Back to Leave No Child Behind

I am very much afraid, Cicerone Imposter, that you did not read my post.

Scores are indeed at the heart of the perceived need for NCLB. If you will re-read my post, you will note that I defined the medians. Half of the students tested will fall below the median score and half above the median score--the problem is how to change the median so that it is higher and how to make sure that more of groups of students who score below the median (usually minorities) score above the median.


I am sure that even massive funding will do little, as I have already indicated. Vouchers would do a great deal in meeting the objectives of NCLB.

YOu have no idea how NCLB works; teachers are teaching for the test whitch is WRONG WRONG WRONG AND WRONG. It seems you have only one perspective on improving the problem; make all students improve their scores on the test. What little you understand about "education."

Teaching for the test is right I think. The reason the mediocre and poor teachers hate it is the have to actually make sure the kids learn something and it will be obvious whether the kids learned it or not. How did we get to the place where we no longer tell kids what they need to know to succeed? Thats all teaching to the test is. Its telling them what they need to know to succeed. It does cut into the time teachers have to fill kids heads with all kinds of nonsense but some of us think thats a good thing.

Brandy, I have a "canned" response, but I'll let a professional educator answer your question.

What is the purpose of a test?

To quantify a students knowledge. To judge where a student is compared to where other students are and to enable a teacher to identify weak spots.

If a teacher merely instructs a student on how to pass a single test, that student is not being educated. They are being trained. Like a monkey can be trained to juggle.

I say teach the test and test the whole enchilada. Everything a student is supposed to have learned should be tested.

What teaching to the test in California has accomplished is that minority students are dropping out in great numbers, because the educational system is failing them. We must put more effort into preschool, and help the students with the necessary foundation to succeed in school. Testing is fine, but it has limits. Not all students will do well in all subjects; that's a given. Children have different interests, and it's up to the adults to help them nurture their interests. What we have done so far is drop the arts, music, and athletics because of insufficient funding. For those students, we should prepare them for other vocations that will help them later in life to hold jobs. Germany is a good examply of nurturing students to vocations other than those seeking higher education. Helping our children early on in life will save them and society from future higher costs, because it will reduce the necessity for gangs and prisons.

There you have it."Reduce the necessity for gangs and prisons."Social engineering as in The Thoughts of Chairman Mao and many others.Whatever that has to do with it isn't education.It is a bold assertion with nothing to back it up except overfull prisons after donkey's years of state "education".It is also authoritarian with the outcome uncertain.
The whole thing is a teacher's pork barrel and teachers are the very last people to consult on the matter.They can't see the wood for the trees.Once they have made children hate school all is lost.
So I am in favour of giving the voucher system a try.People can,and will,educate themselves once they have the attitude and enthusiasm.

BM

You are correct, spendin. Let's try vouchers.
I am very much afraid that Cicerone Imposter does not know what he is talking abut on this issue.

Let's review the salient points we must understand in order to truly comprehend the need for NCLB.

l. No matter what is done, half of the student population will test below the median score by definition.

2. If minority students are dropping out in large numbers, the cause is not PRIMARILY because of the schools and what they are doing, the major reason is tied up with the culture of the ghetto.

3. Testing is the last of a triad--Test; teach; retest. The first testing is diagnostic; Then comes the crucial teaching acts; then a retest to see what the students have learned.

4. More funding is NOT the answer. A glance at the tragic experience in the Kansas City Schools reveals that Massive amounts of funding will not make up for a culture which is basically anti-school.

5. Schools are ruined by the needs of a very small group-the Special handicapped child and the extremely disruptive. Voucher schools which would be set up to educate all children except the extremely needy and the massively disruptive would, I am sure, be able to make the achievement levels much higher even in the ghettos, since it is the values and behaviors displayed by the extremely handicapped and the wildly delinquent which make learning impossible.

