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County schools' efforts to comply with No Child act spark hope, frustration
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Arm-in-the-air, hand-waving cheers filled the cafeteria at Oxnard's Curren School recently.
Dozens of elementary students shimmied alongside their teachers and principal, singing along to party songs playing on a stereo during a midday pep rally in preparation for days of standardized tests.
This month, those students and others throughout Ventura County sat for hours, heads bowed over test sheets, carefully filling in tiny bubbles.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001, requires schools to use annual student test scores to show they are making steady academic progress. And as the penalties for failing to meet improvement targets continue to grow, teachers say they are seeing effects inside their classrooms year-round.
Some teachers point to benefits from a new era of analyzing student data and test results, while others say they are frustrated as the constant focus on raising test scores chips away at morale and a well-rounded education.
Positives and negatives aside, most agree the pressure they feel has increased, particularly in schools and districts that have repeatedly failed to meet benchmarks set by No Child Left Behind.
"It definitely affects morale," said Val Donaire, the teacher union president in the Hueneme School District, which, along with the Oxnard and Rio districts, recently became among the first in the nation to face the newest level of sanctions under NCLB.
"I think teachers work hard, and test scores are improving," Donaire said. "But the frustrating thing is every time you improve your test score, you're not rewarded — you're just given a higher goal."
On top of test stress, she said, teachers also are dealing with disappearing funding and being asked to do more with less.
"It has affected people," said Joe Murphy, president of the Oxnard School District teacher union. "It's chased teachers out of the profession."
Inside Curren's cafeteria this month, the pressures seemed far away as teachers and students got a chance to take a break from preparing for the tests.
"We are going to celebrate everything we learned this year," Principal Marikaye Phipps told them, a pair of pompoms in her hands. "We are going to show the state of California how smart we are."
Improvement label removed
Under federal law, a certain percentage of students must test at a proficient level or better on math and language arts tests given each spring. Schools and districts as a whole must reach the federal targets with their entire student population, and within smaller categories of students, such as special education pupils or those learning to speak English.
If schools or districts fail to hit the target in one or more of those groups, they can be placed in "program improvement" and face corrective actions ranging from allowing students to transfer to higher-performing schools to requiring a school reorganization.
Curren, one of the first schools to enter program improvement, shook the label last year after successfully meeting federal targets for two consecutive years. But the Oxnard School District as a whole did not.
NCLB requires states to impose new sanctions this year on districts that have failed for five straight years to meet targets. California has 97 such districts, including the three in Ventura County.
In March, the state Board of Education ordered the 97 to take various levels of corrective action. Most, including the three local districts, were told to hire outside intervention teams to identify their shortcomings and make recommendations for improvement.
It's too early to say how those teams will affect districts or teachers inside the classroom. Districts are still waiting to receive $250,000 in federal funds to pay for the teams, and there's concern that the cash might not materialize. California schools also are facing state budget cuts in the coming year.
"My major opposition is to having yet another $250,000 of tax money spent on a team to come in and see whether we're doing our job or not," Murphy said. "If you really want to help, give us the quarter-million, and we'll put it to good use."
Teachers have always given students regular assessments or tests to gauge their understanding. But along with the annual spring state exams, teachers have begun testing students about every six weeks and tracking their progress.
"If you don't have knowledge, you don't have any power to do anything or change," said Lisa Contreras, a literacy coach at Curren. "All you have is an opinion."
She sat in her office this month flipping through a thick binder of pages and pages of bar graphs. Each one showed how students scored on various tests, which students scored at proficient levels or just below, who needed intervention and who needed to be more challenged.
Identifying gaps in understanding
The information can help teachers pool their knowledge or identify gaps in students' understanding. But, Contreras said, it wasn't always like that. In the beginning, teachers were asked to do the testing but never saw any of the benefits.
Contreras remembers sending her students' tests to the district office, and that would be it. Sometimes she would never see the results, and she would never get anything back to help her make sense of the numbers.
