The state of Texas has had a “no pass, no play" law since 1984. Essentially, this means that a student is ineligible for extracurricular activities if they are failing.



http://www.tea.state.tx.us/field/faqxc.html#qa2

There are a number of “No Child Left Behind” supporters on this board.

There was an interesting article in Sunday’s Fort Worth Star Telegram. A math teacher in Keller, a suburb just North of Fort Worth has refused to renew the teacher’s contract because her failing rate was too high. If we grant that the teacher’s failure rate was higher than other techers, there are still some questions.



http://www.star-telegram.com/202/story/77213.html

There have been several threads on this board calling for the improvement of education. The fact that Texas has a “no pass, no play” rule indicates that Texas Education Agency envisions some failure.

Questions for Debate:

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?

3. If yes, should/does the 100% passing rate supersede “no pass, no play”?

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?

Of course not, and I'm not sure that the statement highlighted indicates that the administrator thinks that every kid in the district should pass.

Rewording the statement: Ideally, you have 100% passing. This makes sense. She is teaching sixth grade math for Pete's sake. 24% of 6th graders (or 17% in her other class) should not be failing math unless she is utterly incompetent or is teaching a class with rocks for brains.



Teaching is a two way street. Now, I don't want to prejudge this teacher, but it seems like she has had personality problems and conflicts with students and parents in the past. She should take a look at her teaching techniques and assess why students fail her class and not others. Something is out of kilter here.



No indication of whether or not Kevil's teaching methods and her tests matched the expectations of the cirriculum. This would be a key consideration of the case. Without this information, it is difficult to assign fault.

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?

No, absolutely not. I don't think the school district is advocating this or expecting this. The no pass, no play policy explicitly expects that kids might fail a subject.

1. No
2. No

A meritorious society is something any Republic/Democracy based in Capitalism should strive for. There are people who will fail despite your best efforts.

Amlord,

We are pretty much on the same page on this, but there is, of course, a possibility that this teacher, being in her first, has year been assigned less capable students. Correlating those students' scores on standardized tests (seemingly all important) with the grades given by the teacher should shed some light on this.

Another slight disagreement I have with you is that the way the principal wrote the note makes her look like she has her head in the sand. The note is what the principal, supposedly a trained professional, wrote. I think the principal needs to do some work on her writing skills. From the president down, Texans in positions of authority seem to have a problem turning English phrases properly. Edited to add: Further, the fact that the principal seemingly wrote this note to the teacher right before a two week recess, seems callous, if not outright sadistic. Yeah, let her know she's in trouble right before the break so she can worry about it for two week. I think we call this "twisting in the wind." While, I think the administration was probably right regarding the high failure rate, I would lay odds, that the principal has got her butt chewed out about the way the note was written - especially now that it's found it's way into the paper. We can't give authority the benefit of the doubt simply because it is authority.

This is a probationary teacher. She serves at the Keller district’s pleasure. She has no contractual recourse. I personally think she has a problem and probably needs to change her attitude or find another line of work. If this were a tenured teacher, the teachers‘ association could and would use this to argue that the principal was placing unreasonable demands on the teacher.

Questions for Debate:

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?

Of course not – although this is the goal. This whole idea of 100% “passing” goes back to the bad old days of “social promotions” In fact the testing required by NCLB reveals how well studens are really doing as opposed to how well a school “grades” a student.

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?

Naturally if it is real and verified by an independent test criteria otherwise it is the Worst thing for education and it has nothing to do with NCLB.

3. If yes, should/does the 100% passing rate supersede “no pass, no play”?

No pass/no play is a good idea and the 100% passing rate obviously is subverting it in the worst possible way.

While the elementary teacher in the original example’s failure rate was probably high, the figures below were recently released.



http://www.star-telegram.com/schools/story/104833.html

This brings up a question. Is it better for teachers retain students in elementary school until they master material or should they just go ahead and pass them and let the states standardized test gobble them up years later?

It should be noted that when a large number of students fail subject matter, teachers are blamed, but when a district or campus has a high failure rates on state tests, administrators must face the music.

Here’s a related story.

http://www.star-telegram.com/measuring/story/104812.html

I’ll bet our superintendent is sweating it right now. It's too bad, but with increased authority comes responsibility.

