Contemporary Topics in Education Reform: No Child Left Behind

Basic Info
SS 124

Contemporary Issues in Education Reform: No Child Left Behind

Tuesday/Thursday 10:30pm- 11:50 * FPH 102 * Spring 2008


 * Prof. Kristen Luschen, Office: FPH 210 Ext: 559-5357 Email: kluschen@hampshire.edu Office Hours: Tuesday 1:00 - 3:30pm, by appointment


 * Lauren Bentley, Teaching Assistant	. Ext. :     Email: lab05@hampshire.edu


 * Will Brideau, Teaching Assistant. Ext.: 4934 Email: wab04@hampshire.edu

Description
No Child Left Behind (2001), the reauthorization and significant revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) enacted in 1965, has been positioned as the Bush administration’s effort to close the achievement gap between racially and economically privileged and disadvantaged children. This course will explore the history, goals, implementation, and consequences of this legislation. While appreciating the significance of this particular reform on the lives of teachers, students, administrators, and parents, a broader goal of this course is to function as a window into the complexities of competing philosophical and pedagogical positions, and politics of education reform more generally.

In this course we will examine current debates in education reform. We will explore and interrogate the assumptions of various pedagogies and educational structures. While there will be individual assignments, much of the work this semester will be organized around an action research project designed to highlight the marginalized perspectives of educators in the discussions around NCLB. Accordingly, students should be prepared to do substantial work outside of the class with their group members.

Students will have the possibility of meeting the following learning goals: REA, WRI, PRJ, PRS, MCP

Texts
All readings are available on the course website (athena.hampshire.edu) and on reserve at the library.

Requirements for an Evaluation
I have expectations of students who would like to receive an evaluation for the course. Basically, in order to follow the flow of the conversation and build a respectful and open classroom community, all participants must invest their time and intellectual energy. 1. I expect you to attend class. Your evaluation will reflect your absences and inconsistent participation if more than two classes are missed. I will not write an evaluation for students who miss more than four classes. I recommend students who do so to withdraw from the course rather than receive a “no eval designation.” 2. All reading assignments are mandatory and you should come prepared to discuss why they did/did not engage you, and raise questions and critique about them. Please print out texts that are online and bring them to class. The books are available at the bookstore and on reserve at the library. 3. I expect that you will participate in creating knowledge in the classroom. For many of you, this will mean active participation in discussion, small groups and working teams. That is, contributing your experiences and perspectives as they relate to the theories, projects, and texts we are discussing, reflective listening, acknowledging the perspectives of the other participants, and formulating critical observations and questions about our own positions and others. 4. I expect that you will complete all course assignments and submit them when they are due. Particularly given the schedule of the project, there is no room for late work.

Project and Assignments
1. Critical Reading Response Papers I am asking that you write short (1-2) critical response papers for every class in which reading is assigned. These essays will be shared with your peers. My goal is that you will enter every class having reflected on the reading’s assumptions, key claims and implications for teaching, learning, and educational equity. These essays are designed to enhance your critical reading and writing skills and will help you prepare for class discussion. Because of this, please DO NOT hand in an essay following the class discussion of the readings.

2. The NCLB Project NCLB often is critiqued because it was devised with little input from educators, the agents of the reform. Though this project will develop more specifically as the semester progresses, at its core the project should strive to make visible the experiences of educators during an era of standards, accountability and high stakes testing. Class participants will work together to collect interviews from teachers and administrators and develop a comprehensive resource for the public on the realities of standards and testing facing schools today. This project will proceed in many phases (data collection, analysis, presentation, revision, publication) and we may only be able to complete some aspects of the project this semester. Together we will consider questions of audience, form, content and methodology as the project develops and shifts while simultaneously we work try to make sense off the perspectives and varying realities of testing and accountability. When you leave this class, you will have honed your skills as a researcher by learning interview, analysis, and presentation skills while creating a valuable resource for the education community.

Questions Guiding Our Inquiry Research Question: How do educators negotiate the shift toward more federal and state regulations, standards, and accountability with their ideas about good teaching and a high quality education?

Subquestions: How has NCLB strengthened/challenged/changed … • the culture of the school? • the demands of your work with students? Parents? Teachers? • your working environment? • school-community relationships? • the curriculum?

