Candidate for
Board Member; Oxnard Elementary School District

I have been a teacher for 20 years and Oxnard School District Board Member for the past 5 years.

Tests are not the problem. The problem comes when students, teachers, schools and communities are punished because of the test results. Support must be the answer. Instead, NCLB runs under the pretence that teachers teach better under threat of less support.

The only thing that NCLB has taught us is that children who live in affluent communities do better on standardized tests than children of lesser affluent communities. Punishing children because they don?t have a higher tax base is cruel.

By 2012 the expectation will be that 100% of students will succeed. Great goals! But NCLB will be changed well before the affluent schools cannot meet the targets.

We must support our students. We must provide more and better academic materials and opportunities. We must have the same high expectations as NCLB, but we must also support the teacher, student and community, not threaten them.