Why restructure? Does it really do anything?

Restructuring Under NCLB Found Not to Really Do Much

This week's final post comes in under the NCLB act. As you know from previous posts, I am very pessimistic about the impact of NCLB. The biggest issue I find is that it has made us focus on testing more than learning over the past few years. In this article, research was conducted on 23 districts and 48 schools that needed improvement over the past 5 years. During the study, they found that the "solutions" offered through the legislation did not really transform the schools enough to have a significant impact on their achievement levels. This is cited as being the options for low-performing schools:

"The models—closing the school and sending students elsewhere; handing it over to a charter-management group or other outside entity to run; replacing most of the staff; or “transforming” it through changes in personnel, curriculum, and other areas—build on, but are not identical to, strategies called for in No Child Left Behind."

How can we say these things will make change? What if the students really don't care about school and they fail regardless of who is in front of them? Now, I do like the idea of converting to a charter school because it alleviates some of the pressures of strict AYP testing. There are some privileges that become available to charter schools not readily available to public schools. Firing staff or making significant personnel changes do not always get the buck either. There is no specific way they pick through the teachers. What if they just fired everybody? If I were doing a fine job, with good reviews and recommendations by my supervisors and peers, I'd be a little pissed off (excuse me) that I was fired because someone, who more than likely has no clue what I do as a Tech Ed teacher, thought I wasn't doing a fine job. There are teachers everywhere who probably shouldn't be teaching, but they are allowed to because the administration really does not take the time to see how effective they are. But again, is it really the teacher's fault 100% of the time. If you are in the poorest neighborhood, there is a large chance that, I don't know, the students could care less about school. Gangs, violence, and drugs probably rule and tests are irrelevant to them. How do you fix those situations?

Now there will be controversy though tied in to new money for education. The government wants to tie performance and these "tought" options at restructuring schools to new funding. How is that supposed to help if funding was inadequate in the first place? There may be some amazing teachers that refuse, on principle, to teach to the best of their ability because of their classroom environment, resources, and salary. What would happen if we started paying them more (instead of furloughing them) and giving them the resources they needed? Things would change. I think the biggest issue amongst us all, administrators, teachers, and students, is motivation and morale. Education is on the verge of becoming either the best thing we have or just something you do because it's the law. We have to receive motivation that is truly intrinsic. I want to be paid well for what I do, especially if I have advanced degrees. I also want to be able to go ask my principal or CTAE director for something and be able to get it, not told "no". Students want to feel a sense of accomplishment, whether superficial or real, so why don't we oblige them if it helps them achieve more and do better in school?

Pay to Stay

Paying for Longer School Days

So some parents came up with an ingenious idea, raise money to pay the staff at their local schools to keep the kids an extra hour. The effort has been made since the Obama administration has stated that longer school days are needed. This push from the article is occuring in Chicago at the Disney II magnet school. The idea is to lengthen the school day in comparison to other cities elementary hours. The magnet school runs just over 5 hours a day for K-5 while other cities average 6 hours or more a day of instruction. Now, I am a proponent of just about any significant change in education because over the past 10 years, there has been a sharp decline in the pursuit of knowledgeable, well-educated, and literate students/citizens. There has been a huge transition to the struggle to make "AYP" under the NCLB act. The days of worrying about what a kid will become when the graduate has ended and it has become more of a focus on what will they score on the end of the year test? Say what you want, but this is the truth. Already in my school, they are doing CRCT remediation for students who scored low last year. Great way to motivate students to do better, take them out of connections (specials, PE, CTAE, fine arts, etc.) and slam them with more Math and Lit once a week. They already have 90 minutes every day of Math and Lit each and only see Science, Soc Studies, and Connections every other day. If they can't get it with 180 min every day, 15 hours a week, they won't get it with extra help. I say we restructure the way we teach the curriculum, take the focus completely off a test and focus on what students should know by certain times, say pay attention to the standards more and you'll make it easier to pass the test. It stresses the kids out enough to be in school, at my school they pretty much shut down around 1 or 2 and they have to stay until 4. Everyone thinks more time in school will do students better, no it won't, not for everyone. Shorten the time in school by at least 2 hours, go from 8 to 2, condense lessons down to important things, restructure the day so students benefit more out of it. There are easier ways to teach these kids and we are not doing them. I love the fact I teach Tech Ed, I would absolutely go crazy if I were a math teacher and my administrator was down my neck every day making sure I am teaching what will be on the test. Let's give these kids something they can take with them for years to come and it will bode better for them on these AYP tests. If all we say is, "addition, subtraction, division, and algebra is all on the test, and you MUST know them" students will not care. However, show them they need it to be an engineer, accountant, McDonald's employee (lol, its still a job though), entreprenuer, financer, investor, and we bring meaning and understanding to our teaching and they score better. End of story.