IMO we should keep them back until they can pass core subjects. This is the way it was when I was in elementary school in the 60s. To pass them on only movers the problem forward.

Obviously the states – “standardized test gobble them up” because they have not mastered the subjects.





And IMO both are always responsible. But we need to get past the “blame game” and start giving our kids a good, world class, education.

Ted we are in substantial agreement on this. We do tend to kick the can down the road. Your experience in the 60s was mine in the 50s.

I am going to go out on a limb. I think Texas should abolish the "no pass, no play" rule. The rule may sound good (sort of catchy) and probably came about as a result of good intentions, but it also places pressure on teachers to pass students whether or not they are achieving. Getting rid of "no pass, no play" would be a positive step in my opinion. I know the arguments for it. However, schools should turn out well rounded individuals. Extracurricular activities help achieve this. If no pass no play were eliminated, it would broaden students' educational experience, might provide motivation and it might even bring about better performance in academics. Throughout my educational career, I thought, and still think, that students do better in a relaxed atmosphere. "No pass, no play" flies in the face of this theory.

Texas has had a couple of decade of practice of "no pass, no play." I can't see that it has accomplshed much. I can defend my position further if anyone would like.





No disagreement about providing a "world class" education, whatever that may mean.

In practice accountability and the hatchet go by levels. There's the old saying, "its easier to fire the coah than the players."

classroom = teachers
campus = principals
district = superintendent

Well you could do this but then what happens when they fail the “std. test” required for graduation – which I assume you have in TX.





I agree and this is why I like NCLB and the standard tests so much. It lets you see clearly where you have a problem free of “judgment calls” and grade manipulation. Certainly some teachers and all teacher unions will hate it for this capability in particular.

Ted I apologize. I had a link I forgot to include in my last post.

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.asse...ingtimeline.pdf
This is a PDF file.

The beginning of educational reform in this state started in 1983 under Democratic Governor Mark White, not as some believe with George W. Bush. Texas has had a history of increasingly difficult tests, probably exceeding NCLB demands.

One can argue that no pass no play isn't helping students pass "the tests. " Maybe we should see what happens without it. Did it ever occur to you that the sponsors of extracurricular activities just might be the kind of natural mentors needed to help kids pass their classes and “the test?

The smallness of test mentality is shown when positioned alongside this study 1999 by the National Association of State Boards of Education.



http://www.nasbe.org/new_resources_section...ities_06.99.pdf
This is a PDF file.

Maybe students would do better without no pass, no play.

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?

I guess in theory it does.

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?

A passing rate has little IMHO to do with education. Changing a rate of passing has nothing to do with the level of educational achievement unless it is an accurate measure of an actual level of mastery achieved per student. I have yet to see such a device. Additionally, there are failures to celebrate in education. If a horribly under prepared student or a student with a very low level of intellectual ability gets near a standard passing mark it is a more impressive accomplishment for that student than the sleepwalking C student who has the ability to ace the SAT test.

3. If yes, should/does the 100% passing rate supersede “no pass, no play”?

The principal in this story made one big mistake in the concept of the 100% passing rate as the measure of an effective teacher. The teacher who was vilified for a very low passing rate actually ended up with a relatively high passing rate. Rasing the bar in my experience tends to raise year end performance and lowering the bar seems to have the reverse result.

I don't see how you seriously create a 100% passing rate as that deflates motivation for all to perform. I also support no pass no play. While this can be as inflexible and as flawed as a 100% passing rate, playing whether you perform in school or not is another form of a 100% passing rate.

Eeyore this is an interesting thought. The way "no pass, no play" works in Texas is that if a student fails one course, they are out for six weeks. I was discussing this with a friend today. He favors modifying "no pass, no play" to allow failure in one, maybe two courses. Another friend, who dropped in at the coffee shop, suggested that it was more important to find out why a kiid was failing.

How would you go about making "no pass, no play" more flexible? Keep in mind, I'm not sure every state where "no pass, no play" is employed applies it per the Texas model.

See I think having the opportunity to pull grades up in six weeks is pretty darn flexible. And if it works in Texas like similar rules work in Tennessee, the only part of the year it applies is the first six weeks after a semester. How many football players does that take out of football games? In Tennessee the answer is zero. Winter sports athletes in that system are held accountable while Fall and Spring athletes have time to fix their grades the next semester or in summer school.

