Vergil’s Coffee

It was given to me from a former colleague’s husband who worked in DC when the love-years of NoChildLeftBehind were being birthed in the aisles of Congress. NCLB was the thing to rally behind, leaving no one behind. And yet, even though some knew that the emphasis on high-stakes testing was bad, the idea of NCLB was something to believe in (or vote in).

And I’ve worn my NCLB lanyard to secure my ID picture for these years until the day that the act gets repealed and torn apart because of what it has done to US education: trying to measure all peoples in all places the same way. And the result is to reward the rich schools and punish everyone else. And when, as I explain to some people who let me explain, NCLB is no longer the reigning educational law of this land, I will stop wearing my NCLB lanyard.

It’s been the albatross around my neck and an editorial statement for the past years.

But, I have a confession to make: NCLB has been great for education.

I know, I said wtf to myself when I realized it too. So, I’ll state it again: NCLB has been great for education.

It hit me two weeks ago when I was running, I think, along the canal in Goshen. And I was thinking about the part in John Stossel’s “Tampering with Nature” when one guest was telling us why all the Green Peace activists were trying to scare us with the images of polar bears and ice melting. And he said it was that if there was fear, then people (or lawmakers) will allocate money for that cause…lots of money. And then it hit me: Same goes for NCLB.

Because of NCLB, the overall public perception of US education is that our kids are struggling to keep up with the world economy (and, btw, look how horrible the US economy is). And if our students are struggling and the teachers are struggling and the schools are struggling, then something needs to be done right now…or else! So, let’s look at these charts that show how horribly our students are doing, how badly we compare to every other nation in the universe (of, don’t worry about where these stats came from or if they are measuring accurate data). The DATA shows how bad it is.

Now, enter NCLB and we have created a lot of jobs for people to advise schools how to run their educational centers more like an efficient business. Textbook companies are cranking out an incredible amount of “technology-based” software to help your students use technology to achieve state standards and pass that qualifying exam.

And, let’s allocate lots of money for teachers to go to conferences and for staff development. (Which, probably, is the reason why I get to go to a cool conference in Georgia in May).

NCLB emphasized the need and now we have funds for lots of stuff to help schools get better. And that’s my confession. For I’m not sure if there wasn’t a perceived crisis in education, that schools would have received the money to do some good things.

Unfortunately, we have paid a lot of money to outside experts whom we will dub “guru” and smile and take in all that they might have to say so that schools can “get better.” Tomorrow, I will sit in on one such presentation for a nationally-known company whom people swear by as being the way to fix schools. And I think, unlike good business, that this company does not have a money back guarantee on their program. My feeling is that, like most educational reforms, experts are willing to give advice for a large fee and a nice PowerPoint presentation; but like a Rainmaker, will not be around when the results fail to meet the promises.

Next slide.