A Case for the Basics and Against "pre-NCLB" Mythology

This op-ed in the WaPo literally made me physically ill. In it a second grade teacher argues that No Child Left Behind has created a higher-level thinking skills gap between poor and minority students and their more advantaged peers.

Anyone who has spent any time in an inner city public school (like the one I grew up in) knows that schools have given poor and minority kids less challenging assignments, lower quality teachers, and less of just about everything that would conduce to developing higher order thinking skills since long before anyone ever dreamed up No Child Left Behind. David Keyes, can you produce one scrap of evidence that the public education system was doing anything to teach critical thinking to disadvantaged students before Congress decided to shine an ugly spotlight on the disgraceful results? Wake up.

Kevin Carey points out the backwards logic of Keyes' argument.

But I'm willing to go it a step further. Even if NCLB produces the boogey-man version of public education its critics claim it will, with a narrow curriculum, and constant test-prep, it will still be an improvement. I don't think for a second that this state of affairs would be either desirable or acceptable. But it would be better than the status quo ante. That's because contrary to the imaginary world in which this author and people like Dan Brown live, poor and minority students were getting neither critical thinking, nor basic-skills training prior to NCLB. If, because of NCLB, they at least get basic skills training, they'll at least be getting half of what they need instead of none.

As an example, a colleague of mine recently went to visit an elementary school in Baltimore which serves large numbers of disadvantaged students and which had posted high test scores. She was dissappointed to find that school was indeed focused very narrowly on reading and math to the neglect of subjects like social studies and in general did a lot of drilling of basic skills. She did some spot checking of the students and discovered happily however that despite not knowing things like where China could be found on the map, the students could read passages they had not seen before quite fluently and were rather proud of their ability to do so.

When I asked her what she would recommend to a parent considering this school versus other public schools in the area, she said unequivocally "I would tell them to send their kids there. It isn't ideal, but at least the kids can read." Having visited many other elementary schools in Baltimore she was well aware that while students in most of those schools do not know the geography of China, they also struggle to even decipher basic written passages.

The mistake many well-intentioned people make is thinking that NCLB is creating a ceiling on education; the reality is that it has merely established a floor; a school that doesn't teach children to at least read and do math, is no longer acceptable. And whatever criticisms people have of standardized tests they are actually extremely effective at measuring whether students can do such basic things.

That however is the mistake. The lie critics are telling themselves (and the educator community is currently awash in this form of self-deception) is that you can teach critical thinking to children who lack basic skills. If you haven't already read enough of this from people like Dan Brown listen to David Keyes from the WaPo article:

"Schools often use test-prep programs to try to raise test scores. The problem with these programs is that they teach the skills covered on tests, and only these skills. Poor and minority students spend hours repeating "B buh ball" and two plus two equals four. Every hour spent drilling basic skills is an hour not spent developing the higher-level thinking skills that are emphasized in wealthier school districts."

Does Keyes think a student who doesn't know that "two plus two equals four" will be able to do higher level math like Algebraic problem solving, or that a student who is struggling with "B buh ball" will be able to read a book about the American Civil Rights Movement? He is right that "every hour spent drilling basic skills is an hour not spent developing higher-level thinking skills." But what he seems oblivious to is that these hours learning basic skills must precede the hours spent developing higher-order thinking. Luckily for them, many affluent and white students walk in the school-house door with the basic skills already in place or half-way there. They've essentially had tutors in their homes for the past several years. But for the kids who weren't so lucky, the schools have to do some major catch-up work, and they have to do it fast or the defecits in the basics will prevent them from building on this foundation and they will end up even further behind. And sometimes playing quick catch-up requires some serious drill and kill. But please don't talk to me about how impoverished a form of education this is if your proposal is to teach a "rich curriculum" to students who can't even read their textbooks.

I am no cheerleader for No Child Left Behind. But I am grateful to it for helping us at least start to get to square one. I will be so happy to see us get from 1 to 2 and 3 and beyond. But the fact of the matter is that there has to be a minimum below which we will not let anyone fall. Students go through school not being able to read and understand the newspaper nor figure out how much a 15% downpayment on $150,000 house would be; (I know; I am currently working with an 11th grader who cannot do either.) Someone with that kind of defecit in basic skills will not make up for it because they can "make music" or "tell vivid stories." David Keyes, are you going to tell your graduating seniors to put those skills on a resume? Of course that would assume they were able to write one in the first place.