As of fall 2007, a total of six schools in Macomb County, north of Detroit, have failed to progress academically under No Child Left Behind guidelines. According to the Macomb Daily article, Clintondale Middle School, received the lowest possible ranking, a D-, for the second year in a row.
At Clintondale, the middle school was cited due to inadequate test scores by two subgroups: special education students and the economically disadvantaged. Those two categories account for about 100 of the school’s 500 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.
Clintondale is ranked as a “phase six” school, which means its subgroup MEAP scores have failed to show adequate progress for several years.
This article really hit home with me because the Clintondale district is literally minutes away from my home and neighbors my own successful school district. Clintondale encompasses an area of lower socioeconomic standing, with many immigrants who have varying levels of English. I find that it is very counter-productive to expect students who are still learning the language to test on par with native speakers, and even worse that those test scores are included in a school’s overall grade. It’s no wonder that schools are still struggling to meet federal mandates six years later - students with obvious disadvantages, such as the language barrier or learning disabilities - are expected to perform just as well as every other student.
Also surprising to learn was that Clintondale Middle School has been deemed a “failing” school since No Child Left Behind came into use in 2002. Because of it’s failure to meet federal guidelines, steps have been taken to restructure the format of the school and provide better support to students through continued staff education, more resources for teachers, and auxiliary teachers in the special education department. According to the district’s superintendent George Sassin:
“The goal is for students to show improvement. I believe that, with the staff we have in place, by the time we see scores this coming school year, I think the subgroups will be up.”
While I can understand how adding more special education teachers will help bring those students back on track, I fail to see how having more teacher materials and seminars will help increase test scores the necessary amount to appease the state and federal testing boards. To do so, teachers have to actually attend these meetings, thus taking them out of the classroom and using up valuable time they could either be preparing for lessons or working with students. Or, the district could not hold classes on certain days for “teacher enrichment” days like I had in high school, again taking the students out of the learning environment. Instead, I believe that schools should be provided with the necessary aid to help improve, such as more teachers to decrease class sizes, and a good network of administrative and auxiliary support to help facilitate learning. Also, not demanding such unrealistic goals for all students would go a long way in “improving” test scores.
6 Schools Fail to Make Grade
Chad Selweski, September 9, 2007
The Macomb Daily
2 responses so far ↓
1
Hilary Piette
// Oct 21, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Hi Kayda,
I can understand why something like this situation would hit so closely. I’m also writing about No Child Left Behind and like you, I tend to take this subject based on social ideas or injustices. This article you read really fascinated me for these very reasons.
In an area which is increasingly more based in minorities and special education students, the government expects some miraculous improvement when teachers and students are being pulled from the classrooms. Why? This enables instructors to have more meetings on how to do this. While some discussion is necessary, I also think that this takes away from the actual learning experiences and regarding the time which is left, students are required to solely learn to perform on one test. I don’t understand why in spite of the many voices against No Child Left Behind the government continues to pursue this legislature. Especially when considering second language learners because rather than learning to speak, read and write the language they are being forced to learn how to take a test. Then many in our country will complain that the use of English is declining. I hope I’m not the only one who catches this irony. I think it’s important that more teachers are being hired but again, most of the responsibility should not solely be theirs but a collective effort. Teachers themselves should not be graded on a test and the government should recognize that being in the classroom is not necessarily “black and white” but that many districts have different situations.
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// Nov 27, 2007 at 1:16 pm
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