Death by NCLB

DEATH BY NCLB
I witnessed a death last week. The heart of an expert teacher was damaged beyond repair by No Child Left Behind. Sweeping over the literacy classroom, NCLB and the resulting mandates have been called a tsunami that has left in its wake a “one-size-fits all, children all learn the same way ideology, THE one best teaching method, and the belief that if all teachers would simply follow a script perceived to be scientific, all children would learn” devastation.

This is not a burnt-out, just-limping-to-retirement teacher. This teacher is considered an expert in literacy and science instruction, and has spent years honing her teaching craft, adding to her strategies, pursuing knowledge from many perspectives. She understands that children are not cookie cutter replicas of some idealized child. Each is a complex human being with unique experiences, lives, strengths and interests. She knows that nothing works for every child, but that something works for every child. She seeks to have many “somethings” in her classroom in order to meet the needs of increasingly diverse students.

Over a glass of wine and with tears in her eyes, this teacher remembered and mourned teaching that made a difference. She recalled her rainforest unit that converted a classroom into a rainforest so realistic it inspired deep, higher level thinking and understanding. She recalled the student from that year who went on to become a scientist in the Amazon rainforest. In her district now, instruction is so closely scripted that at a certain time on any given day, the teacher must be saying what is written, using the recommended overhead, and staying vigilant for surprise visits from district personnel to monitor the “fidelity” of the implementation. Pressure to make adequate yearly progress has moved many districts to seek the quick-fix, at any cost.

Now, children who are less experienced in reading receive more intervention instead of more authentic reading experiences. There is no time for science. More skills. More drill, often from a different person using a different program outside of the classroom. In the name of intervention, the most fragmented children are given more fragmentation. Tests and texts are mandated, enforcement has created an atmosphere of fear and coercion, no one dares deviate from the materials or raise questions, and staff development is more rehearsal on how to use the program.

How did this nightmarish state of imbalance become common? Based on a very small percentage of the total educational research done in the last century (some estimates say 5%), the National Reading Panel in 1998 made the decision not to consider the nature of the reading process or the complexities of teaching children to read. Instead, the make-up of the panel was designed to exclude a wide range of literacy authorities and organized to establish explicit, systematic phonics as scientific. While the panel’s data review showed phonics only to influence performance on tests where children pronounced words on a list, not on tests of reading comprehension, through interpretation and implementation, systematic and explicit phonics instruction have become the only approved model of instruction for all learners. No one can debate that phonics instruction is necessary for learning to read. But it has been taken to an extreme of diminishing other aspects of reading as a meaning-getting process.

Teachers are now asked to forget what they have learned about how children learn and develop, about reading as a transaction between text and reader, about the metacognitive process, about the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing, about the critical importance of classroom environment and social interactions, about learning as authentic problem solving, and about motivation and engagement. Instead, teachers are asked to implement a curriculum sliced and diced into five simple areas with a medical precision that can be diagnosed and remediated. Teach these five “pillars” and children will learn to read. We are also asked to ignore the large body of research that points to the teacher, not the program, as the key to student success. Teachers are encouraged not to make decisions, but to trust the “experts” who have no knowledge of their students and their needs, but with incomprehensible omnipotence feel qualified to say what is best for all children.

Based on a flawed report, even by its own “scientifically-based” standards, the NRP Report launched the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. NCLB requires Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and if any subgroup fails, the whole district fails. Failure to meet AYP results in punishment and penalty. The resulting Reading First interpretations and initiatives have been adopted without review or question, resulting in implications for instruction that were never endorsed by the original NRP report. Many instructional designs are not based on research at all, but are touted as “scientifically-based reading”. Scripted core programs delivered through whole-class instruction are the norm. All children are required to be in grade level materials, even though for some these would be frustratingly difficult and some immensely boring. Children are tested on piecemeal skills and for the first time can be labeled “failing” in the first week of kindergarten. Children no longer are allowed to “drop everything and read” and there is no time during the day for the teacher to read aloud books that bring to life the common humanity, the joy, the purpose and reason to read. There is no color in these classrooms, only black and white. Only drill, meaningless exercises, and constant testing.

Ironically, on May 1, 2008, the report of an independent governmental agency, the Institute of Educational Science, was published. The effectiveness of the Reading First program mandates—use of explicit, systematic phonics-based approved core program, progress monitoring and intervention, staff development and increased time spent on reading program--showed in fact there was no benefit when compared to a control group on a test of reading comprehension. One billion dollars spent each year for six years. A major scandal that revealed flagrant conflicts of interest, including RF grants only approved when programs adopted materials of which reviewers had financial interests. And none of it made any difference.

Still, the mandates of Reading First stay with us. On January 20, 2010, President Obama asked Congress to begin a review and reauthorization of NCLB. Secretary of Education Duncan called for a replacement of Adequate Yearly Progress with a growth model. Reading First has received no new funding, but a final decision has not been made. Bureaucracy is slow to change, and we must consider the human cost.

Highly effective teachers have the skill, but are losing the will to continue to teach in ways they believe hurt their students. The lucky ones are close enough to retire early, but their years of expertise are devalued and lost. Who will replace these teachers? Who will fight the good fight?

Young teachers who know nothing else. They want to teach, they need a job. They have the will if not the skill. They have been drawn to teaching and will do the best they can to implement the programs asked of them. Fifty percent of the teachers in the district this teacher works in are in their first or second year. Burn out rate in the first few years of teaching is high anyway. How long can these teacher last before they become disillusioned by boredom and pressure, lack of challenge, student resistance, the lack of joy? In an age of “highly-qualified teachers”, can we say the trade off of expertise for compliance is justified?

Ultimately, what of the children? They are only in kindergarten, or second grade or fifth grade once. What are the long term effects of this pressure cooker? How long will we wonder why they may have the skill to read, but no desire to do so?

This teacher, my friend and colleague, implemented the mandated literacy curriculum, using every ounce of her expertise to buffer her students for as long as possible from the negative impacts by infusing balance whenever possible into the daily routines and activities. But she has found in the last weeks that she can no longer do that. She is walking away from teaching, not in celebration of a career filled with success, but with the down-trodden conviction that she can no longer teach without hurting children. And she will not hurt children. Her teaching heart aches, and she has lost the will to go on.