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Opinion
Sep. 16, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: 'We've turned the tide' on education

Test scores encouraging, but plenty of work remains

Yearly state-by-state testing of reading and math achievement in grades three through eight, required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, shows America's kids are doing better in elementary and middle school, but still show little improvement at the high school and college levels, according to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Kids in elementary and middle school have made progress because that's where the focus has been, Ms. Spellings said Monday at an education conference sponsored by the Aspen Institute, a think tank.

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    • No Child Left Behind -- signed into law in 2002 -- aims to guarantee every student can read and do math at his grade level by 2014.

    Fourth- and eighth-graders are now doing better, though the numbers also reveal how far the schools still have to go. Last year, tests showed 33 percent of kids could read and do math at grade level, compared with 25 percent in 2000, according to Education Department data.

    Minority students are doing better, too. The percentage of black and Hispanic students who could read and do math at grade level was 35 percent that of white children last year, the department found -- an improvement from 23 percent in 2000.

    But the high schools have shown no such improvement, the secretary admitted. The high school graduation rate -- 72 percent in 2000 -- has improved only marginally, to 74 percent.

    And the share of college-bound students found actually ready for college work is 42 percent, the same as in 2000.

    There's a long way to go, obviously. A system that hands high school diplomas to 100 kids when 58 aren't ready to do college work -- a system where fewer than 15 percent of minority kids are even meeting today's dumbed-down "standards" -- needs a lot more than "a little improvement."

    But the fact that the first improvements are being seen at the lower grade levels is, in itself, encouraging.

    The problems in today's high schools -- kids unable to pass proficiency exams, kids graduating high school with what appear to be good grades but then turning out to be woefully unprepared to do basic college math and English when they arrive on campus three months later -- don't start in the ninth or 10th grade. Rather, these problems stem from a "perfect storm" that forms in the lower grades from the merger of social promotion; fuzzy, feel-good curricula more concerned with Amazonian species extinctions than with memorizing multiplication tables; and the success of the teacher unions in blocking merit pay for teachers who achieve real results along with quick "trips to the egress" for those who don't.

    Identifying fourth-graders who can't shout out the answer to "seven times nine" without trying to count on their fingers -- as well as fifth- and sixth-graders who can't read fluently from adult texts with multisyllabic words -- isn't rocket science. A schoolteacher transported here from 1908 or even 1868 should be able to tell you in a day which kids are ready for seventh grade -- and the percentages, using her standards, would probably be alarming.

    "We've turned the tide," Secretary Spellings told The Associated Press on Monday. "We've started. We've got a long way to go."

    We'll see.

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    Sad Summerlin wrote on September 16, 2008 08:18 PM: Jen:

    Demanding your kids succeed at school
    Contributing to school programs
    Paying for your child's health care...
    Demanding government accountability...

    Wow, Jen... we'll make a conservative out of you yet... (*aww, you know I am kidding*)

    It consistently amazes me that people on the opposite side of the spectrum as you and Travis are usually to me often come up with the same issues and solutions to the problems that I do in many cases...

    So if we can do it... what's stopping the administrators and the government officials from solving the problem?

    Could it be that they really just don't want to solve the problem and that as long as the problem exists... they have a reason to exist?

    Kinda makes you go, hmmmm... hey Arsenio?


    Travis wrote on September 16, 2008 07:25 PM: Sad and Jen.

    It has happened many times in this district. Fortunately, as a high school teacher I haven't had this problem. Elementary and middle school teachers are the ones who are powerless in the situation. It is how I end up with Freshmen functioning at a third or fourth grade level. Very sad, indeed, that those in charge of policies in the district are not fighting to change them. I wonder; is it a lack of leadership or is it intentional disinterest. Other districts have stepped up and eliminated it, Buffalo City School District, when will CCSD?


    Jen wrote on September 16, 2008 07:12 PM: That's crazy Sad!! If my children were struggling, I would be screaming for them to be held back a year so they could catch up!! I feel for your sister.

    I'd love to know where the money for education is going. I know it's not going to schools this year - I'm just going to keep contributing to my daughters classes - the teachers know where to spend money.


    Sad Summerlin wrote on September 16, 2008 06:54 PM: Jen -

    Good to see your dedication to your daughter and glad to see that you are making the appropriate sacrifice to give her a quality well-rounded education.

    John F -

    Excellent points and dead-on for this topic. I wonder though, how many teachers have experienced what my sister has in regards to social promotion. When she has come across students that have been promoted into her class and provides them with less than stellar grades, she is brought into the administrator's office and threatened by the parents with lawsuits. And she lives in a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles.

    It is amazing that the parents contribute to the social promotion by lying for their own kids and causing problems for the teachers... as if they never grew up.

    I bet the teachers on here could echo those same problems her in our valley.

    One more thing ---

    For everyone complaining about the lack of budget for the education system in Nevada... ask yourself this --- we have nearly the same tax revenues as before (just not growing as they should)... if the money isn't going to education first (as we have mandated)... where is it going instead?

    What are we spending our tax revenue on in this State, if it isn't Education?


    Tim wrote on September 16, 2008 05:43 PM: just think how sorry it would be without no children left behind.is'nt it great that the teachers that always post here blame the parents?hey jen join the rest of us parents who shell out money continuously,if you don't like it,don't pay,or spare us your pain,because we all do it.


    Michael Green wrote on September 16, 2008 05:14 PM: Well, kids have gotten better at taking tests, or teachers have gotten better at teaching them how to do well on tests. I don't know that that does anybody much good except the kind of people who think No Child Left Behind works.


    ms taggart wrote on September 16, 2008 04:15 PM: the government needs to get OUT of the education business. That's the only option. I would like to see a comparison of the money spent and test scores comparable to the Catholic schools or others. I think the evidence is clear.


    Jen wrote on September 16, 2008 04:09 PM: That's a real nasty thing to say Edward.


    Edward L. wrote on September 16, 2008 03:10 PM: Somebody once said it well. "The closer you get to Canada, the better the students perform." Think about it. That's the root of the problem. We're in a southern Rocky Mountain dumbbell h*ll, and the students are simply just as stupid as their parents, working for tips. And it ain't gonna' change anytime soon...


    Teacher wrote on September 16, 2008 12:07 PM: If you want real improvement, PARENTS, try getting you kids to come to school on a regular basis. Try being parents.


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