6. Autistic children; those whose IQ's are between 60 and 75; and those who are so disruptive as to make learning in any regular class impossible must be educated in facilities separate from the normal children. This last point will be strongly resisted by the forces of Political Correctness who are willing to destroy any chance at education for 95% of the students in the class in order to allow the special students to remain in a regular class. Teachers who now teach in classes into which some of these special students have been "mainstreamed" know that this "mainstreaming" destroys the possibilityffor any real education to take place.

A well planned vouc`her system is necessary.

I don't know what I'm talking about, but other people do.
*****
NCLB Atrocities

Feds Label Top Michigan Schools Failures

Ohanian Comment: The headline on this article is Top metro schools are labeled failures. The sub-head nails it, helping people see that it's the feds who are bringing failure: Award-winners fall short of federal standards.

Three Detroit schools are state Golden Apple award winners.

A Southfield school was hailed as a model by President George W. Bush.

Other schools across Michigan received National Blue Ribbon awards.

And others in some of the state's wealthiest districts are considered first-class high schools.

What do they have in common?

None met federal guidelines for showing adequate yearly progress on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test, or MEAP.

Some high-achieving schools even received "F" grades on their school report cards, released late last month by the Michigan Department of Education, because their high scores aren't improving fast enough.

"This just illustrates once more the fragility of the evaluation system," said David Plank, codirector of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.

"Very small changes in test scores for very small numbers of students could cause a school to go up or down," Plank said.

Fleming Elementary School in Detroit won a Golden Apple Award in 2002, one of 124 Michigan schools that got the honor for most improved MEAP scores.

Yet, the school didn't meet the federal goals. And its report card indicates it has failed to meet the goals for five years, meaning it must undergo a restructuring.

State Superintendent Tom Watkins said this is one of the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal law that has ushered in sweeping accountability measures for public schools.

There are 50 ways a school can fail to meet the federal rules, Watkins said, thus the contradictions.

Fleming wasn't alone. Two other Detroit schools -- John Marshall and Parker elementaries -- and 17 more statewide won Golden Apples in 2002 and now are considered in need of improvement, according to the Michigan Information and Research Service.

In addition, four Michigan schools that have won coveted national Blue Ribbon awards in recent years are on the list. The honor is the highest a U.S. school can receive.

Some of the Golden Apple winners are on the list because even though their scores are on an upward trend, not enough of their students are passing the MEAP.

Some schools made the list because certain groups -- racial minorities, kids from low-income households, students learning English and special-education students -- didn't pass the test.

And others -- some award-winners, some not -- are on the list simply because they didn't have 95 percent of their students take the test.

Are they failures?

No, said Fred Cromie, principal at Avondale High School in Auburn Hills, and Todd Robinson, principal at Avondale Middle School in Rochester Hills.

Both schools didn't meet the federal guidelines, but the reason had nothing to do with MEAP scores. Neither met the 95-percent rule.

In fact, 268 of the 896 Michigan schools that didn't meet the federal standards failed to do so because of that rule. That includes most high schools in metro Detroit.

"It's frustrating that people who don't know Avondale High School may draw a perception about it based on what they read," Cromie said.

What's more frustrating is nearly 88 percent of Avondale High students took the test, one of the highest participation rates for a Michigan high school. The middle school missed the cutoff by 2.4 percent, the equivalent of three or four students.

Avondale Middle won the national Blue Ribbon award in 2002 but didn't meet the federal standards in 2003.

"Does this now discredit the fact that two years ago we were a national exemplary school? I think not," Robinson said.

But the perception -- particularly to people with no direct connection to the schools -- could be difficult to overcome.

"The reality is that memories are short," Plank said. "The fact that you got" an award "two years ago hardly enters people's thoughts when they see the school is faced with a restructuring."

Many remember Bush's 2002 visit to Vandenberg Elementary School in Southfield, a school that saw dramatic improvement in its MEAP scores. At the time, Bush said the school "is not afraid of accountability and as a result, is excelling."

The school's state report card was strong, with two A's and a B. But the school didn't have adequate yearly progress, because it didn't have a 95-percent MEAP participation rate.

