Open Letter to President Elect Obama On Suspending the NCLB And Rebuilding Democratic and Humane Public Education

To:  President of the United States of America

The American public education system is failing our children and youth, especially the most vulnerable, putting our future in peril. Any person, educator or otherwise, who understands this situation cannot remain silent. These are times for change, from an oppressive and punishing system toward democratic and humane public education.

The No Child Left Behind Act is systematically leaving many children behind and de-professionalizing teachers by imposing on them an often alien curriculum, pedagogy, and schedules which are not responsive to the interests, needs and style of teaching and ways of students’ learning.

NCLB punishes student population diversity. The more diverse the school, the higher the probability it will miss the AYP and thereby be subjected to public scorn and reduced budgets. Who wants to be in a ‘failing school’? When the school is “reconstituted”, the resulting punishment after failing to meet AYP scores for x consecutive years, the state takes the budget of those schools, which are the neediest schools, and gives it to those schools that have much more resources, or to private institutions. Certainly, lower resources and lower morale cannot conduce to the betterment of education; on the contrary, it leads to increasing dramatically the risk of failing. This punitive system is not only risky but irresponsible and immoral.

The massive standardized testing significantly increased by NCLB is certainly not improving schooling, but rather abusing our kids and teachers by unnecessarily overstressing them. Even worse, it drives curriculum and pedagogy to mainly preparing for the test. Such a (mis)educational practice is justified by citing the need to raise test scores and meet the AYP. “The end justifies the means” becomes the premise that endorses practices such as this, and those associated with the infamous “Texas Miracle” case.

An alarmingly high percentage of teachers are leaving the profession before five years. Veteran teachers are leaving earlier than they had planned. “I can’t tolerate being abused anymore” is a common teacher story. They do not see the point of being sent to ‘retraining’ or ‘remedial’ teacher training after years of successful teaching because their class did not meet the expected test scores. This has devastating implications for teacher motivation and self-worth. It leads to rejecting the neediest students because they are going to lower the class scores or blaming other teachers and destroying collegiality. A positive aspect of NCLB is its demand for ‘qualified teachers’, but the issue is how “qualified” has been defined. It cannot be achieved by overstressing jus teaching techniques and methods leaving no time and encouragement for the development of professional attitudes, behaviors, commitments to make them the practitioners and vanguards of democracy. In addition, the tests that prove their qualifications are heavily biased against non-mainstream teachers.

In these conditions it is completely impossible to learn about democracy when what students experience is top-down curriculum, mandated teacher-centered instruction (identified as ‘direct instruction’) and meaningless, purposeless worksheets. Unfortunately, those students who need more of a warmer, joyful and supporting environment (poor, minorities, English Language Learners, disabled, among many others) receive the worst share. This is not only unfair, but counterproductive in the mission of the common school to strengthen democracy. ‘How can it happen in this country?” is a common question asked to us from other countries’ educators.

We also see how commercialism and the business community have taken over public education through gifts from companies that are insignificant in contrast to their profits. They not only sell their products but implant an ideology of consumerism into the minds of children and youth who are especially vulnerable and immature. This has been recognized by other developed countries by banning advertising targeting children.

Based on the above and many more issues, the undersigned educators and citizens concerned with the wrong direction of education “reform” we are suffering, we are respectfully asking you, President Elect Obama, and our representatives in the US Congress for:

1. Suspension of the NCLB mandate ASAP
2. Building up a grassroots school reform that includes all stakeholders--teachers, educators, students and common citizens on equal footing as government officials and the business community. This bottom-up democracy is what made possible your winning the Presidency.
3. Restrict the influence of the business community on educational policy through their business Round Tables (BRTs) at the state and federal level, as well as the outsourcing of services and essential educational tasks
4. Stop commercializing schools and making kids mindless consumers
5. Return to teachers their right to develop curricula and devise the learning environment and pedagogies they as education professionals consider the best for their students.
6. Stop standardized testing. This practice not only hurts students’ opportunities, but the scores are useless for improving true education. It endorses profiting at the expense of students’ and educators’ well-being and the future of our country. Furthermore, test scores mislead the public about what should be good education and good teaching. Educators, as education professionals, are entitled to evaluate their own students’ learning and development.

The undersigned are all hopeful for change in the education system in the right direction.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Open Letter to President Elect Obama On Suspending the NCLB And Rebuilding Democratic and Humane Public Education Petition to President of the United States of America was created by and written by Dr. Myriam Torres (mytorres@nmsu.edu).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.