Jonathan Kozol letter to Senator Kennedy on No Child Left Behind

[teacher gal]

Kozol recently met with Sen Kennedy to discuss NCLB and gave Kennedy a letter detailing his concerns. There is now a link to the Kozol letter: http://ed-action.org/content/KozolLettertoKennedy120507.pdf

I think Kozol wrote a a beautiful and powerful letter to Kennedy and he is to be greatly commended for his work over the years to equalize opportunities for poor and disadvantaged children in urban communities. Mostly, I have nothing but praise for him.

One thing that has bothered me a little, however, is that he seems to assume that NCLB has wreaked havoc and destruction only in the poor inner city schools. Nothing could be further from the truth.

While I have no doubt its consequences are felt much more profoundly in those schools (and they have my deepest sympathy), the law's injustices, along with its destructive and demoralizing effects, are experienced in countless schools (thousands of them) all over the nation, even in small communities such as my own.

I wish that he would not (inadvertently) diminish the harm that has been caused all over the nation while at the same time rightly stressing that these effects are felt most profoundly in the poor inner city schools.

[teacher gal]

1. Hey, thanks for the rec!

[teacher gal]

2. When it comes to the growing gap

between the rich and the poor, and the dwindling middle class, it is imperative that the corporate hijacking of public education be stopped.

Please give education more attention.

Kudos to Edwards for being the only candidate who has thus far called a spade a spade - NCLB is not about helping children, it is about privatizing education.

[teacher gal]

3. Well, I'm gonna

keep trying to keep this up there for a while.

[teacher gal]

4. and again

[teacher gal]

5. hmm..

guess i'm not gonna get one of those flames!

[cynthia]

6. Did you know that Barack Obama is in favor of "merit pay"?

From the article by Jonathan Kozol:

"In efforts to retain the most effective teachers in our low-performing schools, Congress
should not make the error of believing that “merit-pay,” if determined primarily by
children's examination scores, will heighten the retention of the most inspiring teachers.
As I have discussed above, it will more often have the opposite effect since the best
young teachers will not be attracted, and more frequently will be repelled, by any form of mercenary competition that rewards those who are willing to subordinate instruction
to test-preparation. "

Those of us in the field know that "differentiated compensation" as Obama calls it, or "merit pay" as most of the republicans call it, is WRONG. When Obama gave a speech to about 10,000 teachers last summer, he said he supported it. Our teacher's union president wrote to him asking him to clarify, and he wrote back saying quite clearly that he supports differentiated compensation for teachers.

He just doesn't get it. I hope he doesn't get the nomination.

[teacher gal]

7. Yes

I'm afraid so. A big mistake in my opinion but I don't think it is from ill-intent. I think it likely he is just misguided/naive about the consequences that will ensue if we go that route. What do you think?

[teacher gal]

12. yikes

Cynthia, I didn't see your entire post when I responded before...just caught the 'Subject' line. I'm sorry.

I completely agree with you about merit pay. Was very disappointed that Edwards didn't prevail in Iowa. I prefer him way above Clinton and Obama on education.

[teacher gal]

8. another

plug for children and education before I go to bed

[Egnever]

9. Wow now thats a pretty cool letter thanks for posting it

It lays out a lot of the problems with NCLB very well.

Thanks again for posting it despite not recieving many replies it is apreciated.

[teacher gal]

10. thank you!

'nite.

[Egnever]

11. My pleasure its good info and hopefully more people will read it

Night :)

[teach1st]

13. A kick and a recommend N/T

[AwakeAtLast]

14. I've posted items from Mr. Kozol before

and they sank like a stone. Glad to see an important person get some attention on DU. Thanks for posting! :hi:

K & R!

[teacher gal]

15. lifting this back up there

thank you

[Egnever]

16. Let me help!

its a really good peice and deserves attention

[LWolf]

17. I believe his letter focuses on poor inner city schools

because that's where his main focus has been; what he knows best, so to speak.

It's certainly true for ALL public schools in the nation, to greater and lesser degrees.

I'd like to hear a response from Senator Kennedy.

:hi:

[teacher gal]

18. yes

me too!

[cynthia]

19. There is a new postage stamp out "Equality in the Schools"

And I heard candidates talk about paying teachers some incentive to work in the urban poor districts or rural poor districts. As one who works in an urban poor district, I would rather see all teachers paid well, period. Then put the money on making schools equal.

Jonathan Kozol talks about the deteriorating buildings that the poor students attend, and how degrading that is. He says that it sends the students the message that they are not important. I heartily agree. I would like to see money go towards making sure all schools are clean and well-equipped.

There is no reason why students should have to share textbooks. A common practice here is that one teacher gets a set of 40 texts and has to keep them in his classroom so that he can teach up to 200 students (5 periods a day) with the same set. Students are allowed to take the text out of the classroom since he will need it for the next period.

