Not On the Test

NCLB (the federal No Child Left Behind law) makes me grind my teeth for lots of reasons.

This very cool song pretty well sums them up…

Now go visit Tom Chapin’s web site, Not On the Test.

For those of you who want the lyrics, Tom generously published them on his other web site, tomchapin.com.

Not On The Test
by John Forster & Tom Chapin
© 2007 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

Go on to sleep now, third grader of mine.
The test is tomorrow but you’ll do just fine.
It’s reading and math. Forget all the rest.
You don’t need to know what is not on the test.

Each box that you mark on each test that you take,
Remember your teachers. Their jobs are at stake.
Your score is their score, but don’t get all stressed.
They’d never teach anything not on the test.

The School Board is faced with no child left behind
With rules but no funding, they’re caught in a bind.
So music and art and the things you love best
Are not in your school ’cause they’re not on the test.

Sleep, sleep, and as you progress
You’ll learn there’s a lot that is not on the test.

Debate is a skill that is useful to know,
Unless you’re in Congress or talk radio,
Where shouting and spouting and spewing are blessed
‘Cause rational discourse was not on the test.

Thinking’s important. It’s good to know how.
And someday you’ll learn to, but someday’s not now.
Go on to sleep, now. You need your rest.
Don’t think about thinking. It’s not on the test.

Thanks to Tom Brandt for hooking me up with the video!

Are the Feds Reading This?

Richard J. Coley, pictured above, is director of the Educational Testing Service’s policy information center. Mr. Coley is the co-author of an ETS report that finally quantifies the federal government’s need to look elsewhere besides public schools for the causes of huge numbers of failing students.

Granted, student preparedness for academic success is affected by school experience, but ETS has identified four factors that fall outside of the control of public schools, and squarely in the domain of the family, and if aid is to be given to improve student achievement across the board, the responsibility lies with the federal government, not the local public schools.

These findings are in line with your common sense, and the correlations put the onus on the feds to put their money where their mouth is, and quit slamming public education.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here…NCLB, while calling for the achievement of all students, is a pale echo of Oregon’s 1991 initiative for bringing schools into the 21st century. We have been way ahead of the feds in our aims to leave no child behind, and we don’t need an extra level — a very expensive level, I might add — of bureaucracy to accomplish this goal.

Let the feds help families directly, and let them stay out of the way of the states, to whom the Constitution of the United States confers the power to regulate public education.

Read the entire New York Times article here.