Ken Siver, the district's spokesman, was reluctant to talk about the school, because many have seen its status as evidence that something went wrong there.

"I've had people come up to me and say, 'Oh, your district has that school that Bush went to and said was so good, and it really isn't,' " Siver said.

Because the 95-percent rule is affecting so many schools, particularly at the secondary level, the state likely will consider making it mandatory for high school students to take the MEAP in order to graduate, Watkins said.

Some districts already are planning to make it difficult for high school students to skip the MEAP when it's given in April.

"We will have all of the students who are capable of taking the test, take the test," said Bob Greene of the Troy School District.

There also might be some tweaking of the formulas that force the state to give some schools an F because their scores aren't increasing fast enough.

But one thing won't change, Watkins said: "They still have to grow."




Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or [email protected].

Unacceptable: My school and my students are labeled as failures
Fall 2003
- photo: SUSAN LINA RUGGLES

- photo: JEAN-CLAUDE LEJEUNE

By Amy Ambrosio

"I keep having the same nightmare," said Sharon, a math teacher who works across the hall from me. "I am designing a math test. Next to me is a shark tank. If I don't design the test right, so the kids who know the material can pass it," she gestures with her thumb, "they're going to end up in the tank."

It's the perfect metaphor for how I feel teaching in a high poverty school under the shadow of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

I teach at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Oregon. My school is home to the most ethnically diverse and lowest income high school student population in the Pacific Northwest. We serve a little more than 900 students from 33 different countries, who speak 26 languages. Our hallways and classrooms are a swirl of cultures, languages, and skin colors.

But instead of recognizing the diversity and tenacity of Roosevelt's students and faculty, the government is setting us up to fail. Under NCLB, the federal government has labeled Roosevelt a "low performing" school. Working under the gun, Roosevelt has just this school year to "fix" our problem, our students, and ourselves. If not, then the entire staff may be replaced, the school turned over to a private corporation ?- or the nearly bankrupt state of Oregon could take it over from the school district.

Becoming Unacceptable
The "low performing" designation under NCLB means that for at least two years we have not performed adequately in at least one of many areas measuring school performance, including graduation rates and student scores on the state standardized reading and math tests, called the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), which are administered to grades three, five, eight, and 10.

But the state gets to grade us, too. The Oregon Department of Education releases school report cards to the public each year. This past school year, Roosevelt slipped from "unsatisfactory" to "unacceptable" in the Oregon ratings because too few of our students passed the state CIM reading, writing, and math tests, attended school in high enough numbers each day, or remained in school for four years.

Behind the Labels
Since the beginning of the 20th century, North Portland has been the metropolitan area's dumping ground for industrial waste. In the past, cattle yards and slaughterhouses poured their refuse into the Columbia Slough, a waterway that snakes through the community. On many mornings, the air blowing over the Roosevelt tower reeks from the bitter fumes spewing from waste incinerators and pulp mills, causing our eyes to sting and our throats to burn.

Hunger and unemployment plague our community. Our students don't always eat three meals a day. Many of them help support themselves or their families by working until 11:00 or midnight in many of the fast food joints that saturate the community. Then they have to get up to make it to school by eight o'clock the next morning. Many students move two to three times during the school year when their families face evictions, job loss, or domestic violence.

Being labeled "unacceptable" has been demoralizing for my students and colleagues at Roosevelt. This designation codifies the stigma that students from Roosevelt experience around Portland. My students have described security staff trailing them in stores, police randomly stopping them as they walk down the street, and strangers on the bus insulting them for speaking Spanish in public. My students know that their school is perceived as a "ghetto" school and is called "Looservelt" by students from other high schools.

Despite the unacceptable air quality, the unacceptable disenfranchisement of the community, and the unacceptably high unemployment rate, the federal government and the state government are not being labeled unacceptable. It is Roosevelt ?- the students, the teachers, and the school ?- that earns the unacceptable label.

