All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.If after two years they have not won the championship, their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.
All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!
Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.
Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. It will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals.< If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind. If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad football players.
This analogy is not about football, its about expecting perfection for kids under impossible circumstances. Can you expect every child to be score perfectly on that test when every one is different. They are children who must learn, not robots who can simply be programmed. No matter the skill or background, every child must win the state champion ship or the entire school is punished. How about focusing on the coaching instead of the season’s game results. How about helping every child to succeed instead of just the talented ones who will succeed anyway. NCBL is asking the wrong question. So, what is the right question to ask?
I got published. My letter to the editor was published in the Joplin Globe yesterday. I looked at their online discussion forum. Most of the negative comment looked like this.
The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO - Voices: Will all schools be left behind?
Leroy writes: Good God, reading at grade level by 2014? On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced his plan to put a man on the moon and return him him safely, and that happened in 1969. We can put a man on the moon in around 8 years but you cant teach a 9 year old kid to read in about 7? James, you need another job. And, you need to take the NEA with you. WOW,,,
This was my response:
Yes, I know it seems incongruous that all we ask is that all 3rd graders read on grade level. We have struggled for over a century in Missouri to get every student reading on grade level, and no one has managed it yet. Why? Can 100% of Joplin adult residents pass a 12th grade Communication Arts Exam to show they read on grade level? Would you pass? Many of you can answer yes, but not 100% of you. Why? Because everyone is different. People have different interests, different priorities, different ways of communicating, different ways of learning. Kids are no different. Every student walking into my classroom is developmentally different than the others. They have had different experiences, different backgrounds, different home lives. They are not like widgets in a factory that can be manipulated into exact, identical shape. Children are neither identical nor exact. They are children in the process of growing up. Growing up a complex process that involves making mistakes and learning from them. Learning to Read is a complex that takes time. For some it takes more time than others. Yet we pass them on to the next grade whether they are ready or not. This forced system squeezes children into molds into that some are not yet ready for. I take my students as they come to me. Some already reading beyond grade level, some reading on grade level, and some not yet ready. I do everything research says to do…with the resources I have. Some will be ready this year. I will coax some more into reading on grade level. My goal is to have all of them reading on grade level by the end of the year. All I need is 100% support, 100% of the time, from 100% of the people. To those who implied I was a part of NEA. I am not, and never have been, an NEA member. I am instead a teacher just speaking my mind.
This podcast is an interview with Todd Fuller, podcaster on The Pulse, MSTA’s podcast.
I recorded it this summer while at MSTAs resort for a leadership conference retreat. I had just started blogging and wanted to record some interviews for podcasts. I especially wanted to interview podcast pro, Todd. At that time, I had called my blog, Upgrade to School 2.0. I later changed it to a better name, What is School 2.0? Please leave comments, questions, feedback, and suggestions below. Enjoy.
Music was Astroglide provided CC by Alan Renkl from the Podsafe Music Network
Episode - Interview with Todd Fuller - podcaster on MSTA's The Pulse:
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I believe in sharing. If you share with me and I share with you, then we are both better off than we would be it we had kept whatever it is to ourselves. Creative Commons is a license that protects my creative work like my writing and my podcasts, but allows me to share them how I want. I chose to not let someone else sell my work for money: Non-commercial license. People can use, remix, and republish my creative work in their creative work as long as they use the same license I did: Share-Alike. If they use my work, I would like them to give me credit for my part: Attribution.
Creative Common bridges the large chasm between copyrighted and public domain material. It allows you to choose how want to share your work. This short video does a great job of explaining the different licenses in very simple language.
This article started as a letter to the editor. I want to get all this down, then I’ll pare it down for the letter.
Thank you Ron Hutchison for your column in Sunday’s Joplin Globe, especially since you talked to real teachers. I am a teacher. I had great hopes for the well intentioned “No Child Left Behind” when it passed. The law says that every one for my student must read on grade level by 2014. I have been working to every year for the past 10 years to get every one of my students reading on grade level. I haven’t accomplished it yet, but it looks like in 2014 they will finally make it.
NCBL will accomplish this great feat by testing every student every year and punishing schools for those who fail. If one student isn’t proficient, then the whole school fails. Will every school be left behind by 2014? Most likely. Getting 100% of 9 year olds to do most anything is nigh to impossible. You can’t make a pig fatter simply by weighing it, and you can’t make students learn by simply testing them.
My students have made great improvements over the last few years. Many have come into my classroom reading well below grade-level. Many more, but not all, have left reading on or above grade level. However, it is not enough.
Next year I will have to redouble my efforts to get even more of my 25 students read ing on or above grade level with no additional time, no additional supplies, no additional money, no additional resources, and no additional help. The next year I will need to redouble my efforts with no additional resources. Each year after that I’ll need to redouble my efforts without added help until in 2014 every single one of my 25 or more students is reading on grade level. By 2014 I will have been working for 17 years to get all my students to read on grade level. What a relief that in 2014, after all my efforts, they will finally succeed, thanks to NCLB.
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