In a new report released today, over 700 Missouri schools have failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress standards of the draconian No Child Left Behind bill. That number was up from around 400 last year.

No great man fails to make mistakes, and Senator Ted Kennedy is no exception. The original intent of the bill was to get minority schools up to the same standards of education as non-minority schools are. But that has failed; here in Missouri, schools are not improving fast enough to meet the standards.
We all agree on the notion of holding schools accountable for the student’s performance. However, the way this bill does it is by requiring schools to undergo a drill-and-kill regimen of testing. Students do not learn by memorizing a bunch of answers for a fill-in-the-blank test. They learn best through development critical thinking skills, writing about their experiences, and actually doing the work they are preparing for.

Furthermore, NCLB, as documented above, sets impossible standards for our schools to meet. Missouri schools have been making improvements. But they have not improved enough to meet these standards. We all agree that high expectations make students better learners. However, the problem is that impossible expectations do not lead to better learning, but frustration. As an illustration, I am sure everyone here will know of a jerk parent who is always screaming at their child for not doing well in sports while the child is in tears. That is what NCLB is like.

The right, of course, has bought into NCLB because they want to see our schools fail. They want nothing more than to see our public schools fail so that they can get vouchers to send their children off to religious private schools where their kids can be taught creationism instead of evolution.

There is another problem with standardized testing, and that is cultural. The people who write the tests for our students are normally White and middle-class. They will tend to reflect middle-class terminology. Therefore, a poor Black student who is not familiar with a certain word will have more trouble with the test than a White middle-class student.

As reflected by the numbers for Missouri, the numbers show that NCLB is too much of a cookie-cutter approach that leaves students who are different out. It is possible to design a test that is applicable to many students. However, there are others who simply don’t see the testing as relevant.

Some students, especially some who are talented and gifted, do not see the work they do as relevant. All they want to do, for example, is be an airline mechanic, for instance. So, they may be brilliant when it comes to science class, OK in math class, and then completely clueless when it comes to English. Standardized testing simply doesn’t fit students whose knowledge is specialized as opposed to students whose knowledge is broad-based.

Now, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is backing off of the most draconian provisions of NCLB. So, the question becomes, what was the point of the law in the first place?

The answer is a classic case of Monkey-see, Monkey-do from the Bush administration. The Bush administration did a classic trick straight out of The Magician’s Handbook: If you look at your left hand, the whole audience will look at your left hand. Then, your right hand can be busy with the illusion.

The only real point of the law was the provision that required all schools to open their records to the military and allow military recruiters the run of the school in an effort to recruit our students or lose federal funding. So, while Bush was boasting about how NCLB would boost our education scores and schools would finally be held accountable, the only real point was the rampant and unsuccessful attempt to saturate our students with military recruiters.

This next primary election highlights a clear choice between Russ Feingold and Hillary Clinton and shows the superior judgement of Feingold as opposed to Hillary Clinton. Feingold saw through the lies of the Bush administration and voted against No Child Left Behind. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton voted for it.

Clinton may rant about how the Bush administration failed to fund NCLB by $12 billion. But the fact was, she voted for it. She did not recognize the Bush administration for the liars that they are when they promised to fully fund NCLB; she also did not recognize the political sleight of hand at work.

On the other hand, Russ Feingold takes pride in reading every single bill filed in Congress. He saw through the administration’s sleight of hand and furthermore saw them for the liars that they are.

Voting for a bill and then saying you were lied to afterwards does not do Clinton any good. All that does is cause people to question your judgement skills. Feingold, on the other hand, had the judgment skills to recognize a bondoggle when he saw one.

In fact, the reason he voted against NCLB was that he knew at the time that it would not be fully funded:

I did not support this education bill because I do not believe it is the best approach for Wisconsin students, teachers, and school districts. In particular, I could not support a new, largely unfunded federal mandate for annual testing in grades 3-8. I believe that the federal government should leave decisions about the frequency of using student testing to measure and increase student academic achievement up to the states and local school districts that bear the responsibility for educating our children.

I also regret that the final bill did not include a Senate provision that would have led to the full funding of the federal share of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) with specified, mandatory funding increases.

Opposing NCLB was not popular at the time. Feingold was one of only 10 senators to vote against it. But it was right. Feingold had this caustic remark about NCLB during a Green Bay area listening session:

“I was one of 10 people to vote against No Child Left Behind and teaching to the tests,” Feingold said. “I don’t care if the president and Ted Kennedy hugged, which they did.”

Feingold understands that teaching to the tests is not the best way to educate a child. Information that might be useful to one child will not be useful to another. Furthermore, some students learn at much different paces than others do. Standardized testing does not take that into account.