A huge expense for most high schools is the copier, as teachers use current material from the newspaper, magazines and the internet and need to make copies for all their students. Rather than being paid an incentive to work in the city where I live, I would rather have a paid clerk to run the copy machine so that the teachers can spend time in more valuable ways than standing around the copy machine waiting for their job to finish.

[teacher gal]

20. I agree with you

For an article by Walt Gardner about "combat pay" to draw teachers to poor urban districts, go here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/04/EDJCU8UP1.DTL

[cynthia]

24. Excellent article

This point about teachers was especially on target:

They don't choose teaching for fame, power or money. That doesn't mean they're missionaries, but neither are they mercenaries.

Essentially the article reported that creating "incentives" or "signing bonuses" for teachers to work in hard-to-staff schools or districts does not pan out. The teachers need decent working conditions in order to stay after the first year. So the "signing bonus" is nice, but then you arrive to find: an empty room, a budget of $63 for the entire school year to buy everything you need to teach for the whole year, a single set of textbooks (enough for one class, but to be shared with 5 classes) and no support from the administration when parents are antagonistic, abusive or just difficult.

Teachers are definitely not in it for the fame, power or money. If that was the goal, they would walk out before the end of September, if they lasted that long!

[LWolf]

22. My kids had problems with textbooks in the early 90s,

and they didn't attend a poor inner-city school. A suburban school. There weren't enough text books to go around. In my eldest son's Algebra II class, there were 43 students. 32 desks and books. Students sat alphabetically, with those at the end of the alphabet standing at the back of the room because there were no more desks. Or chairs. Homework was assigned from the books they didn't have every night, and included in their grade. A month after school started, in desperation, they borrowed some books from another school. A completely different book than the one the teacher used, with lessons still taught and homework still assigned out of the book they didn't have.

He struggled with Algebra II. Imagine that.

Getting in line at the copy machine? You bet. I get to work at 6:30 am one or two days a week so I can be first. Of course, that means that I get to clear all yesterday's jams, fill the empty paper trays, and wait 15 minutes for the thing to warm up, but I'm not standing in line. Would I like to see someone do copying for me? Maybe. At a previous district, we could send off our stuff to the D.O. to be copied and returned, swiftly, on the monster machine they kept there, with paid employees to run it. Of course, our SUPPLY budget was charged for that, and didn't cover a year's copies, let alone actual supplies.

Even more I would like to see enough grounds and building supervisors to release us from bus, playground, hall, and recess duties, so that we could spend that time planning, correcting, etc..

I certainly agree with the notion of paying ALL teachers well. I'm not a fan of any form of "merit pay," but of paying to fully staff and support the teachers we've got. They'll all do a better job in that case.

:hi:

[cynthia]

23. I have worked with many paraprofessionals

who are delighted to have the job supervising bus duty, playgroung duty, lunchroom, making copies. Some are lifers, who have no interest in moving up to become a teacher (some have a teaching license and are happy to take the lesser pay and still make a huge difference in the lives of kids, so they don't have to take work home, correct papers, go to meetings). Others are students in college working towards their teacher's license, which I applaud. I think the best way to KNOW that you want to become a teacher is to spend some time as a paraprofessional doing the support jobs and being around the students, knowing what it is really like.

It breaks my heart to meet a student teacher nearing the end of his/her 12 weeks who says "I will NEVER work as a teacher! This is insane!" And I think, I wish you had figured that out before you spent all that time and money in school to become a teacher.

Instead of No Child Left Behind, the federal government could really improve education for all children by providing the "infrastructure" to equalize education for all children regardless of their socio-economic background, race or geography.

[LWolf]

26. Excellent points. Thank you! n/t

[teacher gal]

21. Back online

with another kick for Kozol's letter.

Education gets short shrift but thanks so much to those of you who have contributed!

I've got another post coming that might intrigue you.

[yewberry]

25. While I didn't read the letter,

(I don't download from unknown sites), I am pleased to see someone talking about education and Kozol here.

I think you must be right--NCLB has poisoned the system, whether we're talking about urban or rural schools. I spent the past two school years working in urban Title I schools, so I'm more clear on that part of story than I am with rural schools. I wonder what NCLB supporters would say if they knew that the children here blow two solid weeks of class time on WASL testing every year. And stressful? The kids sometimes just fall apart.

I guess I'm not altogether surprised that Kozol has kept his focus on urban schools--most of his work (that I've read) tends to look at the way that the intersection of racism and classism manifests in the funding and management of our schools.

It's incredibly sad.

[cynthia]

27. Some of the rural schools experience similar problems to urban ones

antiquated buildings, desks, chairs, blackboards (I'll bet all suburban schools have white boards or Smartboards!) , not enough texts or outdated texts, not enough electives or teachers to teach them, or specialized materials to teach them (i.e. pottery wheels and kiln, musical instruments, theater with lights and sound board, etc. etc)

Some of the reservation schools are as bad off as the schools in the poorest neighborhoods in the city. You have to keep in mind that we are talking about schools where the parents (and most of the adults in the community) have moderate incomes, the economy may be depressed because the factory closed down, etc.