Student Portraits
Even though they live close to the fragile edge of survival, Roosevelt's students are extraordinarily open and welcoming. I want to introduce you to some of my students.

Carmen* is a 17-year-old mother of a toddler just learning to walk. Carmen missed school every Monday morning last spring to take her developmentally delayed son for physical therapy. As soon as she got back to school, she made certain to ask what she missed and catch up on the work immediately. Unaccept-able.

Farida came to Roosevelt from a refugee camp in East Africa. Her heart is full of the deaths she witnessed ?- family members lined up and shot. She had never held a pen or pencil before coming to Roosevelt at age 15. As a newcomer to the United States, Farida was forced to take tests in English, a language she only just began learning three years ago. She needs time to recover, to learn to read and to write. She needs time. Unacceptable.

Michael, at 17, reads at a fourth-grade level. Every paragraph holds undecipherable mysteries for his struggling mind. No wonder he gave up on the state standardized reading test, the test he has now tried and failed three times. Unacceptable.

Faith wrote with passion and newly discovered authority about Link, a white character who helps Melba Patillo Beals survive as a member of the Little Rock Nine in Warriors Don't Cry . Faith memorized nearly every scene in the book, yet her dyslexia causes letters to skitter around like ants when she tries to spell correctly. She cried the days she took the state direct writing assessment, knowing that she had no hope of passing when conventions such as spelling count double and she couldn't ask for help. Unacceptable.

Jana takes care of her father, who is nearly deaf and severely crippled from a severe stroke. At 17 she does all the laundry, cleaning, and cooking. Jana pays the bills and keeps track of the household budget. But she doesn't attend school regularly and is often too distracted to pass her classes. Unacceptable.

Mariama, just turned 21, attended three high schools. When she came to Roosevelt this past year, she still needed 10 credits to graduate from high school. Mariama did graduate this spring. While she can spill a poem about her wild self across the page, she struggles to organize her thoughts and her work in a linear fashion in order to complete an essay. Unacceptable.

Gabriel ?- kind, gentle Gabriel ?- moved to Oregon at age 15 to live with his two older brothers, leaving his parents behind in Mexico. He has not seen his mother or father for the three years he has lived here. Gabriel often lost his assignments hidden deep inside his backpack. While his body sat in my classroom, his mind traveled far, far away. Unacceptable.

When I asked Nick to write about his experience with injustice, he tried to write about his father's death when Nick was 10 years old. Instead, Nick ended up hospitalized, the despair from memories of that time drawing him down into the deep abyss that he tumbles into several times a year. Upon his return, Nick handed me several of his poems and told me, "If you read my poems, you'll know where I've been." At 15, Nick had not passed a class in five years. He wrote in one poem, "Life is not worth living." Though the poem lists what keeps him alive, including a 2-year-old niece, it may not be enough. Unacceptable.

New Regime
In response to the federal mandate to make "adequate yearly progress," our school is adopting a new regime of work, testing, and staff meetings. Some of these changes are for the good (and were in the works before NCLB became part of our daily vocabulary). Others have exhausted us, taken us away from our roles as teachers, and interfered with our ability to care for our families and ourselves.

Prior to NCLB, we discussed restructuring Roosevelt into smaller learning communities to improve the academic culture of the school and enhance the quality of relationships among students and teachers. This year we are restructuring into four "houses" or small learning communities. We believe this change will help teachers and students build stronger relationships and allow teachers to collaborate on curriculum and problem solve more effectively. I am part of a four-person team to create a small, alternative school (one of the four houses) within Roosevelt ?- a dream that one team member has had for the 26 years she has worked at the school.

This year, our district set aside half of the district language arts coordinator's time to work with teachers on academic literacy across the curriculum. We started a new freshman academy last year and will add a sophomore academy this year.

Yet teachers are taking hours away from class time to make many of these changes happen, or they are meeting up to two or three evenings after school each week to put the plans in place. Common planning time and opportunities for collaboration across subject areas are not built into the schoolwide schedule.

