Teacher's heartbreak and anger at No Child Left Behind

Teacher's heartbreak and anger at No Child Left Behind: "National Education Association Vice President Lily Eskelsen's essay 'The Science of Making Up Stuff,' talks about the disastrous 'No Child Left Behind' program that has dominated US education since the first part of the Bush administration, the toll it's taken on teachers, the damage it's done to education. As the child of two teachers and the brother of a teacher, this kind of thing breaks my heart.

There is a lucrative science that undergirds No Child Left known in academic circles as: Making Things Up. It makes up that a standardized test is actually designed to measure 'proficiency' or whether a school is actually failing or succeeding in making 'adequate progress'.

America's most dedicated educators have been praying mightily for an end to the hell of false labels and the testing tail wagging the dog-and-pony show that now passes as teaching and learning in schools where administrators are forced to bundle toxic testing strategies worthy of Lehman Brothers in their efforts to be accountable-not to the kids, but to hitting their numbers.

Good Teachers know the difference. We have continued to teach in spite of No Child Left.

The Science of Making Up Stuff

(Thanks, Kevin!)

(Image: No Child Left Behind, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from aflcio's photostream)

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