I have run a website in opposition to the federal legislation No Child Left Behind (NCLB) since it was signed into law in 2002. . A number of national education reporters subscribe to the e-mail list attached to the site. The site gets about 100,000 hits a month and provokes a lot of e-mail.

 www.susanohanian.org

Curiously, not much of that mail comes from Vermonters. I'd like to think that this means people are happy with the schools. But a survey conducted by  the Vermont Society for the Study of Education  (VSSE) suggests otherwise.

When VSSE surveyed Vermont teachers, asking them how NCLB affects their work, 83% said it has a negative effect on education.

This Fall, several Vermont parents contacted me, asking the legality of opting their children out of the state standardized test required by NCLB. Officials at the Vermont Department of Education admit that parents have this right but expressed worry that such action puts schools at great risk of being labeled "failure" by the federal government.

These days, the Feds, not local communities, decide whether a school is successful.

NCLB isn't just about standardized testing. It is mostly about day-to-day instruction. For example, Vermont spends about $800 extra on children participating in the NCLB program called Reading First. In this program only materials on the federal "approved" list may be used. In its grant for Reading First monies, the Vermont State Department of Education explicitly promised to abandon specifically Vermont traditions. That's what the Feds giving out money required.

I wonder how children's learning might be affected if teachers and families were invited to participate in the decision of how to spend that extra $800. Maybe they'd decide to use it to buy library books, subscribe to newspapers, attend concerts, or otherwise enrich children's lives. Maybe some families would need it to buy home heating oil.

I'd like the decision to be brought hom to Vermont communities and not left to distant corporate-politicos currently under investigation for conflicts of interest.

In the late 1960ies the Vermont Commissioner of Education and the Vermont State Department of Education went to the people, asking communities what they wanted from their schools. The result was a small document called The Vermont Design for Education.

http://vsse.net/?q=node/174

Here are a few basic tenets of The Vermont Design:

Vermont Design: Emphasizes each child's unique way of learning

NCLB: Requires a limited set of procedures for all children

Vermont Design: De-Emphasizes rote learning

NCLB:  Requires close monitoring of scripted instruction

Vermont Design: Involves entire local community in setting learning expectations

NCLB: Uses so-called experts identified by the US Department of Education, a process now under investigation by the US Inspector General

Vermont Design: Encourages students to question and verify authority

NCLB: Emphasizes multiple choice answers

Vermont Design: 25 pages long, including student art work--for all curriculum

NCLB: 196 pages for K-3 reading curriculum

Vermont Design: Offers many ways for students to succeed

NCLB: Designed so that a school has many ways to fail

As the year ends and a new commissioner takes charge, let's think about bringing education policy home to Vermont.