This is not a video I course and we will not be studying the art of video production. However, in our effort to provide educators with a resource that may benefit them or their community, each person will learn the basics of how to videotape interviews and observations and how to edit (using Final Cut Pro) footage. Each person will be responsible for conducting 3-4 interviews or observations, transcribing the interviews, transferring footage to DVD, editing a short (5-7 minute) interview. Along with a group, each person will construct a written report of the research findings and produce a video resource that draws on educators’ experiences and the research literature of NCLB (e.g. Website/resource, Executive Report, letters to newspaper editors, CD resource material)

3. Reauthorization assignment: This assignment requires that you research two diverging positions statements regarding the reauthorization of NCLB. You will present these position statements in class, comparing and contrasting their assumptions and recommendations. You will then develop a letter to your congressional representative or a letter to the editor outlining your own concerns and recommendations for the reauthorization of NCLB. 4. (Final) Integrative Paper: In the first class, you will be asked to respond to some questions about schools and No Child Left Behind. Your final paper (5-8 pages) for this class will respond to your initial concerns and questions by drawing together your experience, educator interviews, and research literature.

Tentative Course Schedule
1/31 (Thurs) Introductions, Overview and Syllabus • Welcome, syllabus review, (brief) overview of NCLB--- • Writing assignment: 1. What is your view the reauthorization of NCLB? 2. What do you know about NCLB? 3. What question do you have about NCLB as you begin this class?

2/5 (Tues) NCLB in Historical Context

READ: Weil, Danny. 2001. “Couching the Standards Debate in Historical Terms: Developing a Dialectical Understanding of the Standards Debate Through Historical Awareness.” American Standards: Quality Education in a Complex World, The Texas Case. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, pps 45-71.

READ: Anderson, Lee W. 2007. Congress and the Classroom: From the Cold War to “No Child Left Behind.” University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, pps. 159-185.

READ: Sunderland, G.L, Kim, J.S., and G. Orfield. 2005. “Introduction,” NCLB Meets School Realities: Lessons from the Field. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, pps.xxv-xxxvi

2/7 (Thurs) In-class screening The Cost of Accountability: Teaching and Learning Under the No Child Left Behind Act. 2007. Baker, M, Bentley, L, Brideau, W., Hatten, E., Kimball, S & K. Luschen (creators). Hampshire College

2/12 (Tues) Trivial Pursuit ---the NCLB edition READ: www.gov.edu/nclb Browse Department of Education Documents and familiarize yourself with NCLB requirements

2/14 (Thurs) Interviewing In Class: screen sample interviews READ: Bogdan, Robert and Sari Knopp Biklen. 1998. Qualitative Research in Education: An Introduction to Theory and Methods, Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, pp. 1-7, 32-40, 93-101, 224-232

2/19 (Tues)	Interrogating the Terms of NCLB: Examining the “Achievement Gap” and “Proficiency” READ: Sunderland, G.L, Kim, J.S., and G. Orfield. 2005. “Introduction,” NCLB Meets School Realities: Lessons from the Field. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, pps.: Ladson-Billings, Gloria “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher. 35(7): 3-12. READ: Linn, Robert S. (2007). Performance Standards: What is Proficient Performance? In C. Sleeter (ed.), Facing Accountability in Education: Democracy and Equity at Risk, (pp112-131). New York, Teachers College Press.

2/21 (Thurs) Standpoints I. READ: Nichol, Sharon L. and David C. Berliner. 2007. “A short history of high stakes testing” in Collateral Damage: How High Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools, Pps.1-32. READ: Hursh, David. (2005) The growth of high-stakes testing in the USA: Accountability, markets and the decline in educational quality. British Educational Research Journal 31(5): 605-622. READ: Alfie Kohn, 2004. “NCLB and the Effort to Privatize Public Education.” In Meier, D and G. Wood (eds). 2004. Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools. Boston: Beacon Press.

2/26 (Tues) Standpoints II. READ: Zavadsky, Heather. Nov. 2006. “How NCLB Drives Success in Urban Schools” Educational Leadership, pps. 69-73. READ: Ravitch, Dianne. 2005. “Every State Left Behind.” New York Times, Section A3, p.23 READ: Hess, Frederick M. 2003. “ Refining or Retreating: High Stakes Accountability in the States.” In Paul E. Peterson & Martin West (Eds). No Child Left Behind? Washington, D.C: Brookings Institute. READ: Cizek, Gregory J. 2004. “High-Stakes Testing: Contexts, Characteristics, Critiques, and Consequences. In R. Phelps (ed). Defending Standardized Testing, pps 23-54.

