A view into the cynicism within public school walls
This week I've been experiencing a crash course in school politics and the negative effects of No Child Left Behind firsthand. For those who want to know what NCLB does, it's this:

1. It makes teachers judge their performance based on test scores as compared to National Standards, not realistic student progress.

2. Students are therefore labeled as "loaded." I heard this term at least 10 times today when people were complaining about my ESL classroom placements for the next school year. Apparently, a student who is a lower reader, and probably doesn't have English-speaking parents, is a time-vacuum for lesson-planning...and so why would a teacher volunteer to teach students in that group?

3. Our whole school is bittered by a sense of failure because our test scores are lower than the government requires.

4. This all causes me to realize that I'll need to decide if I can withstand the atmosphere of pressure and blind, test-based judgment of students, as well as if I can endure the cynicism I will face everyday from my colleagues. I think that I will only last in this job if I can remain naïve to the testing realities of NCLB. Can I work in a position where I am required to give each non-native English speaking student over 16 combined total hours of tests each year and then listen as they are negatively judged (and eventually treated?) based on the results? None of the teachers with whom I spoke today could understand my position, because so much of their job is tied up in pleasing the district, state, and national standards.

So, my current passions, to counter the mood at school, include:

A. applying for a National Geographic Society grant for an integrated, video-centered take-home curriculum that my ESL students can utilize at any time during the year. They're pulled out of class everyday during Social Studies, and we only have time at our school to do 30 minutes a day anyway.

B. Sending a letter to my representatives about an initiative to provide free English language classes at every public library in Minnesota. If we say immigrants must learn English, and then wonder why people who are working 2 full-time minimum-wage jobs to feed their family don't take classes, we'll never have a solution.

C. Find summer penpals for all my students.

D. Study for the LSATs!













my wall of influential immigrants.