Feingold, in a February 18th letter cosigned by five other Senators, detailed other problems he has with NCLB. All of these problems were problems raised by their constituents:

–The difficulty rural schools like mine would have in transporting students to other schools if they get unaccredited under NCLB;

–The fact that NCLB imposes sanctions but fails to give schools resources for succeeding;

–The financial cost of school districts in collecting the relevant data;

–The lack of funding necessary for schools to train teachers to administer NCLB;

–The psychological toll NCLB takes on students and teachers in preparation time for NCLB;

–The time NCLB testing takes away from other relevant subjects that are not tested;

–The conflicts NCLB has with the Individuals with Disabilities Act;

–The difficulty non-English students have in taking the NCLB test.

In order to improve the quality of education for our students, here is what Russ Feingold would do as President:

–Feingold would expand Wisconsin’s highly successful SAGE program to the national level. SAGE is a program designed to reduce class sizes down to 15. When I student taught in PE, junior high was the most difficult class for me to manage. The reason was because there were almost 30 students in my class. It was almost impossible for me to monitor every single student in that classroom.

The government’s own figures support reduced class sizes:

The benefits of class-size reduction are seen in kindergarten and through grades 1-3, and the effects are long lasting.

Analyses of the STAR results confirm statistically significant differences in achievement among students who attended small classes for one, two, three or four years. Although one year in smaller classes resulted in increased achievement, the benefits of smaller class sizes in the early grades increased as children spent more years in the smaller classes. In addition to initial benefits, there are long lasting effects on student achievement that result from reducing class sizes. Recent findings from Tennessee’s Project STAR study demonstrate that students attending small classes in grades K-3 outperformed their counterparts on standardized tests in grades 4, 6 and 8; continued to outperform classmates at the high school level; took more advanced classes; were less likely to be retained a grade or drop out of high school; and were more likely to prepare for college by taking college entrance exams. Additionally, black students who attended smaller classes in the early grades were more likely to take the ACT or SAT, raising their prospects of attending college and cutting the black-white gap in numbers of students taking college entrance exams in half.

However, researchers have found that in order to optimize the carryover benefits of small classes in the early grades through the later grades, it is necessary for students to spend at least three years in small classes. The advantages of attending a small class for the four years encompassing kindergarten through third grade are equivalent to receiving an additional six months to fourteen months of schooling.

Here is how the SAGE program works:

Participating districts receive $2,000 per student and are required to meet specific “contractual” requirements with the Department of Public Instruction and also to take part in an extensive evaluation of the program conducted by the Center for Urban Initiatives and Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

In addition, districts agree to turn schools into “lighted schoolhouses” that are open for extended hours, to develop rigorous academic programs, and to establish and implement plans for staff development and accountability.

In other words, schools get extra money to hire more teachers in exchange for developing high expectations for teachers and students and keeping the school open after-hours.

Incidentally, the latter provision would also reduce juvenille crime, as research shows that most of it occurs between the hours of 3 and 8 P.M. Also, it would allow single mothers to not have to choose between keeping their jobs and supervising their children when they come home. It would also leave them more money, as they would not have to hire a babysitter for these hours.

–Feingold would support the increase in Pell Grants:

Higher education is one of the most vital keys to open the door to success in this country. Without a college degree, or significant post-secondary education, it is a lot harder to find a successful path through today’s labor market– and without Pell grants from the Federal Government, many individuals simply can’t consider college. I am proud to have successfully expanded the size and availability of Pell grants and will continue this work so that every American can realize the dream of a college education.”

Without the dream of college, students will not be motivated to study during high school unles they have enough money to go; Feingold’s plan addresses that issue.

–Feingold supports the waiver of certain provisons of NCLB for schools that have demonstrated academic success and improvement in a number of areas:

This bill would allow States and school districts that meet the same specific accountability criteria outlined for school-level excellence under the State Academic Achievement Award Program to apply to the Secretary of Education for a waiver from the new annual reading or language arts and mathematics tests for students in grades 3-8. The waiver would be for a period of three years and would be renewable, so long as the state or school district meets the criteria.

To qualify for the waiver, the State or school district must have significantly closed the achievement gap among a number of subgroups of students as required under Title I, or must have exceeded their adequate yearly progress, AYP, goals for two or more consecutive years. The bill would require the Secretary to grant waivers to states or school districts that meet these criteria and apply for the waiver. Individual districts in states that have waivers would not be required to apply for a separate waiver.

–Increased funding for WIC and Head Start;

–Increased scholarship opportunites for students who wish to study abroad;

–$22 billion more funding to repair decaying school buildings;

–Increased supervision of how schools treat gay students;

–More IDEA funding for schools.

While the Bush administration has done nothing for our schools except implement drill-and-kill testing that takes five weeks out of school time, and Hillary Clinton voted for NCLB and then ranted that she was misled, Senator Feingold has been offering countless proposals to make our schools better places for our children to learn in.

I challenge anybody else to show me that their candidate has done more for education than Senator Feingold.