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Blog: FCAR
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FCAT-NCLB Disconnect
By Bill Archer and Sandra Blackburn
My wife Sandra Blackburn and I are so glad we have only one more year to give to
the public school system that has reached new low levels of ethics and
professionalism. We have both publicly expressed our criticisms of the high
stakes testing programs and the NCLB and have many published articles in local
papers to attest to our anger.
The following is a snapshot of the lunacy that exists and what we will end our
careers doing. Sandra will finish with 44 years and I with 39 years. We know how
much good we have done using the traditional pre and post test method of
teaching children. We know how we have taken kids from point "A" to where ever
their capacities would allow in the time we had with them. The school in which
we will finish our careers is described below.
R. J. Longstreet Elementary now has the distinction of having six (6) "A" grades
consecutively on the FCAT while simultaneously receiving five (5) failing grades
on the NCLB. Our school is under sanctions, our principal has been moved and we
have a new one who says he has a way to succeed on the AYP; something about a
"Math Fusion" program.
When are these administrators going to confront the federal and state evaluation
programs that discourage minorities, students of foreign languages and ESE
students who are getting the blame for failing schools? Or is this the goal of
these "testing" programs? Also teachers must confront a government that compels
them to do unethical things to children through insane testing programs!
With the Supreme Court's recent decision to resegregate schools maybe
discouraging specific groups of students is indeed the goal. And what about the
rest of the students who must have their learning confined to the basics found
in the narrow tests? For affluent schools that may soon be all white the tests
are just a distraction that interferes with their higher level functioning.
Maybe the high court had already considered that fact before having made its
recent decision.
We saw in the newspaper recently that our district level testing person has
finally come out with criticisms of the state's high stakes testing program and
the NCLB. Odd she didn't go public with those criticisms earlier instead of on
the eve of her retirement. And shock of all shocks, our present superintendent
agreed with her.
We have enjoyed our careers in public education despite the travesty visited
upon it in the last seven years. We started in a system in which individual
students were evaluated and ended up in a system in which whole schools are
evaluated and graded. The loss and damage to the traditional public education
system is inestimable and it foreshadows a collapse of our democracy if the
trend is not stopped.
We will certainly continue to raise public awareness about the collapse after we
retire but will be happy to be out of a system that has become so corrupt in its
leadership.
Bill Archer and Sandra Blackburn
1508 N. Atlantic Ave.
Daytona Beach, FL 32118
386 255 3592
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