I am a strong advocate of physical activity of all kinds and have been involved with it and seen the benefits for 35 years. Thus I think denying students the ability to play for academics is short sighted. But I also believe all students have the right to expect a good education and students who cannot pass the tests for a grade should repeat it.


I also believe that when students fail theses tests, which do measure competence in the subjects tested, that it is the “system” that needs to be looked at – which includes teachers, administrators, curricula etc

I too and an advocate of many kinds (but clearly not all) of physical activity. Yet it seems absurd to allow a scholar athlete to participate in scholar athletics when he/she does not fulfill the obligations of student. There are plenty of venues in which to perform athletics in today's world. And most of the important ones in terms of gaining recognition for professional and semi-professional (NCAA) athletics tend to be outside of the school system. (Travel soccer and volleyball, AAU basketball, junior tennis and golf tournaments, swimming and track and field national events etc.)



It seems a little ridiculous from my perspective to wonder why a self-proclaimed conservative republican blames the results of a poor academic performance on everything but the individual who failed to meet, not a standard of excellence, but minimum passing competency on an already watered down test.

Education is a social obligation, I agree, and the merits of our education system should be evaluated by every generation of students, parents, and educators, but some accountability must surely go to the student.

Pardon me for leaving out the “student” – who obviously must meet the test criteria. But far too often the school system makes it nearly impossible for a student to get the education needed to even be competent in a subject. They do this by allowing disruptive and often violent students to remain in classrooms, or the teacher is so un qualified to teach the subject that learning becomes very hard – is this a “student” problem.

IMO our “student” problems revolve around getting the bad ones out and concentrating on giving those willing to learn the best education we can – and then testing with a standard test to verify results.

We don’t even come close to doing this today.

Questions for Debate:

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?

3. If yes, should/does the 100% passing rate supersede “no pass, no play”?

The name “No Child Left Behind” would seem to call for a 100% passing rate, which would seem to be the same thing as Jesse Jackson’s “Equal Outcome Education” which was / is a joke.

No, it does not improve education it only increases spending at the administrative level. Essentially this act is a joke, but what do you want from a bill that was sponsored by Ted Kennedy.

The problem with education in this country is not in how much money we spend on it, which is outrageous, anyway.

The problem with the education system in this country is:

1. It is run by the government and since the government does not do anything well all government schools should be privatized and promote competition among schools.

I can, unfortunately, testify that one of the cruelest things that a parent can do is to send their child to a government school to receive an education. This really should represent a form of child abuse.

2. Outlaw teacher’s unions. Unfortunately too many teachers today are simply the dregs of society (what is that ol’ saying , “If you can’t do…teach”). Some teachers can’t even pass the same test they give their students.

3. Remove the “teaching certificate” requirement from those that want to teach.

4. Permanently expel problem students. Hey, somebody's gotta flip the burers.

I think I'll just skip the post after Ted's, since it almost made me barf my breakfast.

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...st&p=215928

Ted, my problem with your approach is that you want to blame everyone, but never include parents. That said, there are parents do everything right and still come up with less than stellar kids. Then again some parents don't make much of an effort.

I think we have to try and isolate problems. If the starter on a car isn't working properly, we don't (unless the mechanic is a crook) replace the muffler and transmission. If the failure is at the classroom level, we must look at the individual teacher. If the failure is campus wide we must look at principals. If the failure is a system thing we should start by looking at the superintendent.

BoF – in My opinion parents role is to insure the child 1.gets to school and behaves and 2. administers proper discipline when said child fails to perform and behave. Teachers are primarily responsible for “teaching” - not baby sitting. Students that are “slow” can be kept back and will do better the second time.

I agree that overall we need to look at the problem as you describe. Unfortunately many inner city school systems have problems at ALL levels and (you will not agree) should be dealt with by allowing parents to take their kids out of the system (with vouchers). In other words some schools should be allowed to "go out of business".

