Madison Schools and No Child Left Behind Nonsense

This morning's Wisconsin State Journal informs us that Two Madison elementary schools fail No Child Left Behind standards.

Leopold and Lincoln fell short of the federal law’s criteria for “adequate yearly progress” for the second year in a row, marking them as “schools identified for improvement,” or SIFI. again ...Under the sanctions, the schools will have to review their school improvement plans, offer more academic services outside of the regular school day and allow parents to transfer their child to any public school within the School District where space allows

All of which demonstrates massive failures at so many levels, but not by the schools in question.

First of all, for years the Madison District inched towards a student body with over 40% below the poverty line and now is approaching 50%. That creates challenges of educating students.

It is a national and a state-wide problem, mostly the fault of states and communities that inadequately fund education and supportive services. Madison has to now take responsibilty for the poor planning and performance of others.

Secondly the schools can only be expected to do so much. The learning environment is influenceed by major external factor. A significant number of Franklin students come from the Town of Madison not the City of Madison. The town provides far fewer resources than the city to combat poverty. 

Both schools cited are heavily impacted by households that do not have stable housing - too many of these kids are homeless.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a lousy program. The failures are well documented as well as the cheating in Bush's home state of Texas where high school students are pushed out the door so they are not counted as failures. More importantly, NCLB is based on flawed testing that does not adequately take into account poverty, the early education of the children from outside the particular school or the district, or the resources of the district.

At the local level we are caught in a horrendous dilemma. We know that inadequate shelter is a major part of the problem. In our rush to house the homeless we do not always provide the other necessary services. The expansion of poor people migrating into Madison places demands on services for transportation, childcare, health, and job training.

The principal at Lincoln, Deborah Hamilton noted:

This was not a shock. I don’t know why anyone with any sense would think that students who are in a bilingual program, and required to learn to read and write in Spanish, would be able to accomplish the same thing in English and do it in both languages in the same amount of time.

Leopold principal John Burkholder said:

Most of our parents understand our students are doing well... ( being on the  list) concerns me. For some people, that’s all they know of our school. When you sit and look at the data, it may tell a somewhat different story. But we’re working on it. We’re trying to address this and trying to bring learning up for all kids.

Meantime, Madison Memorial High School came off the list. Good for them. But it is only important because some people erroneously believe that NCLB is meaningful.

Comments

[John Peterson]

Thank you Paul, one of the best, most concise critiques of NCLB I've read in awhile. Now if the administration can change it before we vilify more good public schools.

[John Peterson]

Thank you Paul, one of the best, most concise critiques of NCLB I've read in awhile. Now if the administration can change it before we vilify more good public schools.

[Dianthus]

"A significant number of Franklin students come from the Town of Madison not the City of Madison. The town provides far fewer resources than the city to combat poverty."

Do you mean Lincoln students? Would you please name some of the resources available to city residents that are not available to town residents?

[Stephen M. Leo]

What is not captured in the NCLB numbers is that Lincoln is a terrific school with a caring and motivated staff. My wife works as a Bilingual Resource Specialist there, and so is very familiar with the kinds of challenges (most of them caused or compounded by poverty) her students have to face every day. Kids who live on the edge of homelessness have a lot more on their minds than readin', writin', and 'rithmetic.

NCLB is more concerned with the collection of bogus metrics unmoored from reality than with the actual education of real children. It is bureaucratic make work designed to undermine support for quality public education.