Spellings hears tales of low teacher morale while visiting W.Va.

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Teachers may be frustrated and some schools aren’t living up to national standards, but the country’s top education official says public education is better off because of No Child Left Behind.

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings visited St. Albans High School on Friday and stopped at the state Capitol to talk with teachers, administrators, labor union officials and business representatives.

Spellings is visiting states to promote the No Child Left Behind Act, which is before Congress for reauthorization. But she’s also listening to criticism of the sweeping program in hopes of making it better.

Judy Belcher, whose daughter attends St. Albans High, told Spellings that many teachers felt stifled in what they could teach because they are focused on making sure students are proficient enough to pass the standardized tests that measure progress under the act.

“My daughter’s in AP classes, but even she’s felt hindered by this,” Belcher said.

The tests’ focus on reading and mathematics unfortunately has led some schools to limit the types of classes they offer, state Superintendent of Schools Steve Paine said.

“We’ve allowed ourselves to narrow in some cases what we’re teaching to reading, language arts and mathematics,” Paine said.

That, combined with the looming spectacle of working in a school labeled as failing, deals a blow to teacher morale, said Judy Hale, president of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia.

“We’re putting a lot on our teachers and our administrators, saying ’You must make our children successful,”’ agreed U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who accompanied Spellings to St. Albans High and the Capitol.

Spellings said a consensus has developed in the nearly six years since the program started on what improvements are needed.

She mentioned the way students with limited English skills are taught, the overall assessment of special education students, the ongoing problem of high dropout rates, a lack of resources and the need to recruit and retain quality teachers.

“There are not 10,000 things that need to be tweaked in No Child Left Behind,” she said.

Spellings noted that 83 percent of West Virginia schools meet the targets set by the act, well above the national average of about 70 percent.

The program is a major improvement over previous federal involvement in education, she said, which focused largely on students with the greatest needs.

“Lots and lots of kids were moved through the system with very little to show for it,” she said.

One point Spellings heard repeatedly was a desire for measures beyond standardized test scores to judge whether schools are improving. Kanawha County Schools Superintendent Ron Duerring said measures like improvements in special education classes and technology in classrooms should be factored in when assessing performance.

Despite those points, Duerring said the overall impact of No Child Left Behind has been helpful.

“We wouldn’t be having these conversations today if it weren’t for No Child Left Behind,” he said. “It was a wakeup call to educators and schools across the nation.”