Are you being snippy at being called for leaving the student out of the equation. I believe the single most important actor in our story is the student. You know the old phrase, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can;t make him drink," don't you? I work at one of those schools you would like to see the vouchers be used for. I share some of your concerns deeply. I think discipline must be enforced in the classroom and there must be something real at the end of ...or else. And that real thing should be expulsion. And then we as a society should work hard to see that a student does not allow himself to get expelled. I also agree that we should have quality educators in the classroom, but I don't think a rigid system of qualification is in the best interests of schools around the country. I believe that the more common problem (and if it is a major problem at the expensive school I teach at then it must be more of a problem at struggling schools) is that teachers are over-burdened like case workers in most social programs. They have too much to do and not enough support to do it with. Overburdened teachers are less competent and must take shortcuts that lower the bar for their students.

My students tend not to be bothered with reading and doing homework. There is a badge of pride in not studying and not working. This is an increasing trend. I believe as a society we have become overly pragmatic in a paradoxical way. That we don't want to learn something unless it can be proved to directly payoff in their lives.

Students need to value their education or their education will not have much value. What you learn when doing the work to get a C- is exponentially less than what it takes to learn in achieving an A-. And any subject can be taught in such a way to build valuable life skills. But the main actor in the classroom is the student and not the teacher.

A great teacher knows this and searches tirelessly to find those triggers to motivate students to aspire to reach a higher bar than a minimum standard.

Our educational expectations need to be heightened dramatically. Our students need to be able to excel. Serving time on the way to a diploma in competency is a waste of time for most students and they do not learn to respect their own education, which is a form of self-disrespect.

Expecting great educators to remain in the trenches with too many responsibilities and too little support is not realistic. Some will be super teachers, devoting triple time, personal resources, and sacrificing their personal lives (freedom writers i.e.) but even those teachers probably generally move on (like the freedom writers main character).

Today there are too many down-sides to teaching, not least of which is the general poor regard with which most teachers seem to be treated and the antagonism that is aimed at the national teachers' union. Simply associating issues with teachers' unions today seems to be proof that the side of a debate associated with the union is horribly wrong.

NCLB is not the formula to improve our national education system. It is a Booker T. Washington solution of teaching our struggling schools to get their students to learn a trade, because people from certain schools will have to accept mediocrity at best I wonder if focusing on cultivating the talented tenth as WEB Du Bois argued would be a way to better strengthen our national talent pool. I do not mean that the idea of NCLB and proving basic competency for all graduates eventually is a bad thing. But how do we better inspire more students to push for better achievements like getting fours and fives on AP tests? How do we get more schools that the suburban schools to get those AP programs to flourish.

Students like people are resilient. This doesn't necessarily mean things like more homework, it means pushing students to learn more in the same amount of time. When they start impressing themselves, we may start impressing the world again.

Please describe “overburdened”. In my state teachers make over 70K/year (and for 10 months work). In industry professional jobs making that typically require 50-60 hours a week or more. One of our problems is we have a school day and year that is too short and this puts pressure on teachers trying to cram it all in.




I guess all I can say is I am shocked. I have 2 boys in 6th grade and we monitor their homework every night. They just do it. In this school parents of kids who neglect homework get an email or phone call.

My 16 year old is a sophomore and in honors math and science. He does 3-4 hours a night of homework and because he developed good habits in grammar school we don’t have to push him, he just does it. His teachers email grades and test results to us. If he is having any problems at all we take him I to meet with the teacher after school to work it out. IMO if kids are expected to do the work and there are consequences for not putting in the effort they will respond. Teachers need to demand students do their work – or else.

We have grown soft and lazy as a country. We have laws we don’t enforce (like gun laws) and then wonder why we don’t have compliance.




IMO this is why NCLB is so important. The tests set a bar that must be met. It is not up to the school board, principle or teacher to set the standard, and the test shows progress or lack of same. Students who don't pass should be held back. This is how it was in my day. You passed or you did it over. And you can be sure kids who didn’t read and do homework did NOT pass.





Then what is the formula. NCLB is IMO only the yardstick that tell schools, and teachers where their students are in subject matter comprehension. And I believe strongly that we NEED this. The alternative has been we graduate kids who can barely read and then expect some employer to hire them. We need to demand that students do better or be kept back to do it over.

As for inspiration – well I don’t have the answer. There are many students who are driven to succeed and others who have to learn the hard way. The teacher pays a role here but some kids seem to not give a damn – and they should be held back and expelled. Let them flip burgers for a few years and then maybe they will be ready to put in the time required.