"It made me feel like I was doing it for no purpose," she said.
That has changed, said Contreras, who now helps teachers at Curren sort through the data. It's an improvement that many teachers and administrators said they have seen since the inception of NCLB and development of state standards.
Teachers and others, however, have said for years that NCLB has serious flaws, including what many see as an unreasonable goal that all students, including those with disabilities or those still learning to speak English, test at a proficient level or above by 2014.
It also has focused on reading and math, pushing aside other subjects like social studies, science and the arts, particularly in lower-performing schools. And instruction time is now spent preparing students on how to take the tests, including the proper way to fill in bubbles on test sheets.
Rose Gonzales said she would rather use that time teaching subject matter. She has taught in Oxnard for 21 years and likes the standards and increased accountability. But she also feels anxious each year when testing time rolls around as she watches her kids sit for days of tests, trying so hard to do their best. She sometimes worries that she didn't spend enough time on a concept and her students will struggle.
Much of the pressure is self-inflicted, said Sherrill Asadoor-Waters, who has taught for 10 years in the Oxnard School District, most recently at Driffill School. "It's program improvement, not program punishment," she said.
Driffill is in its third year of program improvement, and Asadoor-Waters has 31 students in her fourth-grade classroom, all of whom are learning to speak English in school. She now spends more time on testing, collaborating with other teachers and district administrators, and analyzing her students' progress. All of that helps her do her job better, she said.
It might get exhausting sometimes, but Asadoor-Waters said, "We just want to know what we need to do to fix everything. I want to fix it. I want these kids to succeed."
Posted by frank14 on May 28, 2008 at 6 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I love seeing teachers whine about being held accountable!
Posted by shaver_one on May 28, 2008 at 7:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
State and federal mandates regarding NCLB...
Major reductions in state and federal funding for our schools...
Emphasis placed on whether the schools, not the children, have achieved their goals...
An apparent lack of emphasis placed on whether the children are achieving their goals...
NCLB has failed and needs to be totally revamped.
We need to care about the children, first. As a parent of a middle-school student, I am alarmed that after the state testing is over, so, it seems, is the teaching. The last few weeks of the school term, after testing, is absent of noticable education. The schools, afterall, have been tested and soon to be graded. They don't seem to care about what the children are learning...as long as the school passes the test.
Posted by holdenon_2000 on May 28, 2008 at 9:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
shaver
It sounds like the teacher is failing to continue education.
I think the testing is great. How else would we find failures in our education system if we do not test the students to see where, what, and the duration it takes to learn the curriculum. The teachers say I am not rewarded if my students test high. I disagree, the reward should be the satisfaction that you have helped the children better themselves, plus teachers are paid, is that not enough reward, do they need a trophy or something?
Just like in sales, when a sales rep meets his sales goals, usually the goals go up, otherwise the sales person could be content with just meeting his first goal, and never strive to reach higher.
What I don't think teachers like is that they are being graded. I cant understand how someone who gives out grades, feels that they shouldn't be graded as well.
Posted by sslocal on May 28, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Murphy said. "If you really want to help, give us the quarter-million, and we'll put it to good use."
I am happy that Mr. Murphy wants to save the tax payers money but that's not how the program works. Do your job and stop whining.
Posted by del on May 28, 2008 at 12:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
NCLB only turns-out robots. Not students capable of reasoning and thinking for themselves. This is just what the authors wanted. More sheep that can fill in bubbles.
Posted by alittlebirdie on May 28, 2008 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree with teachers being held accountable and graded; however, the public needs to look at the bigger picture. If you took any teacher from Oxnard and put them into, say, Mound school in Ventura I can GUARANTEE that their class test results would change. Wake up people--IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS!!! I think you might be mistaking "whining" with the reality of the situation.
