This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 18, 2011 - As Congress works toward reauthorizing and redefining the federal government's role in education, Sen. Claire McCaskill is sure of one thing: No Child Left Behind needs to be left behind.
"I have never had anyone come up to me and say they really love No Child Left Behind," the Missouri Democrat told a group of about a dozen invited teachers, parents, administrators, students and others Monday morning at an education discussion in the Fort Zumwalt School District in O'Fallon.
The meeting came on the first day of a four-day education tour of the state that McCaskill is doing while the Senate is in recess, as part of what her office called an "opportunity to gather common-sense ideas on a variety of education-related topics to bring back to Washington."
At issue is the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Reauthorization of the legislation has been languishing in Congress as debate continues over issues such as testing, teachers, early childhood education, preparation for college and more.
In an interview after the hour-long roundtable discussion, McCaskill said she thinks Washington's role in education should primarily be one of support, while main decisions are best left to local communities. Noting that federal financing for education is not likely to grow any time soon, given the recent emphasis on cutting the budget and the deficit, she said whatever dollars come from Washington have to be used in the wisest way.
Asked whether that means rewarding schools that have done well, as the Race to the Top competition was designed to do, or giving extra money to those schools that are lagging behind, she said some of both approaches is needed.
"We've got to reward good schools," McCaskill said, "and we have got to get money to schools that need help. That's the hard part of all of this."
On one aspect of the recent federal budget compromise that has received little attention -- funding of a voucher program for students in Washington, D.C. -- McCaskill said tax dollars need to be focused on "a public school system that has been the envy of the world."
"To further diminish funds to public schools would be a mistake at this time," she added.
Here's what McCaskill and the roundtable participants had to say on a variety of education issues.
On Testing
Noting criticisms of No Child Left Behind, that it focused too much on standardized test results and was often "squeezing creativity out of the classroom," McCaskill asked what the federal government should do, and how? Most respondents said there has to be a better way of determining which schools and which students are succeeding.
Pam Sloan, superintendent of the Francis Howell school district, said community standards should be the guiding principle although she admitted that the emphasis on tests may have helped some schools sharpen their aim on what is important.
"I don't know what we're getting out of it if every state has different measures," Sloan said. "But it has forced us to put aside some things that maybe weren't necessary anymore."
Shelley Hoffman, from the Missouri National Education Association, said that the tests and how much they count should be decided at the state level. "I don't think it should be decided from as far away as Washington," she said.
Elementary school teacher Janet Roth said that to an extent, "the MAP tests and No Child Left Behind have really helped us to hold ourselves accountable." But she agreed with others that the strict testing standards have made things too regimented.
"With my students," she said, moving her hands higher and higher into the air, "there's not one bar. There's a bar here and a bar here and a bar here."
Barb Vogelsgang, a high school teacher, said one problem with the system is that it tries to measure progress from one year to the next, but "you can't compare the class of 2011 with the class of 2010 because they're different kids."
And do students even care about standardized tests anyway, if they aren't a part of their grade? Brad Banowetz, senior class president at Fort Zumwalt North high school, summed up that issue succinctly: "Not really."
On Teachers
The big question about those who stand at the front of the classroom, McCaskill said, is how do we reward and lift up good teachers and how do we weed bad ones out? She pointed out how sad it is that a profession where people hardly get rich has been vilified recently because its members have a good pension when they retire.
But, she added, that pension can contribute to the poor attitude that some of the public has toward teaching.
"I had a teacher admit to me," she said, "'I phoned it in for my last 10 years. I wasn't going to walk away from that pension.'"
The teachers in the discussion said that the profession needs to remain collaborative and that in most cases colleagues will pull together to help each other improve.
"They're meeting with their colleagues and trying to reignite that passion, that fire, and rediscover why they chose the profession in the first place," said Jackie Floyd, an assistant superintendent in Fort Zumwalt.
But, McCaskill noted, some teachers may never have had that passion in the first place; instead, by the time they became student teachers in their senior year of college and realized belatedly they didn't like being in the classroom, it was too late for them to do anything else, so they stayed on a career path that wasn't really right for them.
On Finances
McCaskill noted that as the federal government plays a lesser role in financing public education, local districts have to be smarter about how they spend.
But the roundtable participants agreed that money is not everything; good leadership that will determine how the money will be spent is vital.
"We are consistently throwing money at this problem," said local businessman and school parent Leo Speno, "but that doesn't work and hasn't worked. All you have to do is look across the river at East St. Louis. It's a disaster."
On Early Childhood Education
McCaskill noted that most research shows the importance of a head start for young children, but the Head Start program has become a target in Washington. Can the federal budget afford to keep funding it?
"You can't afford NOT to have it," said Linda Jennings, from the Fort Zumwalt early childhood program, as her fellow roundtable members nodded and murmured in agreement.
McCaskill noted that not every family has the same dedication to education that her mother instilled in her.
"I was raised in a home where if I wasn't good, I wasn't allowed to go to the library," she said.
On Charter Schools
Fort Zumwalt Superintendent Bernard DuBray questioned charter schools. noted that research has shown that at least in Missouri, where charters are limited to St. Louis and Kansas City, they have not performed as well as many traditional public schools. McCaskill agreed that unless charters are an option that outperform traditional public schools, they can sometimes simply be a drain from districts already financially ailing.
"The job of making public education work in our urban cores has become very difficult," she said, "and we haven't figured out how to make it work like it should.
"I'm not fundamentally opposed to charter schools, but I'm sure as heck opposed to charter schools if they are taking money away from public schools and not doing as well as the public schools are."