This is they type imprecise mess up you generally lead us into.

When you say over "70K/ year" do you mean beginning teachers? Do you mean those who are at either the average or midpoint of the salary schedule? Do you mean the teacher who has worked for 30 + years and is near retirement?

Do you mean teachers with a bachelor's or a master's degree or perhaps a Ph.D.?

Do you not realize that it costs more to live in Boston than some other places?

Do you not realize that a teacher's day does not end when the 7th period bell rings? There's grading papers, recording grades, preparing lessons and making out lesson plans. Often this stuff is done at home.

Do you realize that school computers are so monitered that one can't sit there all day and debate, as Mike once put it in a poll only, "on someone else's dime"? Ouch, some of you felt that, didn't you!

Do you not realize that if teachers work longer hours and more days they will demand more money?

Have any of these questions even crossed your mind?

Really? The internet sources I found don;t show that to reflect average teacher pay in your state. link Average pay is $55,000 per year and over half of the teaching force has a master's degree. Does that sound like a pay rate competitive with industry profession pay? The student load per high school teacher is often well over 100. In my more pristine it is more like 70-80 per student. Coaching is often expected/required. The school day does not begin and end with the bells that admit and release the students. Grading is to be done. Student and parent meetings. Administrative meetings. Additional assignments and committees. I would estimate my average teaching and coaching workload to be 55 hours per week. I could take short cuts. I could give all multiple choice tests and not assign writing assignments and I probably would have to dramatically reduce written assignments if I taught at a public school. I should do it now in terms of what I get paid for.

Teachers have to enforce discipline even if they have support. Grade, prepare reports, make lesson plans, keep up to date in their field, keep up to date with technology, and listen to yahoos who always go on and on about our mythical free time and talk about how teachers get paid higher hourly pay than nuclear scientists. (LOL!) Dance duty, supporting students' extracurricular activities by attending some shows, games, events etc. academic banquets, athletic banquets


and then you have things like IEPs that require separate learning plans for kids in different groups in the same class in public schools.

Many teachers either work summer school, some other summer job, or a second job. I do the schedule for my school. Yet new assignments and requests continue to land on teachers until they stand up and say no and start saying no to everything they can.



Let me qualify this some. At my private high school not turning in homework is rare. But I see in increasing trend in avoiding doing assigned reading by shortcut or relying on classroom activity to get by. I am surprised that you are shocked by this assertion. You seem to have a concern about education not going well right now. Did you think the average student is working harder than ever but simply failing to achieve?



All of your children have a value for education and they go and do their work. And you are behind them supporting them in their efforts. I applaud you and the state of Massachusetts which has long been strong on education.

This is reflected in the money spent per student link and the educational results of your state.
link





NCLB, if if what based on a solid and effective measurement test, would still not set the bar but raise the floor. You place trust in a federal government program to measure whether a local student has passed or not? One test fits all? The NCLB tests generally measure reading and mathematics through the 8th grade. Now schools are focusing intensely on math and reading. Do you think other subjects would suffer accordingly?

Teachers should be left in charge of whether a student passes or not. As long as expectations are made clear and progress is being measured and routinely reported on, it should then be up to the student to meet the teacher's minimum standard or retake the course or grade. On that we agree. And I can be sure that students who did little work in your day still passed courses. It takes some conscious effort for most students to not get at least a D if they show up regularly.





Respectfully, I say that you see value in the concept of measuring educational attainment in students. I say that the NCLB test is one to reward mediocrity and that has its own merits. But we must look for educational excellence, not basic proficiency. Under NCLB we will graduate kids who can barely read and they will go looking for jobs. I applaud the concept, but I believe NCLB is more about designing a way to measure the failure of our educational system rather than finding ways to fix it.

Here is another link that addresses many issues about teaching in the United States.

NEA Teacher "Myths"

Read 'em and make your own conclusions.

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?

ideally

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?

It would show an improvement in education if there was a 100% passing rate. The state of Texas already favors 100%, they want children to succeed. It seems like a poorly worded question, but I believe the education system could be strongly improved to possibly reach that standard.

3. If yes, should/does the 100% passing rate supersede “no pass, no play”?

The email / letter, seems to have a poorly worded sentence in there. The state would love to see 100% passing, but it is not expected, most teachers would be affected if they should have 100%.

