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'No Child Left Behind' is the favorite whpping boy of many teachers around this vast nation. I am one of those teachers who find fault in declaring that just because students are not testing to some invisible standard, they are not good students and further the teacher is not a good teacher. Therein lies one of the reasons for NCLB's purpose: Find something wrong with teachers, and with teacher's unions.

Put it historically, short that it is: President Bush and his landmark legislation came to Washington with him from Texas. He hailed it as the great fix, at least on the road to the great fix: Let's test all the millions of children across the nation, give them one test and see how they do. Sounds great to bureaucrats. No skin off of their noses. Enter Congress: Representative George Miller and Senator Edward Kennedy signed on to be the main sponsors of the legislation that authorized NCLB. We saw the smiles and the pat on the backs during the signing ceremony. "We've fixed it, we've fixed it," it being the crumbling school system. Then the shoe fell: President Bush refused to give the states/districts enough money to implement the tests and some of the other changes that were mandated by the law. Miller and Kennedy realized they had been duped. They publicly questioned the President's attention and both are now leading the fight to drastically change, or wipe it off the books completely. Nearly all the teachers I know would prefer the latter.

As chairman of the House Education Committee, Miller has asked for comment for those on front line: Teachers, who are often ignored on these things in favor of 'experts.' He has gotten an earful and has taken the position that if there are no radical changes, he just may let the reauthorization die in his committee. He has finally taken the position that the teachers know best how these things work, not the administrators, and certainly not the 'experts,' or as I call them 'the people with letters behind their names who practice a brand of self importance."

The schools in which I have taught most of my career are on a block schedule, of which there are many different types: Ours is 88 minutes, five days per week for one semester. The tests are theoretically based on having taken and succeeded in 80% of the course work. Figure this: If you complete US History course in the first semester and the test is not for nearly four months, how are you going to retain that information? Only the top students are going to retain enough to do well on the test. Lastly, when has this nation called for a generation of kids who do really well at bubbling in 'answer documents,' but have no idea what they mean beyond the moment in time that they do the bubbles?

Learn more about this author, Tom Ontis.
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