Whose Responsibility Is Education?
I am an educator and a parent/grandparent. I understand how children learn, how to teach them to learn, why they learn differently and why some face huge obstacles to learning. My knowledge and understanding are based on research, training and experience.
I have no interest in nor authority to develop pedagogy that produces a single philosophical, religious, sociological, economic or political ideology. Those beliefs and theories are the products of individual minds that are developed through study and exposure to diverse ideas. They grow out of each individual's personal experiences and realities. They evolve as a result of having learned critical thinking skills and having had the opportunity and freedom of youth to test their ideas without fear of failure when they don't align with a pre-established or common standard.
No Child Left Behind diverged greatly from the "freedom of thought" concept that this country was built on. While NCLB was not the genesis of the standardization school of thought (history recounts many disastrous examples of that), it produced a LAW that mandated the tool, or weapon as I refer to it, that allowed it to grow roots and to be me firmly planted in the soil that used to be our foundational system of democracy - public schools that serve every single child.
The "consequential accountability" mandated by NCLB with the belief that we could force educational results by requiring every student to show proficiency as measured by one HIGH STAKES standardized test has PROVEN to be a failure.
Consequences were interpreted by many states to imply punitive measures - a definition counter to the premise that education should be a constructive process and that consequences should be constructive. Punishment always has and probably always will be embraced by society as a deterrent to perceived or real negative behavior, but it has NO beneficial or constructive effects in changing the conditions or thinking that caused that negative behavior. In the sphere of education, limiting behavior purely via a fear of punishment creates a chilling effect on critical thinking and discourages children from learning in their formative years Geaux Teacher!: Whose Responsibility Is Education?:
