Conclusions

It is my hope that readership of “Who’s left behind understands that rural student’s education is inferior to everyone else.

The inequality of rural education can be helped though word of mouth. It’s a great conversation starter at the coffee house, but the ideas in “Who’s Left behind” are just a starting point.

As education reform conversations begin, I hope you will return to this blog and receive more information about rural students.

Students, the one group of people that government cares about the least, however I’m optimistic about the future.

Dear Duncan

Dear Duncan
Below is a letter that should be sent to Duncan through his Facebook page, and in written form to the Department of Education’s main office.

C/o Arne Duncan
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202b

Dear Arne Duncan;

For the past year you have been carefully analyzing the status of education in the U.S. However, I have been researching NCLB and, I know that there are a lot of differences between urban and rural education that you may not be aware of,like standardized legislation like NCLB is failing rural schools.

Some of the main concerns I have with NCLB is lack of focus on AP programs because they need to focus on other standardized tests for their schools funding. Also, schools receive funding based on their schools success, not only is this bad social policy, but extending that funding to teachers will be a detriment to preparing rural students for college.

School districts should not be required to let military recruiter visit schools, without out the consent of their parents for funding. If they need permission slip to watch a PG-13 movie, then should need permission to be persuaded to join the military.

Another problem I have with your education policy is your recent attack on teaching curriculum at universities, while you attend press conferences at schools that don’t even have top education departments praising them for their nonexistent innovation in curriculum.

I hope you take into the account the rights of rural students. Their unequal education is a civil rights issue, listen to the students, they know what they want more than administrators and governors.

Thank you for listening to my concerns.

Respectfully,

Readership of Who’s Left Behind

Keeping NCLB

This week Arne Duncan focused his attacks on teacher’s education, saying that “"schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom."

The teachers who teach in failing rural school are not bad teachers. They are teaching because they want to. The main problem is that there curriculum is set by NCLB. Apparently he was fouled too many times playing Harvard basketball he lost a lot of brain cells.

Arne needs to get rid of NCLB or else rural education will continue to be the civil rights issue that it is. The inequality of education isn’t apparent to this administration. We need to make them aware.

My next post will be a letter to the Secretary of Education. Now that the readership is educated about this blog I hope that you will read the letter and send it to Duncan.

Recruiters know your kids better than you think

Did you know that NCLB requires that public high schools must turn over private student contact information to local military recruiters? If they do not than they will lose federal funding for their schools.

Public schools must also allow military recruiter on campus to actively recruit students at lunch and after school, according to NCLB.

A Washington Post article, talks about how rural high school students are drawn to the military was written by Ann Scott Tyson. More than 44 percent of U.S. military recruits come from rural areas while only 14 percent come from major cities.

“Youths living in the most sparsely populated Zip codes are 22 percent more likely to join the Army, with an opposite trend in cities,” said Tyson.

WASL

As the readers may have been able to infer from NCLB the law requires each state to set up a standardized test. Then NCLB allocates fund based on the success within the school.

First, the idea of rewarding school improvements with money while not giving more money to failing schools is the type of illogical reasoning used in NCLB. That is why NCLB needs to no longer be law, and force lawmakers to do their jobs and come up with real education policies.

The WASL stands for Washington Assessment of Student Learning, and is the brainchild of NCLB. The WASL scores determine how much federal funding each school receives.

The high school WASL measures the comprehension of basic algebra skills such as, if I have 15 pizza toppings how many combos can I make? The test measures writing comprehension by asking each student to write a letter to the principle of their school about an issue. If they do not use proper letter formatting like making up an address, then the student can only receive a 3 out of 4.

Wolfle Elementary sixth graders have a 36 percent pass rate on the writing portion of the WASL. So instead of allowing the school to make the necessary academic changes, the school does not receive any suplemental funding.

Fixing NCLB is useless, start over and give rural students the educations they deserve. The kids understand why can't we?

AP testing

Another problem with NCLB is that its standardized test requirement pushes AP testing out of the curriculum in rural schools.

The Daily Yonder, a leading rural journalistic-style blog talks wrote an article on Collegeboard’s statistics on rural education and AP classes.

There is a large discrepancy between rural school AP students and urban students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, rural graduates are less likely to go on to college than their urban counterparts.

