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I read three items recently that led me to the conclusion that many people don’t really understand who public education is intended to help. I’ve always thought that public education was about preparing California’s children for success in college and the world of work. As I read these articles, I can’t help but feel that other people have a different view.

First, this report from UC Riverside which found that nearly 80% of teachers don’t like the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Is this surprising to anyone? No one likes having requirements placed upon their work. No one likes pressure to improve. Most people would prefer to just be left alone and do what they want. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works.

This doesn’t seem like a very efficient use of public research funds. What will he study next? My guess is in his next study, he’ll find that nearly 80% of children don’t like to each vegetables or clean their room. Perhaps he’ll find that nearly 80% of prison inmates don’t like prison.

The only interesting finding was that the teachers who like NCLB "worked in low-performing schools with high minority populations.” Your gut would tell you that these should be the teachers who hate it the most, but that’s not the case. I suspect that they can appreciate the value of focusing attention on the performance of their low-income and minority students more than they view NCLB as a problem for them.

To me this survey, focused on how NCLB affects teachers rather than how it might change their student’s educational experience, shows that many think public education is about teachers instead of students.

The second article is this opinion piece from Representative Tim Walberg, one of the sponsors of the "Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act" (A-PLUS). This proposal would gut NCLB’s accountability and give states more flexibility in using federal education funds and designing their own accountability systems.

While on the surface that sounds like a good thing, you have to remember the track record of states before NCLB. Some states did well in educating their children and others, like California, didn’t. While Representative Walberg claims that his proposal will improve public education by giving "states and local communities the ability to produce academic achievement", the reality is that it would remove the only pressure that schools have to focus efforts on minority and low-income students.

In California, we’ve found time and time again that state education leaders talk of strict accountability while at the same time developing systems that lack any incentives for schools to improve or consequences for those that don’t. In fact, schools have incentives to fail in the form of additional funding.

Under NCLB, states have the ability to set their own standards for proficiency. In many states, although surprisingly not California, they have set incredibly low standards in order to get higher percentages of students to proficiency. When measured by the national NAEP test, they score significantly lower than on their state assessments. This "race to the bottom" as it has been called, is proof that on their own state’s won’t develop good accountability systems. They’ll develop systems that make politicians look good at the expense of our children’s future.

In my mind, this article just shows that many people think public education is about politicians, rather than about students.

Third, I submit this LA Times story about the allegations that Santa Ana Unified falsified classroom rosters in order to make it appear that they had less than 20 students per teacher. According to the reports, teachers were asked to sign rosters which didn’t include all of the students in their classroom. Those students were supposedly put on phantom classroom rosters with substitute teachers listed as the regular teacher.

The incentive for the district to do this is that by getting those classrooms down to 20 students per teacher is that they’d receive millions of dollars in Class Size Reduction funding. The district has already received $16M based on the assumption that they’ve met those targets.

This article shows that some people believe that public education is about schools and school districts rather than students.

These three articles are typical of what we see in the newspaper every day. It seems as though all of these other considerations take priority and that the needs of our children take a back seat to other concerns. In public education, the bulk of our problems are caused by the adults involved and not the children. In my ideal world of school reform, all the adults could put their personal agendas aside and focus their efforts on meeting the needs of kids to be prepared for college and work in their futures. I think we’re a long, long way from my idea world, but I try my hardest to keep looking forward to that day. In the meantime, we just need to work within our sphere of influence to make a difference where we can.

Dave Johnston lives in Ukiah, California.  This previously appeared on his blog, Friends of Dave.