The cost of the school reforms and the testing regimes has been an increasing stress level among the staff and severe burnout among some of our most involved and dedicated teachers. Over the past year, we have become far more serious, and we impose that stress on our students ?- teenagers who can ill-afford that burden. What we are doing is unsustainable and unhealthy.

An Unacceptable Situation
This past year, we spent eight weeks of our school year on CIM testing. Yet, in light of Roosevelt's continuing low performance on the CIM tests and given that this is our last chance to turn things around, our school will be placing even greater emphasis on testing this year. Since more than 70 percent of the students fail the reading and/or math tests in 10th grade (the numbers are quite a bit better for the writing test, but don't count for NCLB), most students will be forced to re-take these tests the remaining two years they are in high school. As Mike, one of my colleagues put it, "We keep inviting these kids to play a game of chess when they have already lost every time. Why do we think they want to play again? We're just rubbing their noses in it."

The test results are not the only factor we are graded on. We also have to enforce testing for all. In the past, before NCLB, certain groups were exempted from the testing regime: severely learning disabled students, immigrant newcomers with little or no English-speaking experience, and kids whose parents wrote requests for their children to be exempted from testing.

This year we were forced to test all of these groups to try to meet the magic quota of test takers-95 percent. But we still didn't make it, so we were automatically put back on the "low performing" schools list. Also, as a Title I school receiving federal assistance, we continue to face sanctions leading to reconstitution and continue to suffer the public shame that goes with being labeled "low-performing" ?- and "unacceptable."

Incentive to Transfer
Another unacceptable facet of NCLB has a long-term devastating impact on our school. The district is now required to offer students at low-performing schools the "opportunity" to transfer to any school in the district with transportation paid for by the district. Portland does not provide school bus transportation to its high school students, and many of our students' families must come up with the money for the monthly bus passes. This new policy serves as a paid incentive to leave Roosevelt.

After nearly five years of a relatively stable student population balancing between 1000 and 1100, we dipped below 900 students this past year. We will be starting the school year with an enrollment that has increased ?- more than 950 students ?- but our incoming freshman class will be anywhere from one third to one half smaller than in previous years.

I worry that the dwindling enrollment and transfers to different schools will take students away from the welcoming multiracial environment we've created at Roosevelt. For example, Laurie, one of my high-achieving students, has a European-American mother and an Afro-Hispanic father; she lives with her mother and her African- American stepfather. She is very proud of her diverse ethnic background and feels very comfortable at Roosevelt, a school where "mixed" is a well-recognized and accepted ethnic identity among students.

When one of our class conversations turned to the transfer option, Laurie vehemently said that she had no intention of leaving Roosevelt, even though her mother would like her to do so. She cited her mixed ethnicity as a key reason for wanting to stay ?- she feels at home in a school where she does not feel compelled to constantly explain herself to others. Having attended predominantly white schools in the past, Laurie knows what it feels like to not be accepted anywhere or to be forced to choose between "being" white or black.

And I worry about students leaving behind Roosevelt's excellent school and community support systems, like our teen health clinic and excellent ESL and special education programs.

The pressures that NCLB places on my school and students are unrelenting and unacceptable. Like the rest of my colleagues, I have chosen to remain in a school and teach the kids that the current educational system is designed to throw away and psychologically destroy. As a teacher who believes in social justice and equity, I remain at Roosevelt because the kids are "alive to the injustices in the world," as one of my colleagues said. They experience economic, ethnic, racial, and linguistic injustices firsthand. And while they sometimes have little framework for understanding the causes of injustice, when we give them tools to think critically about these issues and their lives, many of them look for ways to use that knowledge and work to change their circumstances.

Like Sharon, the math teacher, I fear that our students are perched on the edge of a shark tank. The future of our school rests on the ability of our students to pass standardized tests. These tests are designed to punish schools like Roosevelt, not help students prepare for college, well-paying jobs, or other measures of success. And despite our hard work and thoughtful plans for improving our school, we are faced with helping our students overcome the humiliation of being labeled "unacceptable." The pressure of the testing regime will drive many students out of high school before they graduate.

