There's a joke--a hoax,
really--circling about the Internet, codified in
countless professional-looking websites, about a
mysterious and dangerous chemical compound called
"dihydrogen
monoxide." It's described in the
most dire terms imaginable, "colorless, odorless,
tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people
every year," etc. One city in California almost
passed a city ordinance banning it until they
realized....dihydrogen monoxide is water!
It's all in how you describe something.
The latest dihydrogen monoxide-type scam has been
perpetrated by--who else?--ETS, the testing
mega-organization formerly known as the "Educational
Testing Service." ETS surveyed
a large
number of Americans about the NCLB and found a
roughly even split in favor of and opposed to renewal
of the program. Not satisfied, they reworded the
survey questions, throwing about vague terms like
"standards" and "accountability" and "flexibility,"
apparently apple-pie terms for the survey
respondents, and the second time around concluded
that a strong majority of Americans support the law's
renewal and also that most Americans don't really
understand the law. "Despite the American public’s
clear lack of knowledge about the federal
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the strong
misgivings of teachers and school administrators have
about the legislation [sic], the public and public
school teachers and administrators strongly support
reauthorization" ("Standards,
Accountability and Flexibility:
Americans
Speak on No Child Left Behind
Reauthorization"). The irony of a
majority of people supporting something they don't
understand is apparently lost on ETS.
Nowhere on the ETS site can I find the actual before
and after questions of the surveys, but let me
postulate another survey question:
"In 2002 Congress passed, and the President signed, a
major educational reform package. The effects of this
package have been:
1. the elimination of
naps for kindergartners in many schools
2. the elimination of recess for many elementary
school children
3. the exodus of many discouraged teachers
4. the imposition of simple-minded true-false and
multiple choice tests at almost every level of school
5. the elimination of teaching the arts, music,
social studies, and other subjects no longer tested
for
6. wholesale "teaching to the test" instead of
wide-ranging instruction in interesting subjects
7. logjams of students stuck in the ninth grade year
after year so they won't have to take the 10th grade
achievement tests and possibly embarrass the school
systems
8. students being forced out of school before they
can take--and possibly fail--the tests
9. schools lowering standards so more of their
students will pass the tests
10. students who have not yet learned to speak
English well (like every one of our ancestors) are
forced to take all their math, science, and other
courses in English, thus guaranteeing they will fail
11. opposition by over 3/4 of teachers and school
administrators--the trained professionals who know
more about education than any politician
12. schools which have the highest failure rates and
presumably need the most help are instead penalized
by having their federal aid funds drastically cut
Should this law be
renewed?"
How do you think a majority of Americans will feel
about the NCLB when they know these truths and see
the sugar-coated and highly-spun Washington-speak
selling of the NCLB for what it is?
"To Know
NCLB Is to Like It, ETS Poll
Finds," trumpets
Education Week. To know dihydrogen
monoxide is to ban it, they may as well have written.