Posted on 09/14/2007 5:52:23 AM PDT by George W. Bush
Thompson: Leave 'No Child Left Behind' behind
by Mark Silva
Sometimes, it doesn't take long for a party to disavow the gains of its own leaders. And sometimes, candidates regret their own votes.
...
Today, Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee and television and film star who has entered the campaign for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2008, suggested that it's time to leave No Child Left Behind behind. Thompson, campaignining in Florida -- where the president's brother, former Gov. Jeb Bush, also had made public school funding contingent on public school performance -- suggested that the federal government has gotten too involved.
And there is a certain irony in his position. As a senator, in 2001, Thompson voted for the president's No Child Left Behind Act -- as did most senators on both sides of the aisle. ...
"We've been spending increasing amounts of federal money for decades, with increasing rules, increasing mandates, increasing regulations," Thompson said. "It's not working."
He added that there are problems with the program itself. ...
Instead, he said, the federal government should be providing block grants as long as states set up objective testing programs.A woman asked what he would do for education. He told her decisions on how schools are run should be made by local and state decisions, not dictated out of Washington.
"It's your responsibility," he said. "If you don't like what's going on, don't get in your car and drive by your school board and maybe drive by the capitol and get on an airplane and fly to Washington and say, 'I don't like the way the school down the street is being run."'
(Excerpt) Read more at weblogs.baltimoresun.com ...
Block granting it still isn't ideal. But you have to chip away at it first and you have to campaign against it as a political idea. The contrast with the rest of the GOP field is striking (except for Ron Paul's policy to strictly eliminate it altogether along with the Department of Education).
There was an earlier thread on this but I think this one has more meat to it. I especially like the way Fred spoke to the topic as a matter of local control over schools and the insanity of trying to run to D.C. to fix the bad school down the street. It shows some sound instincts and a willingness to back away from bad policy.
So, score one here for Fred. He's singing the small-government tune pretty well compared to most of the other GOP candidates.
This is an excellent policy position. NCLB has to be the single worst thing to happen to public schooling in recent memory.
He’ll probably get a LOT of teachers voting for him.
Give me a break. Too many on this board cannot keep the hyperbole in check.
Look, I agree with Fred Thompson and probably most of the people on this board that the federal government should get out of everything that they are not supposed to be in because they end up screwing virtually anything up that they try to manage. I am with Fred on federalism. But "The single worst thing to happen to public schooling in recent memory..."
So you would rank the teachers unions where?
I don’t know about hyperbole. I can’t think of one single thing, in recent memory, that has harmed public schools more than NCLB. Can you?
How is my statement wrong? NCLB is simply the latest problem with public education. Teachers unions, liberal indoctrination and other such things had been going on since long before NCLB. Hence, when NCLB came around, it became the single worst thing to happen to public schooling in recent memory.
Teachers Unions
My school-teacher daughter will love Fred for this.
And year after year we find that the white and Asian kids are doing fine and the black and Latino kids aren't... but out of the last nine weeks, we spent three weeks on various standardized tests!! I can hardly believe anyone thinks it's a good idea to teach them for six weeks and then test, test, and test some more...
We implemented a testing program in Colorado and it has been an invaluable tool for parents and has provided performance data to make adjustments.
While I understand the need for a pay for performance type system, the fundamental question is “what is the role of the government”.
First, I do not believe that the Federal government should be sending money to school districts for education ... but that is a topic for a different thread.
Second, I do believe that the government should be establishing standardized testing for a nationally recognized HS diploma.
This is outrageous. He wants less gov't? Who was the last president who was for less gov't?
Everyone talks about the weather but doesn’t do anything about it.
Some extra random facts on why nationalizing the schools won’t work:
-We won two world wars and came to be the world’s leading economy before one penny of federal money was spent on education
-LBJ was the first American socialist to federally fund k-12 education
-After major increases of federal money under Bush, only about 6% of education costs are paid by D.C.
My wife will like this, she is a teacher. If I had a dollar for every time I heard her or another one rale against “Every Child Takes One In The Behind” as my wife calls it, I would be debt free in a new 3000 Sq ft house with 2 new cars.
Sending money to school districts and establishing a standard test for a nationally recognized HS diploma are two very different things.
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