‘Too destructive to salvage’
The only reason politicians like TOM PRICE, TED KENNEDY, GEORGE BUSH, HILLARY CLINTON… push this failed program is because they sold out to LOBBYIST! Does anyone support this pork filled program riddled with scandals?
USATODAY-It’s time to say in a national newspaper what millions of teachers, students and parents already know: No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is an appalling and unredeemable experiment that has done incalculable damage to our schools — particularly those serving poor, minority and limited-English-proficiency students.
It’s a stretch even to call the law “well-intentioned” given that its creators, including the Bush administration and the right-wing Heritage Foundation, want to privatize public education. Hence NCLB’s merciless testing, absurd timetables and reliance on threats.
Let’s be clear: This law has nothing to do with improving learning. At best, it’s about raising scores on multiple-choice exams. This law is not about discovering which schools need help; we already know. This law is not about narrowing the achievement gap; its main effect has been to sentence poor children to an endless regimen of test-preparation drills. Thus, even if the scores do rise, it’s at the expense of a quality education. Affluent schools are better able to maintain good teaching — and retain good teachers — despite NCLB, so the gap widens.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:44 pm
While I do not agree with federal regulation over schools and would be happy to rescind NCLB, the fact is, prior to NCLB, there was absolutely no accountability of failing schools. Schools on a downward spiral were relegated as under performing schools and remained there forever. At least NCLB attempts to insert some objective measure of performance, something the NEA opposes and resents since they have had free rein over our education system for too long and did not attempt to address the issue of chronically under performing schools.
So education companies vied for government contracts–that in and of itself, does not detract from the goals of NCLB to insert some objective measure of school success. I’ve been to education conferences and have seen the many, many education resources available in the free market. There is a wide range of education theory utilized to develop these products and companies aspire to different theories of learning. School systems are free to choose the education suppliers that best fit their needs but if we don’t have any objective measure of the effectiveness of their teaching methods, parents are often unaware their schools are under performing. With all its flaws, NCLB has been successful in identifying schools that do serve their communities well.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:47 pm
edit above: With all its flaws, NCLB has been successful in identifying schools that do NOT serve their communities well.
Is there any other way to edit one’s posts?
June 1st, 2007 at 12:08 am
Bad law, bad government follow up on the funds spent.
Just give people vouchers who want their children to go to a school they can choose.
I find it interesting that public schools are placing restrictions on how many days a student can miss. Why, because they get paid for attendance.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:10 am
“I find it interesting that public schools are placing restrictions on how many days a student can miss. Why, because they get paid for attendance.”
But, what’s wrong with that? I’ve had to bribe my children before to achieve an end result. In some school districts, you are either spending money with truant officers or spend the same money having the child sitting in their desk and maybe learning a thing or two.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:46 am
“I find it interesting that public schools are placing restrictions on how many days a student can miss.”
Students who don’t attend class fail.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:24 am
It sure is a good thing those wonderful Republican’ts didn’t fund this program over the past six years.
Gosh, who’d want to miss the chance to leave some kids behind?
June 1st, 2007 at 6:03 am
David
No Child is a failed program that gives money away to lobbyist! How would giving it more money help?
June 1st, 2007 at 6:50 am
Hoads
How do you define underperforming schools? Are they simply comparing them with other schools? This is overly simplistic and naive. Different schools will be in different areas with different socio-economic needs and concerns. And why are “conservatives” so busy federalizing everything? Why don’t they focus on saving money instead? Let parents and teachers decide what’s best for students at the local level. The one advantage we have over China is we have a small % of highly intelligent people who excel, invent, and innovate. Why hold these people back?
June 1st, 2007 at 6:57 am
Why not local control!
June 1st, 2007 at 7:39 am
Under performing schools are determined by their standardized test scores, drop-out rates, rates of disciplinary action, SAT scores, PTA membership, student/teacher ratios to name a few. Schools that consistently rank low on these parameters year after year without instituting new methods of teaching, addressing parent involvment, illiciting learning behavior from students and instead, fall back on “these are poor students, this is the best we can do”–fail the communities they are supposed to be serving.
These schools always think more money is the answer and yet, a bigger budget rarely changes the fundamentals of the school’s performance. Look at Atlanta City public schools–the biggest budget in the state and one of the poorest performers.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:48 am
Federal anything is a ham fisted top down non-conservative approach to solving problems. One size doesn’t fit all in this country. It’s just a waste of money.
June 1st, 2007 at 9:00 am
My most influential teachers are the ones who went off on wild tangents, and connected everything so we would understand it. Life lessons, things which had nothing to do with the curriculum. Things they wouldn’t have time for if there was too much standardization. They were able to use their own styles of teaching.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Mr Konop,
What you meant to say was,
“No Child is a failed REPUBLICAN’T program that gives money away to REPUBLICAN’T lobbyist! How would giving it more money help?
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 pm
David
That was the KENNEDY and BUSH deal! BTW HILLARY still supports the bill why?