What could be more unacceptable?

Amy Ambrosio ( [email protected] ) teaches at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Ore. *All students' names have been changed.

The fallacy of No Child Left Behind


Email Sandra Nichols "There is a big difference between advocating a level playing field in the schools and measuring everybody by the same yardstick. That is the fallacy of NCLB!"

here is one dramatic performance that has been playing on stages near you for hundreds of years. Admission is free. Sometimes the drama evokes tears; sometimes cheers. The costumed players parade across the stage and you hear tales of heroic victories accompanied by "Pomp and Circumstance."

These are our graduates, commencing on a new step in the journey of their lives. Only a stone would watch un-moved!

As I stood there shaking hands with the newly diplomaed, I reflected on the accomplishments represented by a piece of paper in a fine leather-like cover and what that diploma means to the graduates. I also contemplated how "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) will affect our children's school experience to an increasing degree every year that this system remains in place and unmodified.

Clearly a diploma represents something standard and something unique in the case of each student. Each one met the minimum standard for graduation. Each one faced unique circumstances with individual abilities and talents.

Recent changes in the educational system wrought by NCLB are not all positive. Hello! Granted that defining criteria for holding schools accountable is desirable, let's not forget that schools are not factories and that the "products" of the educational system are living, breathing, feeling human beings.

There is a big difference between advocating a level playing field in the schools and measuring everybody by the same yardstick. That is the fallacy of NCLB!

Yes, students should have clean, well cared for schools. Yes, every single one of them should have highly qualified teachers. Yes, they all deserve quality textbooks and to be treated with respect.

But they shouldn't all be expected to come out the same or to benefit equally from an equal opportunity. It's not that way when you're talking about human beings.

Our educational system should not be disposing of the offerings of different pathways for students to reach their goals. Our educational system should recognize creativity and independent thinking as worthy objectives. The fact that these assets may be less measurable than regurgitation of facts does not mean they have less value. I find nothing in NCLB that speaks to individuality or creativity.

Human beings are not well accommodated by a one-size-fits-all educational approach. It is absolutely necessary that the wide range of human behavior and abilities be taken into account in the system. While leaving no child behind continues to ring out its positive message (How can anyone object to every child being on par with the valedictorians?), it just isn't humanly possible. Only in a "Stepford Wives" scenario could a single set of standards be applied to all of the unique individuals who enroll in the public schools.

Should Johnny's dyslexia be disregarded? Should Xochilt's lack of familiarity with English be ignored?

In dynamic classrooms teachers relish the opportunity to use "teachable moments," those in which a lesson happens spontaneously brought on by a significant and urgent need-to-know on the part of the students. In a NCLB world, the need-to-know is brought on by an impending state or nationally approved test for which some people, probably in Washington have decided this is what your kids need to know.

NCLB should be put in the perspective of the real world and what actually happens to our students during their school careers.

At a recent grad ceremony, I heard a women speak about her educational journey. She came to the United States to pick fruits and vegetables with her family when she was 15. She did not attend high school. She worked in the fields picking strawberries. She married, had children, and continued picking strawberries. When her daughter reached the age of 5 years, the child said, "Mom, when I grow up I want to be just like you and work in the fields picking strawberries." That made the women reflect on herself as a role model for her children. She enrolled in Adult School and then Cabrillo College. Now she is a nurse.

In the real world, we have students who do battle with drugs and students who excel in academic coursework. We have students with illnesses that impede school progress and students who travel to distant hemispheres. We have new students who do not speak English entering the school system at all levels and at all times. We have students who need dental care and students who march to a different drummer. We have student athletes, musicians, airplane mechanics, artists, dancers, actors, computer wizards, writers, and videographers.

Trying to squeeze square pegs into little round holes is an exercise in futility. Let's recognize the many wonderfully unique individuals who make up a school system, appreciate their diversity and see to it that NCLB is amended so that our schools are responsive to all students and their individual needs.