MANDATORY LAB SESSION: Tuesday 2/26 “Final Cut Pro” This session will serve as an introduction to the editing program we will use in this class. Please make team appointments with, John Gunther or John Bruner, Lauren Bentley, or Will Brideau during the week to familiarize with the program more fully.

2/28 (Thurs) Who controls education? Federal-State relationships READ: Sunderland, G.L, Kim, J.S., and G. Orfield. 2005. “Chapter One,” NCLB Meets School Realities: Lessons from the Field. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, pps 1-38

3/4(Tues) State Application: The “Texas Miracle” READ: McNeil, Linda & Angela Valenzuela. (2001). The Harmful Impact of the TAAS System of Testing in Texas: Beneath the Accountability Rhetoric. In Orfield, G.& M.L. Kornhaber (Eds.) Raising Standards Raising Barriers: Inequality and High-Stakes Testing in Public Education (127-150). New York: Century Foundation Press. READ: Hampton, Elaine. (2005). “Standardized or Sterilized: Differing Effects of High-Stakes Testing in West Texas” in Valenzuela, Angela. (2005). Leaving Children Behind: How “Texas Style” Accountability Fails Latino Youth. SUNY Press: Albany, pps. 179-200.

Additional Reading: McNeil, Linda S. (2005). Faking Equity: High Stakes Testing and the Education of Latino Youth” in Valenzuela, Angela. (2005). Leaving Children Behind: How “Texas Style” Accountability Fails Latino Youth. SUNY Press: Albany, pps. 57-112.

3/6 (Thurs) The “Highly Qualified” Teacher Mandate READ: Belinda Bustos Forles and Ellen Riojas Clark, "The Centurion: Standards and High Stakes Testing as Gatekeepers for Bilingual Teacher Candidates in the New Century." pp 225-248. Angela Valenzuela, Leaving Children Behind. SUNY Press. 2005. READ:  Boyd et al. (2007). The Narrowing Gap in NYC Teacher Qualifications and Its Implications for Student Achievement in High Poverty Schools. Working Paper 10 prepared for the CALDER Urban Institute. READ: Hammond, Linda Darling, TBA

3/11 (Tues) In class review of edited interviews

3/13 (Thurs) In class review of edited interviews

3/18(Tues) 			Spring Break

3/20 (Thurs)		Spring Break

3/25 (Tues) How People Learn READ: John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, Rodney R. Cocking, "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School." National Academy Press. pp 3-27,285-291.

3/27 (Thurs) Reauthorization Position Statements --Presentations 4/1 (Tues) NCLB Funding READ: William Mathias, 2005. The Cost of Implementing The Federal No Child Left Behind Act: Different Assumptions, Different Answers. Peabody Journal of Education, 80(2): 90-119.

Additional Reading: Bracey, Gerald W. (2005). No Child Left Behind: Where does the money go? Policy Brief prepared for the Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University.

Due in class: Reauthorization letters

4/3 (Thurs) 	 Graduation Rates and NCLB READ: Daniel J. Losen, "Graduation Rate Accountability Under the No Child Left Behind Act." pp 105-120. Gail Sunderman et. al, NCLB Meets School Realities. Corwin Press. 2005. READ: Walter Haney et. al., "The Education Pipeline in the United States." pp 21-45. Lois Weis & Michelle Fine, Beyond Silenced Voices. SUNY Press. 2005. 4/8 (Tues)	TBA

4/8 (Weds): Set up Shop at Crocker Farm

4/10 (Thurs) Advising Day- No Class

4/15 (Tues)	 Debates on the implications of NCLB on Student Achievement READ: Answering the Question that Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind? Report by the Center on Education Policy, June 2007. READ: Lee, Jaekyung. Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of NCLB on the Gaps. Report commissioned by the Civil Rights Project. June 2006

4/17 (Thurs)

4/22 (Tues)

4/24 (Thurs)

4/29(Tues)

5/1 (Thurs)