No Child Left Behind-Wrong Solution to the Right Problem
Author: George Rogers

How desiraable it would be to achieve the goal of "No Child
Left Behind" in our society. But the congressional act
designed to achieve that goal is flawed. Its focus is
limited to academic achievement as measured by high stakes
testing.

Based on the notion that the difference in student
performance is based largely on teacher competence, the
sole strategy of NCLB is to put the lash to teachers and
whip them to pull their students along at a faster pace.

Although, the objective of focusing on improving test
scores and holding teachers wholly accountable for the
results has the advantage of simplicity, it is myopic at
best and absolute folly at worst.

First of all, it completely ignores the role of public
education in enculturating youth in principles of democracy
and preparing them to become responsible, participating
citizens in our own country and in the world community. As
such, they need not only academic qualifications, but also
the moral integrity essential to the existence of
democratic societies.

Secondly, it completely ignores anti-social behaviors of
students that demonstrate a total lack of understanding or
appreciation for principles of citizenship and seriously
undermine the effectiveness of our public education system.
Consider the following statistics.

Out of a hundred schools, during the school year, - 78 will
experience 1 or more violent incidents of crime - 18 will
include incidents such as rape and battery on school
grounds - 46 of these schools will report 20 or more
violent incidents - 24 schools will report daily or weekly
incidents of bullying - 18 schools will report daily or
weekly acts of disrespect for teachers

Add to this, the following excerpt from the book
"Freakonomics." Quote: "In a paper called 'The Economics of
Acting White', the young black Harvard economist Roland G.
Fryer Jr. argues that some black students 'have tremendous
disincentives to invest in particular behaviors (i.e.
education, ballet, etc.) due to the fact that they may be
deemed a person who is trying to act like a white person
(a.k.a. "selling out"). Such a label in some neighborhoods,
can carry penalties that range from being deemed a social
outcast, to being beaten or killed.' Fryer cites the
recollections of a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, known then as
Lew Alcindor, who had just entered the fourth grade in a
new school and discovered that he was a better reader than
even the seventh graders: 'when the kids found this out, I
became a target. . . .It was my first time away from home,
my first experience in an all-black situation, and I found
myself being punished for everything I had been taught was
right. I got all a's and was hated for it; I spoke
correctly and was called a punk. I had to learn a new
language simply to be able to deal with threats. I had good
manners and was a good little boy and paid for it with my
hide.'

Obviously, when students value neither education nor
citizenship, they are not likely to rise to the challenge
of high stakes testing no matter who teaches them.

The writer of Proverbs expressed a profound insight when he
wrote, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
Learning is a difficult thing. It takes considerable effort
and unless young people can see a benefit in learning
something, unless they have a vision of how it will help
them in their lives, it is unlikely they will invest the
effort needed to learn it.

It is hard to imagine a more self-defeating environment
than one that punishes a person for doing his or her best.
And unless communities and schools in which this attitude
prevails among any of its population find ways to dispel
it, no amount of whip cracking or high stakes testing will
make any difference.

It is time to rethink what it is we are really trying to
accomplish in our schools and how to go about doing it. It
is time to realize children who do poorly in school do
poorly because other aspects of their lives are going
poorly, not because they have poor teachers. Poor schools
are a reflection of the communities in which they are a
part.

While there may be a host of intervention programs that may
be undertaken to improve the families and communities in
which disadvantaged children live, as well as the schools
they attend, there is one thing that can be undertaken
anywhere and at little cost in either time or money. It is
to integrate character based learning in the curriculum.

Character based learning is simply helping young people
acquire, not only the knowledge and skills necessary to
effectively participate in a rapidly changing and
increasingly complex world, but the virtue to use that
knowledge in a way that will benefit themselves and others,
and the thinking skills essential to the acquisition of
both knowledge and virtue.

Character based learning can be applied to any discipline
of learning and occurs when all three dimensions of
character based learning are part of the same lesson.


About the Author:

Author, teacher and businessman, but more importantly,
Grandfather, Father and Educational Reformer, George L.
Rogers invites you to join the conversation at
http://www.characterbasedlearning.com