The Cal Poly professors who educate future teachers are hoping the state will apply for a waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which would allow California’s teachers to bring art, music, history and physical education (PE) back into the curriculum, School of Education professors said.
Schools only focus on the subjects they are tested on, School of Education Dean Robert Detweiler said, which leads to a discrepancy in what is being taught.
“We value what we measure,” Detweiler said. “And what the schools are now largely measuring is reading and math.”
If students’ test scores aren’t high enough, the state may step in and take over or shut down a school. This doesn’t mean that test scores will necessarily improve, however. In some cases, students’ scores decreased after the state assumed direct control of their school, according to School of Education instructor Julie Herron.
Teachers are pressured to focus on raising reading and math scores to avoid placing their school in the category of “failing.” Consequently, the time allotted to art, music and PE has been reapportioned to allow for greater focus on math and reading, Herron said.
This greater focus on math and reading is leaving the arts with less support — art rooms are empty because students are working on reading and math, School of Education lecturer Julee Bauer said.
“The kindergarten teachers say that the paint is drying up,” Bauer said. “They’ve been saying that for 10 years.”
According to Herron, schools have to be choosier about where they spend their dollars as funding shrinks. Districts have had to make the decision to cut extraneous courses in favor of ensuring that the most vital subjects are taught — the subjects that will earn or deny them the funding they need.
The School of Education teaches future teachers to balance both the important subjects and the extra subjects, Detweiler said. Teachers must not only be able to teach to the test but also to incorporate other aspects of a child’s development.
“You have to turn out a student who understands how to gear the learning process to these examinations,” Detweiler said. “For elementary kids, it’s almost exclusively reading and math.”
Despite the demands that NCLB places on teachers, the School of Education does not limit teachers to teaching reading and math: Social studies, reading, writing, spelling, mathematics and science are all included.
“We still have the philosophy that you need a well-rounded education,” Herron said.
This well-rounded education also shows teachers what they should teach like if they were in a perfect situation.
“In all of our courses we try to synthesize the utopian teaching world with reality,” Herron said.
A teacher’s reality is a far cry from what they would prefer, however, Detweiler said. Budget cuts, lack of funding and pressure to raise students’ test scores while still giving them an education that will help them succeed, all conspire to widen the gap between best practice and reality, Detweiler said.
“We recognize that when our students get their credentials they will go to work in schools that teach to the tests and expectations that evolved from NCLB,” Detweiler said.
If a waiver was obtained, then the state would be responsible for setting its own accountability guidelines. Federal funding could be appropriated as the state sees fit rather than being used for items mandated by Federal regulations. The Federal government dictated a specific standard must be met, but did not provide the funds that were necessary in order to meet those expectations. With the advent of the waiver, states could use the funds for the most urgent areas in order to meet the initiative’s requirements.
“We are supportive of what the national standards intend to achieve,” Detweiler said. “But there has been some criticism that it was not properly funded, and that it was so focused on testing especially writing and math skills that a lot of other important aspects of a child’s development is getting shortchanged.”
So far, California is not among the 39 states that applied or stated intentions to apply for a waiver. California must apply by the February 2012 deadline in order to meet the hopes of the School of Education faculty.
This article was written by Heather McBirney.