Just a controversy made from a poor sentence from a single person not directly affecting a plan that is now debated.

Amlord tried this "ideal" business when I first opened this thread. It didn't work very well for him then.



It doesn't work any better for you now.

Don't you think that by the time a person gets to be a principal they could communicate what they mean, both in writing and speech. This was not an e-mail, but a formal letter. Standards are a bit higher, though it wouldn't surprise me if we start or have started, in this glorious current age, sending people termination notices by e-mail. Impersonallly and cowardly, that's the modern way. Perhaps we should have a 100% competency rate for principals - for real not ideally. Statements are what they are, not what one thinks the person meant or should have said. We can't rewrite the principal's letter for her. That's not an option.

About all you've contributed is a statement that you don't like how things are worded.

We are talking about reality, not an "ideal." The teacher losing her job is quite real.

As someone with a great deal of experience in the "education" world (former Kinder/pre-K teacher, current special ed teacher's aide, etc.) I can attest to some of the problems I have found with our current education system.

In my district, while they obviously need to meet NCLB standards in order to succeed under the current (ridiculous, IMO) system, the most important thing is not test scores on standardized tests but actual education. I don't think 100% passing rate on any standardized test means much of anything other than that the particular teacher/school is very good at getting students to answer a set of multiple choice questions correctly. Do they understand what they are regurgitating? Do they understand the meaning and purpose for what they are learning? Probably not. They're just spoon fed all of the "essentials" they'll need in order to pass those tests. Social studies? Science? Who ever heard of those things in school any more? Twenty years ago when I was in third grade, we learned the states & their capitols, countries and their capitols, tons of Arizona state history, about the systems of the body, bones, etc. Now kids are lucky if they are touching on these subjects by 5th grade. Is it that we were smarter 20 years ago? No. But standardized tests didn't determine the standing and status of a school the way it does now.

I really think that my district has, for the most part, done a fantastic job with the education of its students. BUT, the one big problem I have noticed in many of the classrooms is that students are not held accountable for individual work (almost all work during school is done with the class). When I was in school, most of our time (after first grade anyway) was spent working individually. If we had an assignment, we did it on our own in class and then we'd occasionally go over it together after the papers were graded. Now, the vast majority of work is done as a class (in my experience, of course) so there is little individual work required. Of course the kids are not going to learn as much if they don't ever have to figure it out on their own! Now, as I said, I think our district does a great job with the education of our kids (my daughter's school in particular), but the trend seems to be toward group work rather than individual work.

Another problem I see is that reading is not emphasized enough in the lower grades. Reading is the foundation for all learning...complex word problems in math...science, social studies...everything falls back on reading and one's ability to comprehend what one is reading. Reading fluency needs to be stressed so that once students get to 2nd and 3rd grades (and above) they do not have to spend minutes figuring out what it should take them seconds to "decode". In third grade, many of the students (aside from the ones with learning disabilities/special ed qualifications, who often have physiological reasons for not reading at their appropriate level) are barely reading at a second grade level...and this is only going ot get worse as they get older.

But perhaps the biggest problem today is that parents believe that their child's education starts and stops at school. In my classroom, every single parent attended the parent-teacher conferences, but the teacher told me that in all her years of teaching that has NEVER happened. Our school happens to have a VERY high level of parent involvement when it comes to school activities, but I think they could still do better when it comes to working with their kids at home. Teachers should not bear the entire weight of educating our children. As both a parent and an educator, I find it alarming how many parents I would have to chase and hunt down in order to let them know about their child's day, work, etc. As a parent, it is first and foremost MY responsibility to educate my child. I didn't send my daughter off to school on the first day and say "okay...it's all up to your teacher now...have fun"! Perhaps that is why my 5 year-old daughter is currently reading at a 2nd grade level and knows all of her states (she can read the names, locate them on a map, AND identify them just by a picture of the state itself). Perhaps this is why other children are NOT reading at an appropriate level. And of course if parents don't place an emphasis on education (and just telling your child that education is imortant doesn't count...you have to SHOW him/her that you are involved in his/her education), then why would the child care whether he/she got As or Ds? Also, I think it does a huge disservice to our students to not recognize their hard work and results. In my district, the gifted program is offered beginning in 4th grade (for me it begain in 2nd grade and there were always "alternative" assignments for me before the official gifted program began) and there is no honor roll or principal's list until 4th grade either. Why try to succeed if there is little to no recognition for excellence? It is so important to show children how important their hard work is when they are first starting out in school so that they will want to continue to do well as they progress in school.

