No Child rules just don't add up

[proud2BlibKansan]

By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Columnist




Two generations of kindergartners at Del Pueblo Elementary School have learned numbers, letters, shapes, and the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic from Lydia Leal.

She has taught many of them their first words in English and has helped their teachers organize classrooms and understand the predominantly low-income community on Denver's west side.

"She's truly irreplaceable," said Del Pueblo principal Dan Villescas.

Kindergarten teacher Kori Leaman Miller agrees: "A lot of what I've learned about teaching, I've learned from her."

But after nearly 29 years of hard work and glowing performance reviews, the paraprofessional is about to get canned by the federal government.

more . . .
http://www.denverpost.com/carman/ci_3929902

[dsc]

1. This is going to decimate the ranks of paraprofessionals

No one is going to take a job which is often for less than $10 an hour if they actually have an associates degree. I am glad there is a test but as the article points out it is on irrelevent material. Sadly the press didn't care about this when it mattered it is too late now. On edit I would be willing to bet that a fairly large number of legislators would have problems similar to her if they had to take high school level math tests.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Not to mention the fact that she doesn't need high school level math

skills to work in a kindergarten classroom!

[spag68]

18. test taking

If the test is graded on correct answers and not how many answers you give, the method is to answer all you can do easily right away then review and do the ones that you have a chance at, but are not sure. sometimes a second reading will give up an answer, Finally the ones that seem to be unknowable, take these and fill in any of the multiple answers that a,b,c,d, make you laugh. You seem fairly bright, so I predict an 81. Hope my system works for you.If not then flunk me.I hate tests, but was on the deans list, until I got to Penn St. Can you believe it we were actually expected to study!!!! Later at it was even harder as the courses I took required much reading and 3 15 page essays a semester Actually had to work for those courses. cut out a lot of party time. If that doesn't work, we'll send someone out to takr the test

[ulysses]

2. "Don't be like me"

We're headed down a very, very fucked up path.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. It's pretty scary.

[fishwax]

12. isn't that the truth

yeesh :(

[Warpy]

4. Test anxiety wipes a lot of people out

I know because I've worked with some fine graduate nurses whose knowlege base was excellent and who were wonderful nutses but who couldn't pass those damned computerized nursing boards to save their lives.

Test anxiety has always been a huge problem for some people. Computerizing the whole thing just added another layer of it.

Surely there has to be some way to analyze people by their actual performance on a job. Too much testing out there only analyzes one's ability to take tests.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Tell the idiots in DC who passed this law

[LizW]

9. They don't care

We had a community forum last year sponsored by our school district to help parents learn about NCLB and why some of our schools didn't meet the requirements. Our comgressman was there to supposedly hear the concerns of parents and teachers.

He was completely worthless. He knew nothing about the law, so he couldn't understand the particular things teachers and administrators were trying to show him were unfair. He barely listened to the presentation, and when it was his turn to speak, all he did was brag about how much education funding the Bush administration had given.

NCLB is a conservative program intended to destroy public education. If you look at the law carefully and see how it works, you will see that this is carefully calculated. They have thought of everything.

[fishwax]

13. ding ding ding

"NCLB is a conservative program intended to destroy public education."

Exactly right. It never was anything but a pyramid scheme and a set of unfunded mandates, all designed to mask a carefully constructed plan to cut funding for specific schools and force the system to implode.

[Elidor]

22. NCLB is a stalking horse for the privatization of education

They don't just want to destroy public schools - they want to make money doing it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. The law is over 500 pages long.

I don't know if that is typical of legislation but it certainly doesn't surprise me that so many people don't really understand it.

That is bullshit about the funding. Yes, the education budget has increased under bush. But that $$ is not reaching the kids, it is staying in DC. Our budget has gone down every year since he was selected. Ask your congressman where that money is going and why the mandates in NCLB are not funded.

[Warpy]

10. I keep trying. Since I can't write ten million dollar checks

to slush funds, they don't want to listen.

[Kerrytravelers]

7. I have never understood why TAs aren't tested based on what they

assist with.

They aren't suppose to be the teacher. They are our assistants. They don't need to understand the finite portions of curriculum. They need to be competent and able to connect with the children. In SDC rooms, they also must be strict disciplinarians and quick on their feet.

This is such BS.

[proud patriot]

8. I'm a paraprofessional in California

I had to take the tests ..They were hard
especially the Math sections .

I teach developmentally delayed pre-k.

I feel for this woman and many others who
work with the young ones .

[Frustratedlady]

11. NCLB isn't designed to help children, it is designed to destroy

public education. Our children are losing these years of education and will never catch up.

I doubt GW could even pass the test in question.

[fishwax]

14. most definitely

they built mechanisms which would cut funding from public schools, exacerbate teacher shortages, and force the public school system to implode, then gussied it up in unfunded mandates to sell it to the public. It's nothing but a pyramid scheme, and unfortunately, it is (as it was designed to) doing genuine damage to our educational system.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. No way could he pass.

He would fail the English and Reading portions for sure.

[LuckyLib]

15. Analyses of the actual NCLB requirements and whether schools

and districts would be able to meet such statistical requirements shows it can't happen. It's fundamentally impossible to do what the federal government requires. State departments of education know it, superintendents know it, and teachers know it. It's all a dog and pony show, a shell game, that consolidates control at the federal level and leaves everybody scrambling after stuff that doesn't matter a hoot in the overall picture of student learning. Folks are distracted from the real needs and issues in classrooms. Sounds familiar?

[Frustratedlady]

19. The NCLB Should Be A Hot-Button Issue in 2008

Before our children and grandchildren lose any more, the program needs to be stopped. The Democratic party must declare war on the NCLB for our children's benefit and return our public education to what it was before GW took over. It is a disgrace for the richest country in the world to have such a fouled up educational program.

[LuckyLib]

20. And we need to remind Americans that the greatest flim-flam in the

name of student achievement was perpetrated by the Texas schools, in particular Houston, where "cooking the books" on student outcomes was pervasive. They lied. Sound familiar?

[porphyrian]

21. Education laws have never been about education.

Politicians don't give a shit about your children or your jobs, especially not republicans (but the Democrats don't get to slide on this, either). If they did, education wouldn't always be one of the lowest-funded and most-cut items in the budget. Part of me is glad that things like this are happening, because no amount of screaming facts at people has done much good to change this situation. Maybe when everyone's kid graduates functionally retarded because of shitty public education and the lowest common denominator teachers who are willing to work for nothing, we'll finally see something done to improve it. If the country isn't already bankrupt from this piece of shit administration, that is.

[TahitiNut]

23. Imagine if CEOs, CFOs, and COOs had to pass such credentialing.

These neocon/neolib totalitarians sure do like to beat the drums of "competence!" for teachers (as though their teachers are at fault for their deliberate stupidity) but they sure as hell scream bloody murder when the 'guvmint' tries to regulate publicly-traded companies.

Where's the certification for Key Lay, Jeff Skilling, and the rest of the crooked executives?