reflects both the effects of poverty on families, which far more often exposes
low-income children to toxic levels of stress than their middle-class
counterparts, and to racial disparities in exposure of students to
inexperienced teachers and watered-down curriculum that accompanies racial
segregation and tracking in the schools. School districts that operate schools
with high concentrations of students of color and low-income students commonly
maintain a large pool of inexperienced teachers in those schools by firing and
replacing teachers during their probationary period.
No Child Left Behind does not require school districts to even monitor
racial disparities in exposure of students to teachers with less experience and
training. No Child Left Behind remedies also help to perpetuate and worsen
these disparities by eliminating obstacles to maintaining a revolving door for
teachers and lowering standards for teacher licensure. Elimination of
seniority, tenure, and due process rights for teachers are remedies for failing
schools under No Child Left Behind. A growing part of the teacher workforce
consists of teachers in non-union charter schools, where teachers have no
seniority, tenure, and dues process rights, and the pay is generally lower.
Teacher turnover in many charter schools, including those held up as model
schools for students of color, such as Harvest Prep in Minneapolis, often have
insanely high teacher turnover rates.
The "Common Core" curriculum being promoted as a "college-ready" curriculum is
actually a watered-down version of the traditional academic curriculum
developed in most states, and has been under development since the 1980s.
Minnesota Basic Standards was one of many prototypes. The "common core" is
linked to standardized tests for students, and teacher job evaluations are
largely based on those tests. The curriculum is narrowed to what is tested, and
teachers are motivated to "teach to the test" in order to keep their jobs. In
Minneapolis and elsewhere we are seeing a shift to a more scripted curriculum,
with off the shelf lesson plans and a greater emphasis on "drill and kill"
designed for teachers with very limited training.
Both regular public schools and charter schools are under pressure to improve
the test results by any means necessary, short of addressing factors that
affect instructional quality, such as teacher training, experience, and
turnover rates. We have seen schools expel some of the lower performing
students, cheating on the tests, and other efforts to manipulate the numbers.
Corporate school reform is essentially a labor relations agenda masquerading as
a school improvement agenda. The objectives: De-professionalization and
de-unionization of the teaching profession in the large majority of public
schools. The transformation of the public school system prescribed by No Child
Left Behind will ensure that a quality public education remains the privilege
of a minority of students in urban school districts, not an entitlement, not a
right.
Doug Mann for School Board 2014 (Facebook community page)
https://www.facebook.com/mannforschoolboard
Doug Mann for School Board (web site)
http://mannforschoolboard.blogspot.com
Endorsed by New Progressive Alliance, seeking Green Party endorsement
-Doug Mann, Folwell neighborhood, north side of Minneapolis