No (Sleeping) Child Left Behind?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


President Barack Obama is making today an education day. He’s appearing at a middle school in Arlington, Virginia, to talk about “reforming education in order to win the future,” according to a White House press release. And he’s calling on Congress to “fix” George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law “before the start of the next school year.”

For Marylanders, today is an appropriate moment for such a call. This morning, schools in their state are holding the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) tests for certain grades. This is a series of tests of math and reading achievement that is mandated by the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. Schools will rise or fall, depending on the results of these tests, which supposedly will reveal how well the schools are performing. But here’s one data point that may not be factored into the equation: daylight savings time.

Due to springing forward one hour on Sunday morning, my sixth-grade daughter had a tougher-than-usual time dragging herself out of bed this morning in the dark. She begged to be allowed to sleep in. (That reminded me of a line I once heard Tom Waits growl: The only amount of sleep I ever needed was five more minutes.) Her car-pool friend had the same problem this morning. As we reached their middle school, I saw dozens of kids who seemed to be trudging up the hill toward the school more trudgingly than usual. And many of them were heading toward the MSA test being conducted in the first period.

So this final day of MSA testing will occur when the kids are not all right but exhausted. No doubt, this will affect test results. And I don’t think scores are adjusted for weariness. It was a lousy idea to schedule the MSA on a Monday morning following a time change. But this does illustrate a flaw in the law: standardized testing can be significantly influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the actual performance of a school and its teachers. This is not to say that testing has no role in evaluating school systems and teachers. But rigid adherence to testing will not serve the students or teachers. Just ask my daughter later about the value of today’s MSA in judging her school experience. That is, if she’s not napping.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate