Learning the Hardest Lessons from NCLB

No Child Left Behind stifles learning by equating it with memorization, repetition, and testing. NCLB takes responsibility out of the hands of teachers by waiving the expectation that students become critical thinkers and problem solvers. NCLB diverts resources from home-grown programs and solutions that work best. There are many reasons to oppose NCLB, but it’s important not to throw the good out with the bad.

Ten years ago, NCLB did one very important thing: through the systemic, nationwide measurement of school performance, it exposed the long-ignored reality that we were chronically failing certain students. There was a frightening pattern: schools throughout the country were allowing students of color to fall behind their peers. NCLB forced educators to admit this, and required us to take responsibility for it.

As we gather at the Save Our Schools conference to oppose NCLB and offer new ideas, we can’t lose sight of the need for school performance measures that identify where we need to improve. This is also the time for educators to ask ourselves a hard question: what have we done in the past ten years to address the inequality that NCLB exposed?

At the Alameda County Office of Education, we support school districts in the East San Francisco Bay Area which serve primarily African American and Latino students, English learners, and students from low-income families. Ten years ago, as we faced the challenge of overcoming the trend of inequality in our schools, we made an important discovery.

Teachers and administrators need to be able to recognize the experiences and the history that every child brings from their community to their school. We call this cultural competence, but it’s really the simple idea that we all learn by adding new knowledge to what we already know. If educators can’t recognize—or value—what students already know, there’s no base to build on.

Through the ACOE’s Art IS Education program, we’ve partnered with districts throughout the county to train our teachers and administrators to be responsible for culturally competent teaching. We utilize arts integrated learning because we recognize the arts as a language that transcends cultural barriers. We rely on the arts as a tool to teach across all subjects because they create a broad range of opportunities for teachers and students to understand each other. The arts also provide a structure in which students build critical self-esteem by reflecting on their unique experiences and developing a sense of meaning in their own lives.

Other groups are promoting culturally competent schools, too. Our long-time ally Justice Matters is at work with Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University on a project to identify schools that provide a truly just education for low-income students of color.

As we think about overturning one national system with many shortcomings, ACOE Art IS Education programs and the schools to be identified by Justice Matters provide important examples of the solutions we need nationwide.

We can’t lose sight of our responsibility as educators to measure our own work, identify our successes, and turn them into solutions where we still need to improve.