Posted on 04/23/2005 8:43:14 AM PDT by MikeEdwards
Enacted in 2002, NCLB or No Child Left Behind is a law that forces the public schools to implement measures which are intended to eliminate "the bigotry of low expectations" for poor and minority children as a condition of receiving federal money. Although many of the laws' mandates were required in the l994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, NCLB requires funding recipients to provide proof of accountability by demonstrating progress in eliminating the achievement gap.
Stipulations for receiving federal money are imposed on schools and are intended to minimize the achievement gap and ensure that all children be proficient in their grade level by 2014. Assessment results are deliberately broken into subgroups to reflect economic level, race, disability, and limited English proficiency to ensure that no group is left behind.
Over time, failure to make AYP, or adequate yearly progress will result in corrective action and restructuring measures designed to assist the school in meeting "state proficiency standards".
This week the National Education Association has filed a law suit against the federal government and is arguing that Section 9527 of the law says that the federal government cannot mandate a state or school district to incur costs not covered by federal funding. They claim NCLB is an unfunded mandate. The goal of the suit is to loosen federal requirements attached to the money or to raise the amount of funding to meet the alleged costs of making AYP.
Lawsuits with union backing and demanding more tax dollars to provide for an adequate public school education are becoming more common place. . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Worldwide, or even state-by-state, is there a positive correlation between spending on education and educational achievement? Or is the correlation negative? (If it's positive, DC public schools must produce just about the highest SAT scores in the country!)
But, of course, the evil Republicans do not care about the children, and the unions must squeeze more money from the government (how else can the unions hire more administrators to study the process of seeking grants to hire more administrators?)
Why does teaching ALL children the basics require additional money? Isn't that what all the money they get now supposed to be for? They get a gillion dollars already. If your typical inner city fourth grader can't read now, I doubt additional money is gonna be the magic key.
Funny thing is, funding for public schools has gone up and up and up over the past few decades, and results have gone down and down and down.
The NEA does not give a rat's butt about children. They are just like any other political lobbyist group/union. Give us more money for crappier results, or we'll just walk out.
Just damn.
Al Shanker the former head of the American Federation of Teachers, the NEA's smaller brother, put it clearly, "We'll pay attention to the interests of children when children get to vote in our elections." And he wasn't even pretending to care otherwise. The NEA likewise exists only to pad teachers' and bureaucrats' salaries and working conditions and protect them from being accountable.
The NEA would support federally mandated higher teachers salaries in a NY nanosecond.
NCLB is not a mandate because the requirements in the law are a result of states and local districts voluntarily deciding to participate in a federal financial assistance program. In order to receive federal financial assistance, schools and local districts agree to play by certain rules. Otherwise, they can decide to opt out of taking federal funds.
Total taxpayer investment in K-12 education in the United States for the 2003-2004 school year was over $501.3 billion, exceeding that for national defense. Federal funding for education is at an all time high and increased point to the 40 percent during the Bush administration.
If they want more money - maybe the districts can look behind their own doors to find money instead of letting things like this occur:
Detroit Free Press, "District repays $20 million stripped from special ed - Oakland Intermediate misspent money on technology, building
http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0309/09/a01-266699.htm
Detroit Free Press, "2 Oakland Schools officers won't heed call
for resignation," Aug. 25, 2003
http://www.freep.com/news/education/ois25_20030825.htm
Detroit Free Press, "Oakland board asked to quit," Aug. 23, 2003
http://www.freep.com/news/education/ois23_20030823.htm
Detroit Free Press, "School bosses in Oakland wine, dine and live
it up on taxpayers' dime," Aug. 22, 2003
http://www.freep.com/news/education/ois22_20030822.htm
Well that's basically true, although there certainly are those teachers who are more inspiring and motivating than others.
I wonder if Freepers realize that up until the early 1960's, the federal government had NO ROLE in education at all, short of some science grants and the GI BIll. No Dep of Ed, no HeadStart, none of this 60 billion dollar fiasco we fund today and for which we get squat in return.
Of course then too, in 1960 the entire federal budget was less than 100 billion dollars, of which about 50 billion was defense. Wasn't the Great Society grand...see what it's done for us
I think more and more people are figuring out that the NEA is the enemy of sound education.
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