No Child Left Behind?

One legacy of our 'illustrious' President is the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program. No Child Left Behind my Ass! We as a country routinely leave our children behind. Our test scores on a whole are lower than other industrialized countries. We are one of the only nations in the world that uses the death penalty on children. We have huge numbers of adults who prey on our children. Our social service departments seem to leave children in abusive situations constantly. Many of our schools are crumbling and overcrowded. Our children are using textbooks that are over a decade old. Our children can't even count on their parents to keep them safe. We left our children behind a long time ago.

I know that there are lots of problems that can't be fixed easily, but education is not one of them. Step one: pay teachers what they are worth! So many people complain about the quality of teachers. One of the main reasons that there are not enough high quality teachers is the pay. Many teachers leave during their first five years because they need to take jobs that have better pay. Teachers are college educated (often with graduate degrees as well) professional employees. Yet there are administrative assistants who make more money than teachers. Many teachers have worked for over 10 years and still are not making $50,000 per year. I know that seems like a lot of money, but shouldn't your teacher make more than your mechanic?

Step two: revamp the tenure system. As a teacher, I am sure that many people are going to think that I am a traitor, but tenure is a broken system. There are too many bad teachers who have jobs only because they have tenure. I don't think we should get rid of tenure, but we do need to fix it. Tenure is important because some of us have to teach things that are controversial and tenure protects us from ignorant members of the community. Teachers are required to teach things like evolution, world religions, slavery, politics, and other hotbutton issues. Tenure insures that they can teach without the community forcing agendas down their throats. Also, because administration changes frequently in schools, tenure insures that teachers can retain their jobs even when they have a new principal every couple of years. The bad side of tenure is that it makes it too difficult to fire bad teachers. Everyone needs to be accountable in their jobs. Tenure makes it very difficult to fire bad teachers. There are many steps that have to be followed before a bad teacher is let go. We need to simplify these steps and make sure that bad teachers are fired!

Step three: student accountability. Why is it always the teacher's fault? We need to hold students accountable for their actions. If you don't do your work and don't study, you fail. No more 'social promotions.' Maybe if a kid is the only 16 year old in the 7th grade he will realize that he needs to get his act together or go to trade school.

Step four: update our schools. Build new schools, buy new books, put computers at every desk, build amazing libraries. Do whatever it takes. If we spent even 1/2 of the money that we are spending in Iraq on our schools, we could have the most high tech schools in the world. We continually spend on everything but education! In many states, school budgets are the only budget that the people can vote for or against. Many vote against increases because it is the only say they have regarding their taxes. Let us vote on salaries for all public employees, including congressmen, and I bet you would see a change! Our government wastes money on a regular basis, but our children have to attend overcrowded classes in schools that are falling down around them.

Step five: reduce class size! Any administrator will tell you that there is no direct link between class size and test scores. Any teacher will tell you that there is a direct link between class size and quality of education. Education must be measured by more than test scores!

Step six: teach kids to think, not how to test. Thanks to NCLB, teachers spend the bulk of their time teaching tests instead of content. We need to teach children skills and critical thinking, not just test answers. NCLB is based completely on testing. As a result, children are passing without the knowledge and skills that they need. I recently did a non-traditional reading assessment on a 6th grade student. He is only reading at a 2nd grade level! This must be stopped.

The only way to ensure our children's future is to fix our education system.