Doug Ward Loses...His Students Lose...

Jackson County teacher loses job over EOG testing dispute

Mike McWilliams

Jackson County Board of Education members on Monday voted unanimously to fire a teacher who refused to administer state end-of-grade tests to his students with severe disabilities.

The board went into closed session for about two hours during its meeting before voting 5-0 to agree with the superintendent’s recommendation that Doug Ward’s contract not be renewed, Ward said.

“They’re also keeping me suspended through the end of the year. They’re not going to let me come back and say goodbye to the kids,” Ward said. “But that’s what I expected.”

Ward, 36, a teacher at Cullowhee Valley School, sent a letter to his school and district administration May 12 saying he would not participate in the NCEXTEND1 because recent test changes made it impossible for his students to pass.

Students with disabilities must be tested under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This is the first time a North Carolina teacher has refused to administer standardized tests, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

Phone messages left with school board members were not immediately returned Monday.
Ward said he hopes to explore working as an administrator as he expects to be blackballed as a teacher.

“Hopefully this whole thing will motivate (the school board) to maybe take a second look,” Ward said. “But I realize it’s more of a system issue than anything else. They’re just kind of fulfilling their roles in the system and unfortunately, due to the law, that really doesn’t give them any latitude to use some logic or critical thinking when it comes to decisions."

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No Child Left Behind is leaving thousands of children behind!
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Stopping the Madness: An American Hero, Part 2

Doug Ward, a special education teacher from North Carolina (now out of a job) has stood up and just said "no" to the insanity of No Child Left Behind. He was inspired by a student to take this stand. Read the account of his protest HERE, then watch the video below.

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Read the Declaration of Independence From High Stakes Testing

Declaration of Independence

-----

No Child Left Behind is leaving thousands of children behind!
Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...

Reading First: Not the first failure, worse than nothing, and credit where credit is due

from ELL Advocates

by Stephen Krashen

According to the "Reading First Impact Report," children in Reading First did no better than children in comparison groups. In the media descriptions, as well as in the report itself, there have been several serious omissions.

Not the First Failure

This isn’t the first failure of Reading First. The current dismal results are consistent with all previous analyses.

A number of studies have shown that since Reading First was implemented, there has been no change in the rate of improvement on reading tests given by the states. Members of the administration have repeatedly claimed that national (NAEP) reading scores for fourth graders are at an all-time high, but a brief look at the data in NAEP publications, such as The Nation’s Report Card, shows that nearly all of the improvement took place before Reading First was implemented. Also, American fourth graders did not improve between 2001 and 2006 on the international PIRLS reading test. In addition, there has been no reduction of the gap between children from high and low-income families on any measure. Reading First has failed every time it has been put to the empirical test.

Reading First Less Effective than Comparison Methods

The Reading First Impact Report (and previous analyses) actually showed that Reading First was less effective than the comparison methods. Reading First students had an additional ten minutes per day of instruction on the elements of reading that Reading First assumed were crucial (derived from the National Reading Panel report). That’s about an extra six weeks of instruction every year. Even if Reading First were only mildly effective, the extra time should result in higher reading scores. It didn’t. This means that time was taken from other subjects and activities, as well as recess, and students got nothing in return. This must be one of the great failures of educational research.

Credit Where Credit is Due

The foundation of Reading First is the report of the National Reading Panel, which recommended phonemic awareness training, intensive systematic phonics, and de-emphasized the role of pleasure reading in school. There has been no mention of the many criticisms of this report (e.g. the work of Elaine Garan and Gerald Coles), and no mention of the vast research supporting a different view of how children learn to read. There has, in particular, been no mention of Frank Smith and Kenneth Goodman, world famous scholars, who proposed years ago that we learn to read by reading, by understanding what is on the page. Their view, and the considerable evidence supporting it, has been mischaracterized or ignored by advocates of intensive systematic phonics. The Reading First Impact Report has confirmed that Smith and Goodman and the critics of the National Reading Panel, were correct all along.

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Read the Declaration of Independence From High Stakes Testing

Declaration of Independence

-----

No Child Left Behind is leaving thousands of children behind!
Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...