This is because the rural schools receive their funding based on standardized test score pass rates, not AP pass rates which have a direct correlation to success at universities.

The “Overachievers”

Readers may remember from my earlier posts that I talked about how at Wolfle (seen below) I was considered an overachiever.

The first problem is that the negative characterization of people who would work hard at school, the image carried on even in junior high school.

The other problem is the way the educational system dealt with overachievers.

I remember that in third grade the reading groups were separated into three groups. Those who were behind, average, and above the grade level in reading. In my reading group we finished the textbook weeks before the other groups, so the teacher told us to read the book again because we didn’t have anymore.

The problem with standardized testing is that the people who are at the bottom get the teachers attention, while the people who are ahead in subject matter aren’t being taught. Smart student were being taught to coast at a very young age.
The current homework policy of Wolfle Elementary is to read for 20 minutes, and practice math for five. This is a failure to prepare students for college. Nine years later the curriculum at Wolfle doesn’t even seemed to have changed.

The failure comes from NCLB, becuase teachers must teach to the test instead of preparing them for college. Clearly NCLB is not effective legilsation in rural schools.

Who’s in the Obama administration?

When I give criticism to the Obama administration about their NCLB policy I don’t want readers to get discouraged by the enormity of brining attention to them.

The administration has different cabinet positions to focus on the administrative side of policy issues. All of them come from the good ol' boys clubs like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. The education secretary, a cabinet member in the Obama administration named Arne Duncan is just another one of those members.

Arne Duncan like Obama comes from Chicago. He spent most of his life after Harvard working as superintendents of inner-city schools. He has no experience with rural education, no one in the cabinet does.

Duncan went to prep schools before attending Harvard. Like many in the administration, they are experts because of their preparatory education. Duncan got in with a basketball scholarship, maybe that’s how he expects all the rural students to get in to college. When rural students get into college they’re not even prepared to pass most of their general education courses.

The only way Duncan is going to know about how to fix rural education is through awareness.

Before we bring attention to Duncan, I want the readership to be more knowledgeable on the topic.

The No Child left behinds affect on rural schools

The No Child Left behind Act (NCLB) is the nation’s federal education bill. The new Obama administration is concerned about NCLB and wants to make changes to the plan in order to help suffering inner-city school.

I’m not saying that inner cities schools do not have their problems. I just want an administration from Chicago to understand rural areas.

Those who followed the Presidential election of Barack Obama may remember his comments about men and women from rural Ohio, and how they cling to their guns and their religion. NCLB with funding may be able to work in inner cities.

However, standardized tests scores is the only piece of education rural schools care about, because the scores determine the amount of
This creates numerous problems that should be addressed by new legislation. Here are the main problem readers and the Obama administration need to be aware of.

1. Students who will pass the standardized test receive little to no attention in classrooms

2. In rural high schools, AP and IB programs do not receive attention, many students in AP and IB programs in rural schools fail the exams.

3. Students do not learn what is needed for college instead their curriculum is set to standardized testing, which is completely different.

Who is left behind?

“Can I have your attention please, can I have your attention please; students, staff, and visitors will you please stand for the pledge of allegiance.”

That is how every day starts at David Wolfle Elementary in Kingston, Washington, a town of less then 1,600 people. At the time I lived in Kingston the population was more like 800.

My name is Aaron Davidson, and I attended Wolfle Elementary for seven years. Every year in class I was know as an “overachiever”. I received top marks in every subject.

In school you probably remember the overachiever. They probably went to top colleges or started working at a successful company. I realized this would not be the case for me when I left the school district before my first year of high school.

The principle told me that I was two years behind in almost every aspect of schooling, and I started crying. There was no Harvard for me; there never will be.

I wish I could say that I was the exception, but there is no Harvard for every student at Wolfle. There are many children with limitless potential at failing rural schools, and nothing is being done.

Much of the damage inflicted by the federal government comes in the form of broad educational funding programs such as the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB. NCLB is the main cause of failing rural schools, and need to be eliminated as a piece of legislation.

Some readers may say, “How does this affect me”. The truth is, it doesn’t affect you. I’m sorry to say that it’s not about you in this situation. Instead it is about children who wake up everyday, and no matter how hard they try, they will not be the “American success story.”