Report on San Diego NCLB Public Forum

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

MANY SAY SCHOOL LAW NEEDS WORK

San Diego Union Tribune -- June 26, 2007
by Helen Gao

San Diego -- Many of the parents, teachers and principals who attended a 
forum yesterday about the federal No Child Left Behind Act agreed the 
sweeping education reform policy should be modified before it's renewed, 
and some went so far as to say it should be scrapped.

The forum at Roosevelt Middle School, near Balboa Park, drew about 120 
people, some of whom spoke about how the law has affected their schools 
for better or for worse.

Signed into law by President Bush in 2002, No Child Left Behind holds 
schools accountable according to how schools as a whole and how groups 
of students, such as English-language learners, perform on standardized 
tests. Schools that miss federal academic targets face progressive 
sanctions ranging from staff reorganizations to school closures.

San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Carl Cohn is an 
outspoken critic of the federal law. Cohn said he believes the job of 
raising student achievement is better left to the state and local school 
districts.

The district sponsored the forum along with the San Diego Unified 
Council of PTAs and the San Diego Education Association, which 
represents district teachers. The law expires Sept. 30, and Congress is 
gathering comments before voting on renewing No Child Left Behind.

Cohn applauded the law for setting lofty educational goals for the 
nation – all students are supposed to achieve mastery of grade-level 
material by 2014.

But he said the notion that it will save poor students is ludicrous. “I 
think they will end up being stranded on the rooftop rather than being 
rescued by the federal government.”

Parent Diane Haney, however, likes that schools are held accountable. 
Another parent, David Page, praised the law for giving parents the 
option of transferring their children out of underperforming schools.

Critics of No Child Left Behind say it forces instructors to teach to 
the test and has narrowed the curriculum to math and English, squeezing 
out the arts.

Camille Zombro, president of the San Diego Education Association, said 
the law is so unfixable that it should be abandoned.

Michelle Irwin, principal of Pacific Beach Middle School, said No Child 
Left Behind has benefited her school by forcing her staff to scrutinize 
their instruction.

“We are thinking differently. We are planning differently,” she said.

Irwin's school has been required to restructure its programs because it 
has missed some federal academic targets several years in a row.

The biggest complaint she and others have is that the law labels schools 
as failing even if they meet many academic targets yet miss one.

Critics say the failing label is destructive. “It does wear out the 
morale of a school when it's constantly in our faces we are failing,” 
Irwin said.

Cindy McIntyre, president-elect of the San Diego Unified Council of 
PTAs, agreed, speaking from her experience as the mother of two children 
in San Diego Unified.

“That's the hardest part about No Child Left Behind. It's labeling our 
schools as failing” even though it's not the entire campus, but only a 
percentage of students falling short.

Scott Lockwood, a middle school English teacher, said that once his 
former school, Kroc Middle in Clairemont, was branded as a failure, 
enrollment declined and good teachers left as the population dwindled.

He said no matter what he did and how many of his students improved, his 
school still got “the scarlet letter."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070626/news_1m26nochild.html