The Real Child Left Behind
Education, Leadership No Comments »After 10 years the No Child Left Behind Act still continues to generate much discussion and debate in education policy circles. The components of this legislation spurred a lot of “movement” in educational communities. Pretty impressive, considering that our founding fathers allotted no power whatsoever to the federal government to influence the education of our country’s citizens. However, the real child who is being left behind is not the one who struggles to learn or the one who refuses; it’s the child who is diligent in completing coursework, carefully attends to classroom instruction and meets or exceeds standardized testing benchmarks.
Educators generally know very little about economics, and it appears from the state of our economy that politicians know even less. Having been thoroughly immersed in the subject in college and business school, I believed I’m qualified to explain the concept of scarcity and its impact on resource allocation. When a group of people need a specific amount of food, let’s say, to survive and an amount only equal to that is available, there are only two allocations that can exist: either each person receives an equal share of the available food, or some receive enough while others do not. This is analogous to teacher attention in the classroom. A teacher’s attention is a finite resource – it cannot be increased, only allocated. That’s a problem administrators and policy makers all too often choose to ignore.
Ideally, a classroom teacher would like to allocate her (or his) attention equally among the students because she cares about each one equally. It’s rarely possible for this allocation to exist for several reasons. The need for teacher attention, like other needs, differs from student to student. There are many reasons a student might need a level of teacher attention that is more than “average”: cognitive or learning difficulties, behavioral or emotional problems, lack of sleep or nutrition, struggles with particular curriculum content or sometimes just “I need a dose of TLC.” These are all areas that most teachers address every day in the classroom. If teacher attention is the fertilizer that spurs learning growth, all of the classroom flowers need it or they will wither. But not all flowers are tended equally.
If our education system truly left no child behind each student would receive every bit of attention necessary for them to flourish as learners. However, I think most educators within smelling range of the front line trenches of actual working classrooms would agree that there’s not enough to go around when there’s 25+ students in the room. That forces a resource allocation problem. Who gets allocated a larger portion? Students qualifying for services or covered under the requirements of IDEA, ELL and 504 do. So do students who demand a larger portion by being disruptive in the classroom. Parents who are strong advocates (squeaky wheels, for better and worse) for their child do, too. So who’s left that get the remaining crumbs of their teacher’s attention? Non-disruptive students with less engaged parents who are not covered under some acronym. By allocating our scarce resource in this way are we doing the right thing for all students? I don’t think so. Some of the “attention orphans” progress successfully through school and get good grades, while others do not. It’s possible to argue that the ones who progress successfully don’t need much teacher attention, but I don’t agree. A strong student can achieve even greater heights with the coaching of an attentive teacher. And, his/her parent pays taxes to fund education, just as all parents do. Why should that student be forced to go it alone if he/she wishes to go above and beyond successful?
I don’t have the magic answer to the resource allocation problem. If I did, I would write a book and get rich. I just know that it continues to be a source of stress, frustration, anger and sadness for me and many great teachers with whom I’ve worked. It would be easier to endure if more administrators and education policy makers would even acknowledge the problem. Too often this elephant in the room is ignored through pretense that we can always give more attention to one student without removing some from another. Who loses in that situation needs to be considered. At least until we can honestly look each other in the face and claim with conviction that no child is left behind.

It’s been quite awhile since I have indulged in writing in this venue. It’s not that I stopped writing, but my thought bandwidth and writing activity have been devoted to other arenas, not the least of which is my doctoral dissertation. However, given that my doctoral studies involve educational leadership and policy, I do continue to think regularly about the organization and operation of schools, districts and ed policy makers. Having spent quite of bit of time in recent months with school principals and assistant principals at every level, I realize that schools, like businesses, are run according to varied management philosophies. There are two with which I have some experience, and they have the same acronym: MBI. Management By Intimidation, and Management By Inspiration. Both philosophies are represented in my school district, and I suspect they are in many others.
Although country music is really the only genre that I can’t listen to (okay, that techno-ick is pretty bad, too), I found myself a while back watching a few minutes of the Country Music Awards. While some balding guy with a cowboy hat and overtight jeans on strummed a guitar I was reminded of the old classic song “Mommas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.” Since I have always liked cowboys and western movies, I wondered why cowboys are not to be role models. Then I decided that
There always comes a time during the school year when the economist in me finally peaks out and I take a moment to teach my students the concept of finite resources. The basic idea is that there is only so much “stuff” to go around in the world, and that this is the source of competition. Because it’s pretty safe to assume that every child in my class has watched Animal Planet and/or the Discovery Channel, I refer to lions and antelopes. I tell them that it’s much more enjoyable to live your life as a lion than as an antelope. Lions go out and get the “stuff.” Antelopes are the “stuff.” Another way to extend the metaphor is to understand that not all lions get enough antelope. Some lions are fatter than others, but even those lions have it better than the antelopes.