Answer to a comment from my uncle...

My uncle wrote this comment, and I have a feeling that a lot of people out there have similar thoughts:

Hi Greg! This is yer Uncle Ralph! I don't agree with your position on things but I love your blogs and the fact you are passionate about them. I am curious about the NCLB act. Are you saying there shoudln't be standards or are you saying you can't fail kids that should be left back in school? I understand learning disabled having difficulties but I fail to see how kids from economically challenged families have learning problems or how a non english speaking child is pushed through grades if they can't understand the curriculum. There has been a democratic congress in place for a couple of years now that have done nothing to improve the situation you have described. I don't teach in a school but I went to one and back in my day, if you were too stupid to learn the first time around, you did it a second time while your friends moved on. Fail the dumb ones, we will always need convenient store clerks! ( that is a joke people..... :P )

My message to Uncle Ralph:
Thank you for being diplomatic. I can appreciate and accept your views. I told mom the other day that even though we don't agree at all, I am glad to see that my family members have taken a side and are backing it passionately. That is what makes a democracy work. There are too many Americans who are walking around without opinions and who don't plan to vote because they genuinely don't care.
Anyway, to address your questions, I don't believe that we should abolish standards in schools, I would back a less rigid system, though. I believe in teacher accountability and striving for student progress. But, to judge an entire year's worth of work on one test at the end of the year is foolish at the elementary level, especially in content areas (social studies and science). To memorize facts in preteen years is futile for most kids. Research tells us that you do not develop your full capacity for rote memorization until middle adolescence. Plus, I have seen kids get performance anxiety before these tests. They are aware that a lot rides on these stupid cumulative knowledge tests. Many kids simply do not perform well under that kind of pressure and that truly affects the accuracy of the results. I think the government needs to take a more holistic approach to assessing adequate yearly progress, and a scaffolded approach to assessing those troubled sub-groups (the kids that don't fit into the "average" mold).
With that said, your next question was about economically disadvantaged and English Language Learners. Economically disadvantaged status comes into play when assessing AYP because of the factors that these students face outside of school. I have dealt with students in elementary school that had good attendance, but nobody to help them outside of school. Some of these kids truly dealt with real world problems outside of school. If you are worried about where your next meal is coming from, are you really that worried about memorizing your multiplication tables? If these students had adults to help them with homework and provide them with a meal and a safe place to study, then these kids would have been good students. But as a result of environmental factors that they could not control, they failed in school and failed the standardized testing. The English Language Learners are another factor for obvious reasons. Kids are brought to this country by their parents unprepared to thrive in an American public school. Great ESL services are provided, but one year is not enough time to get acclimated to school, learn the curriculum, and pass a cumulative knowledge test in English.
Anyway, I hope I have answered your questions. Democrats do currently hold sway in Congress, but they don't all think the way that I think. My party is not perfect. Admittedly, there are just as many corrupt people in the democratic party as any other political party. I'm backing Obama because I feel he has better ideas and more of my interests in mind. I realize that even if he is elected, there is no guarantee that there will be follow-through on campaign promises. I can hope though. I don't hate John McCain, I just don't agree with his ideas.