All in all, I think the 100% passing rate tells little to nothing about the actual quality of education that a child receives. Anyone can "train" a child to pass a series of multiple choice questions...but are they really learning anything? A "100% passing rate" goal does not do justice to students...it only serves as a means to measure a school's ability to "teach to the test". Instead, goals should be placed based upon individual improvement and more time should be spent working with kids who are struggling when they are in their first few years of school...before it is "too late" to get them caught up to their peers.

1. Does “No Child Left Behind” call for a 100% passing rate?
No, it is mostly a Bushy vs Hilliarity political word spin game, wrapped into a legal program, all flavors of which fall short of an education!!. I would like it to mean no child gets less than his equal share of the nation's education assets. And THAT has to be weighted according to his/her willingness to use it well!

2. Do you favor a 100% passing rate. Does it improve education?
NO and NO. As a minimum it makes for the dumbing of America. How do you get qualified teachers (subject matter and pedagogical qualified) without some kind of measure of performance. And without that, then they certainly are qualified to teach any and all 100% passing classes. For then what's the measure?

3. If yes, should/does the 100% passing rate supersede “no pass, no play”?
N/A

I mean average for Boston. Some cities in the burbs are lower – I was referring top Boston not every town. And Boston is where we have some of the best and worst schools.



And maybe they should get it. What I do know is we have the shortest school day and year in the industrial world and one of the worst educations systems. We need to DO SOMETHING. I am not saying it is all teachers “fault” but certainly an average of 70K for 10 months work is not bad and that includes more “weeks off” during the year than any profession in this country.


Many just work year round, long hours, for that or less and get 2 weeks vacation – so please spare me the overworked teachers sob story Bof.






No I think schools don’t demand enough from students in many cases. Certainly inner city schools in most states have this problem. We still “promote” students who, in the 50s and early 60s in this country would be held back. We dump kids who can barely read on to the business community – I have seen them – it is disgusting and it is killing this country.

We have to import talent – and we should not have to.

The silly idea that everyone should “go to college” if they want to is part of the problem. We used to have separate tracks for trade, business and college. Few schools do today.

Not bad work?



Judging from one of you previous posts, it doesn't sound like particularly “good” work. If it’s as bad as you say, shouldn’t teachers get combat pay?

In many cases the answer is yes. Overall our education system needs a lot of work – and to blame the teachers for all the problems is misguided. The Administration and management is where much of the problems are.

IMHO teachers should be paid based on performance as in most professions. That said the rules for student behavior and participation need to be re written so that we are in line with the rest of the industrial world.

I lived next to a teacher 5 years ago and he had a French exchange student over for half a year. When his teenaged son asked the boy what they did after school during the week the French boy was puzzled. When he figured out what was asked his response was – we are in school until 5 PM and get 3+ hours of homework a night – thus during the week that is all we do except some sports.

I honestly don't see much of a problem with the education system. IMO public school is a bad idea in the first place, but it seems to me that it does a very good job considering the immensity of the task.

I also support "No pass no play", some would argue that denying a student the privilage of participating in an extracurricular activity based on wether or not they are passing actually lowers the students grades because they are not motivated or some nonsense like that. Students that are failing obviously do not want to learn and if they can get away with playing their favorite sport and not doing their homework, they will.

The responsibility goes to the teachers and the administration to make sure the student learns yes, but IMO the youth today are becoming increasingly narcisistic and unwilling to learn.



I agree, exchange students usually have high marks, they care.

.


And Imo the reason for this is that starting in the late sixties we decided that everyone should “pass” least we hurt their self esteem. This ushered in the “social promotion” and the imo destruction of quality education.

I think it is possible that students would “care” more if they were faced with the prospect of being held back to repeat an entire year for failing a core subject. This was common in the 50s and 60s and it certainly got you attention.

If the rules and high standards are not clear and enforced many if not the many, if not the majority, will slid through doing the minimum.

These fools then wonder why they cannot get “a good job” or get into a good ollege etc.