Sandra Nichols is past president of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Governing Board serving 19,000 students in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. She is a Speech and Language Specialist with Santa Cruz City Schools, and was recently appointed by the Board of Supervisors to the Santa Cruz County Children and Youth Commission. The opinions expressed are those of Sandra Nichols and do not necessarily represent those of any school district, print publication or web site.

To learn more about Sandra Nichols, log on to: MeetSandra.com

Interesting anecdotes but entirely unresponsive to my points. If NCLB is not working, there are reasons. It may be that NCLB and the difficulties putting it into operation are a perfect opportunity to set up voucher plans which will make Student Achievement much more likely.

Cicerone Imposter did not think that he would find anecdotes from teachers and teacher unions which would be favorable to NSLB, would he?

After all, the results of the testing shows that many schools are not achieving the goals set up by NSLB.

Again, much more progress can be made in meeting the goals set up by NSLB if, as I have already pointed out, the teachers are not blamed for all of the problems that they encounter because of the ghetto mentality; the special students and highly disruptive are removed from the classes to special schools that will meet their needs; and, voucher schools are set up which will not include the special students and the disruptive. Only if this is done, will the goals set up by NSLB be within reach.

c.i.

You have my utmost sympathy.Your tales are humbling.To give them more rhetorical power you might consider juxtaposing each one with a story of self indulgence and waste from wealth settings.

But do not lose a sense of proportion.You are but one small voice and the world is full of sad cases.
Making the rich ashamed is often effective but even that well done is only a pebble in an ocean.

Here's a balanced article on school vouchers.
http://www.balancedpolitics.org/school_vouchers.htm

I am very much afraid that the "balanced" information given by Cicerone Imposter is filled with holes on the side antgagonistic to the voucher system.

l. The point that states that most schools that provide voucher based education are religious thus violating the church/state barrier is a strawman. Voucher schools can and have been set up by secular organizations especially in schools abandoned by parochial schools. The advantage of the voucher system set up by secular organizations is that they can defy the usual union restrictions which foolishly say that all teachers are the same and should be paid the same except for seniority.

2. The claim that voucher schools take money away from schools which are already underfunded is laughable. People who are not familiar with education do not know that if you lose a student or ten students or fifty students or a hundred students, you lose some funding but you also do not have to pay teachers to serve the nonexistent children--those who transferred out.

3. Voucher schools are not accountable??? I do believe that each school, be it parochial or private, is accountable to state regulations. Accountablity is leveraged by the parents whose children attend the school. Parents whose children are not succeeding will not allow their children to keep attending those schools.

4. Public Schools have to take everybody. Voucher schools do not have to do so. Exactly. That is why voucher schools should and must be set up to take care of students with special needs--eg mentally handicapped---severely disruptive. At this time the students in the public schools find themselves in settings where, because of mainstreaming, they lose a great part of the attention of the teacher who must take care of students with greater needs--the mentally handicapped and the severely disruptive.

A good voucher system will tgake all students but in separate venues. They don't even need to be in different buildings just as long as teachers can meet special needs in special surroundings.

It is indeed difficult to comply with the demands placed on the schools by the No Child Left Behind regulations in the public school settings but it can be done in voucher systems. That may very well be one of the unspoken objectives of NCLB--the need for more diversity and choice in our educational systems.

And where are all the teachers to come from?

Haven't you heard,Cicerone Imposter--President Bush has caused Massive Unemployment.
There are many teachers who have left the profession who would gladly work in a setting in which disruptive students and mentally handicapped students are not allowed.

Current studies show that there are many people who have started out in other fields who are interested in teaching.
Current studies also show that many people leave the profession after five years or so because of terrible teaching conditions. The voucher plans would help to solve the problem. If is clear to anyone who has ever taught that a class that has no severe disruptive students and/or no students who are autistic or severely mentally handicapped, are much more satisfying to teach.