that you or I might call “an education.” I look at it this way.
In our NCLB schools, you learn that George W. Bush is the current President of the United States. That’s a fact to regurgitate for the TCAP test. An EDUCATION is that unique constellation of facts, thoughts, ideas, and abilities to assess that tells one that George W. Bush is an idiot and clearly the worst President in American history—a man deserving of neither our support nor our respect and a person who has so sullied his office that even the office of President of the United States deserves no respect and is getting no respect in most places on this planet. Thankfully, that will end with the election in November when one of the two very good Republican and Democrat candidates that do deserve our respect will be elected. With any luck, either one of them will give NCLB the bullet to the brain that it so richly deserves.
My wife and I were just discussing this issue a few moments ago, and she made a great point regarding the problems that our schools are having in dealing with NCLB: namely that instead of making sure the curriculum matches the material being tested, school systems continue onward with the curriculum without adjustments and treat the TCAPs as if they were something else entirely.
Jeremi, your point about how your child does on the annual test is exactly right on point. If your child is actually being taught the material which is covered on the relevant TCAP then making it into an ordeal by putting out weekly review tests, etc. is a wholly irrelevant exercise: it’s just putting an unnecessary extra burden on parents and students.
Why would school systems do something so obviously dishonest? Because if they make it onerous enough and tell parents that they have no choice because NCLB is “making them,” then people like you will demand that the enforcement of minimum standards required by NCLB is eliminated. School systems would then be free to go back to conducting business as usual before they were being held accountable, your complaints would end, and a few million more kids would get high school diplomas without being able to read. But the teacher’s union would be happy, so problem solved, right?
There is nothing in NCLB that requires those sorts of weekly reviews: those are purely the creation of your local school system. All NCLB does is say: here’s the body of knowledge of which we want a kid of this particular grade level to be able to demonstrate mastery, and we’re going not just going to take your word for it that they can: we’re actually going to conduct a test to prove it.
For example, if I, as an educator, wanted to make sure that a child learns geometry, then the best way to find out if I have succeeded is to give that child some geometry questions and find out if they’re capable of answering them. If he/she has indeed been taught properly, then I don’t have to engage in frivolous review tests: I just have to make sure that I’ve covered the material appropriately during the course and that he/she is making acceptable progress throughout the year. If I’ve done my job as an educator, then the student will easily pass the test without any complications. But if I want to teach my own agenda and not be held accountable for my students’ failure to learn what I’ve been charged with teaching them, then NCLB is damnably inconvenient and I need to find a way to make it go away as soon as possible.
That is the whole point of NCLB. The problem is with how the schools are implementing compliance: not with the act itself. It goes back to the problem I mentioned in my previous comment: school systems are proving they are unwilling to make the necessary adjustments to their curriculum and teaching methods in order to ensure that the basics are receiving the necessary emphasis during the school day and instead trying to cover over their failures by assigning weekly review tests as if that were a sufficient substitute.
It wasn’t like this came out of nowhere. Schools have been issuing passing grades for years - especially in inner-city systems - to kids who had couldn’t even perform anywhere near their grade level on any subject. NCLB was passed to put an end to the grave disservice these systems were doing to the children whose education was entrusted to them. In negotiations between those on opposite sides of the political aisle, it was agreed that actually requiring testing, putting the information in the hands of parents so that they knew what was actually being taught (or not taught) in their children’s schools, and providing alternatives for those caught in schools that failed to properly serve students was the best combination of solutions to address these issues.
I’m more than willing to say that there may be room for improvement, but the answer isn’t making NCLB or classroom accountability go away: Let’s start with forcing school systems into a good faith compliance rather than accepting their intentional sabotage. Only then will we be able to make a fair judgment as to whether the system needs to be tweaked.
Let’s not forget that it wasn’t President Bush who unilaterally imposed NCLB on the nation. It was co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy and supported by a broad bi-partisan coalition. It may be popular to lay the blame for all the nation’s ills at his feet, but acting like everything was hunky-dory in our educational system before NCLB is plainly wrong. It may not be a perfect solution, but it was - and is - far better than simply allowing school systems to fail yet another generation without demanding that they be held accountable.
My little girl is in first grade. She has TCAP’s every friday. I remember when school was fun and I wanted to go! My little girl dreads going to school. No wonder more people are home schooling now. She is so stressed over the TCAP test (that are part of her grade!) , I am stressed over them, its ridiculous. They don’t even take them until third grade…. Not to mention all the homework we do every night.
NOW… Lunch! has anyone eat at the school lately? Its horrible. They have gotten so ridiculous on the heath thing that the hot school lunch is barely eatable. And for the children that don’t get a good dinner at home or can’t afford to pack their lunchI feel so sorry for. Like you said let them play more, have exercise and bring back some decent food.
Wonder if a petition on the TCAP would do anything?