Posted by tanknows on May 28, 2008 at 1:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And for her next trick.. Watch her pull a rabbit out of the hat! Whats wrong with the picture on the front page with Principal Marikaye Phillips "cheerleading" to a bunch of elementary school kids? She'd be much better off if she was a magician! Did anyone notice that she and the teachers pictured are the only Caucasians in the group? The mass of students 99% Hispanic. Wonder how many speak English as a first language and not second. Wonder how many speak English as the primary language at home. Probably very very low...Probably about the same percentage that will actually pass the exams! And yet these ill equipped kids will move on through the system, clogging up the middle and High school classrooms and setting the entire system back years at a time. An entire generation lost to mediocrity and the misgivings of not assimilating into the American Society. Is it any wonder that Camarillo wants to get away from the mess that is the Oxnard Union High School District? Is it any wonder that OUHSD wants to keep Camarillo in..Because they are the only kids that are keeping Oxnard out of the federal sanctions. HMMMM No speak English. No pass test. Brilliant. So much for your morale issues. Enjoy your "New Sanction Level Designation". As if you didn't see it coming. What a joke.
Posted by sdetatae on May 28, 2008 at 2:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
funny how i've never heard anyone (ANYONE - teachers, administrators, trustees) in the education profession speak highly of no child left behind.
i'll grant there were good intentions behind its creation, but enough is enough already. time to get rid of a program that compounds the problem (difficulties in teaching our youth well) rather than eleviate it.
Posted by ahoodlum on May 28, 2008 at 4:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It is one thing to hold the teachers accountable for what they are doing in the classroom, but what about holding the students accountable? Teachers have every right to complain if they have been busting their butts to ensure that they are teaching the standards and by the time the tests come around, students bubble in "C" for all the answers. Many students have completed a 15 page test in 15 minutes! How is that possible? THEY DON'T TRY. They are not punished in any way, shape, or form. It is not part of their grade. Their parents don't punish them at home. As a result, schools and teachers get dinged. It isn't going to work until students and parents are held accountable too.
Posted by sickofsimi on May 28, 2008 at 10:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ahoodlum makes an excellent point...
As a special education teacher, I don't mind being held accountable for the job that I do in my classroom. I am paid with public funds and work for the community. If anything, accountability only serves to improve the job that we teachers do.
However, it makes no difference at all what I do in the classroom when students don't take the test seriously. Sure, some of you will say it's my fault for not properly motivating students, for not explaining the seriousness of the test, etc. But the reality of it is something else. In my class are students who consistently arrive late, never do homework, and bubble in answers according to their own whim. I've had students finish a 45 question test in less than 15 minutes. I can't read that fast! But somehow, my job for the year is to be rated according to how these students performed? Please!
Until the PARENTS can explain to their children the importance of education and of ALWAYS doing your best, teachers should not be held accountable. Ten year old students don't arrive late because of their own lack of responsibility. The obvious decline in our society begins at home, not in the classroom.
Posted by 2smokingbarrels on May 29, 2008 at 12:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It takes a community to raise a child, which includes education. How many of you out there without children in the public school system have volunteered to help todays youth. You sit on your arses and expect teachers to do everything. Instead of complaining about what they are not doing, step up and lend a hand, COMMUNITY! If you have helped, then you know the obstacles teachers deal with on a daily basis aside from teaching standards.
Posted by readerone1 on May 29, 2008 at 4:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Anyone see something wrong with the story title?
My child was left behind and if it weren't for “me” he would have stayed that way. I saw no benefit from this act. Big deal they’d have meeting about how to help him (me involved)but nothing changed after the meeting and still I had the same problems and with out the tools to know exactly what he needed. I don’t think he truly caught up until high school and what helped me was their offering of I-parent. There I was able to see what assignments were due and what grades are and where he needed help and where he didn’t. I can also email teachers now and get info that I need, when you get helpful teachers that is. He’s on target now to graduate. My child not left behind now! thanks to mom.
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