Okay, I said I'd be back on this issue, and I am.

I'm getting a rapid education in the unintended, but nonetheless very real, effects of the No Child Left Behind act.

According to Wikipedia, the goals of the NCLB act is to hold teachers, and students to particular standards. It requires teachers to be rigorously tested - GOOD. It requires students to be rigorously tested - GOOD. It provides funding based on test compliance, and low SES needs. It also allows families to choose a school if their school's test scores are too low, and it is deemed as under-performing.

What it does not allow is for children to learn outside the box.

Phoebe's teacher this year admitted at the open house in the second week of school, that she teaches to the test. They have a strict curriculum, and the interests of the kid outside of that curriculum, or BEYOND that curriculum, is effectively discouraged. Phoebe loves learning about Native Americans. They read Squanto this year. The report from the teacher about the class was that the kids liked Squanto, and felt empathy for his hardships. Not that they learned about Native Americans. Phoebe wants to learn more about Native Americans. They've successfully peaked her interest, only to tell her "sorry, we're done with that topic - on to the next one!".

The same thing happened last year with China. As soon as the Chinese New Year hit, they were done with that subject. Too bad, Phoebe, sorry you would like to learn more Chinese, and more about China, we're done. Glad you helped paint a dragon for our CNY parade.

Phoebe also doesn't do well putting things from paper into her brain. Ask her to learn verbally, she's awesome. Ask her to put things from her brain to the paper? She's awesome. This past Sunday, she spent at least an hour writing poems. She loves to do art, crafts, she's a great speller, and can generally recite math facts when she doesn't get herself all worked up.

The school doesn't quite know what to do with this. She struggles, she's distractible, the report card says she lacks focus (as you'll note from the previous entry). I've also caught her reversing her numbers, and she might just be doing it with letters as well. She insisted to me that 83+12=104... we had a big arguement over it while I was making dinner one night. I finally walked over to find that she was correct in her answer, but the question was actually 83+21. Later that night she claimed a problem said 39 when it actually said 93.

I'm going to talk to her teacher about getting her tested. It would be nice to be able to try switching schools if one has a larger/stronger LD program, if that is the case. But it's not possible. For now, I see her teacher on Thursday, next Monday she goes to the pedi, and we'll get an ophthalmologist referral and see if there is anything more we should do with her eyes, and we'll definitely keep trying to figure out what's going with her, and how to improve her learning opportunities.

Right now, standardized testing is definitely not going to reflect her abilities, only how well, and how quickly, she can read directions and follow them. Great.