Letter to the Committee on Education and Labor

I'm currently fighting my way through emailing this to the entire committee...
March 24, 2010

To the Honorable Members of the Education and Labor Committee:
I have deep concerns about the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act now before you. As proposed by the Obama administration, this re-authorization would not only continue, but deepen, many of the devastating errors of the No Child Left Behind authorization. Speaking as a current School Committee member here in Worcester, as a parent, and as a former teacher, I know that we as a country cannot afford this.
No Child Left Behind equated academic achievement with standardized test scores. Imagine, if you will, having all of your education judged on the basis of your SAT's; surely some of you had a bad day? Or perhaps were not good at that sort of test? Yet we now are judging entire school systems, making decisions about children's futures, and firing educators based on nothing more. It is an absolutely insane system, and it must stop.
Here in Worcester, a city of 175,000, we are facing the labeling of two of our schools as "Level 4" or underachieving. I am certain that any of you can guess what sort of school I will describe: the children are poor. Many are recent immigrants. There's an enormous rate of turnover in population over the course of the year. In short, there is much outside the doors of the schools that have much to do with what happens inside the schools.
The high degree of correlation between standardized test scores and rates of college educated parents, socio-economic class, and race should give anyone who truly cares about children pause. But so long as we want an educational system that lends itself to neat graphs in the paper--and judgments about property values--we will not have one that serves our children. We simply must reverse this trend.
Further, the remedies proposed for the schools deemed underperforming are entirely unproven. The administration is demanding that we experiment on the 5% of children in public school who can least afford to be guinea pigs in some mass educational experiment. There is solid research out there on how best to help children achieve, but none of it is in any way referenced by the models proposed by the administration. Instead, they demand that we fire principals, many of whom are doing yeoman's labor in being in these schools, creating greater turmoil in schools that can least withstand it. The rest of the model--closing the schools, firing teachers, turning charter--don't serve the neighborhoods that most need it and continue the hemorrhaging of caring professionals out of education. There is no evidence that this in any way improves education for our children; in fact, there is evidence that some of these models do real harm to children.
If we wish to serve the children most in need of our assistance, which was, I believe, the original idea behind the federal government having a role in education, then it must not be punitive. No child should, as some Worcester students did this week, sit to take a test fearing that his low score could lose an adult his job and close the school. This does not improve academic performance, let alone give that child a decent education. Federal funds should be there to make sure that our neediest children get no less of an education than their better-off peers. Their education should not become little more than test prep, as has happened in far too many urban districts already under NCLB. Education is about getting every child a well-rounded, complete, imaginative education that makes them life-long learners, who know that education does not end with graduation. This must be as true--and as funded--in urban districts as it is in suburban ones. Federal funds should eliminate that distinction, rather than exacerbate it.
To pretend, incidentally, that this is some sort of a "race" that districts can "lose" or "win" is to fundamentally misunderstand the promise of universal public education. The United States provides free universal education to all children because we understand that it is how we ensure ourselves a future educated citizenry and a continuing democracy. Literacy is the bedrock of our democracy, and adults who can understand and weigh information leads to informed voters. The children of Worcester's votes will, in 20 years, count just as much in elections as those of the children of our neighboring suburbs. To "race" against our neighbors for funds devalues education. Every five year old deserves a fully funded kindergarten.
I ask you, first of all, to pass legislation that builds on the premise of the next generation of citizens: not workers, but citizens. What do we need of those who will be sitting in your seats in 30 years? What of those who will vote for them? I am not so cynical, and I hope that you are not, as to think that those well-drilled in multiple choice questions are who we want making decisions in several decades. If we truly are concerned about the future economy, then look to those nations moving away from standardized testing for their children, because they noticed that innovation, historically a great American strength, was lacking in their thinking. That should be the place we start in thinking nationally about education.
I ask you also to face the hard truth that education costs money, and those most in need require greater assistance. Again, much of the American strength has come from schools that weren't the suburban model. Let's ensure that those children are getting the best education we can give them.
Finally, do not turn the country into a place where poor children are experimented on, while those with parents who can afford it escape turmoil. Our children don't need that.
I'll be watching your deliberations with great interest.
Sincerely,

Tracy O'Connell Novick
cc: Senator Scott Brown
Senator John Kerry
Representative James P. McGovern