Posted on 09/14/2007 9:51:35 AM PDT by ReleaseTheHounds
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently offered a preview of Democrats’ plans for No Child Left Behind reauthorization: “So different will this bill be from the original No Child Left Behind, we’re thinking of changing its name.”
The House Education and Labor Committee recently released draft language of a new version of NCLB that begins to make good on the Speaker’s promise. Chairman George Miller’s (D., Calif.) committee draft plan hasn’t changed the law’s name (yet), but it does propose fundamental policy changes.
The new plan eases up testing requirements, allows many public schools to escape real school-reform requirements, and further limits school-choice options for parents. The plan would gut the most conservative elements of NCLB. In their place, it offers the typical liberal remedies in education policy — new programs, more regulations, and, of course, big spending increases.
.... Strengthening individual choice and ownership by expanding ESAs [Education Savings Accounts] should also appeal to parents and taxpayers. Helping families save for college and pay for K-12 education services (such as, private school tuition, tutoring, summer school, or home education) will ensure that more children receive a quality education that prepares them to succeed in life.
Policymakers face a test in the upcoming No Child Left Behind reauthorization debate: Will they finally recognize the folly of trusting the federal government to improve America’s schools and offer a bold alternative to the liberal, big government approach? Those hoping to pass this test would be wise to study the old conservative principles of limited government, federalism, and parental choice.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
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Some good ideas in this article for bringing conservative principles to reforming the "No Child Left Behind" act -- which evil Demos are trying to ruin. IMHO.
Another big waste of tax payers money.
Has any candidate expressed any intention of shutting down the US Department of Education?
That would get my attention.
Uh oh. We need another fix for federal meddling in education, a federal power which is no where mentioned (let alone authorized) in the Constitution, and which is arguably illegal under a fair reading of the 9th and 10th amendments found therein.
But that's OK, because federal fixes for education have worked out so well in the past. Just look at the record:
We have George W Bush and Ted Kennedy teaming up in 2001 to fix public education by giving us “No Child Left Behind,” which was supposed to fix a system supposedly already fixed by a 1994 piece of federal legislation called “Goals 2000,” which was supposed to fix a system already fixed by “America 2000,” which was a 1991 response during the first Bush administration to a 1983 Reagan-era federal report on education called “A Nation at Risk,” which was published a full four years after Jimmy Carter fixed the nation’s public school system by first establishing a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.
I mean really.
Dan, naturally, makes a good case.
Unfortunately, the party in charge has absolutely no interest in children or "students" or anything else other than those big campaign checks they get from the teachers unions. And the teachers unions have the singular goal of getting their filthy paws on as much taxpayer money as humanly possible. That's what their Democrats are there for.
In effect, the teachers unions are just another laundromat for Democrat politicians' campaign money, the same way trial lawyers and abortionists are.
The teeth in the NCLB are just now kicking in. All schools were given time to correct themselves before the penalties applied, which they now do. That is why the Democrats now want to eliminate the penalties and give more money and power to the teachers unions.
Don’t blame Bush and the Republicans. This was a true effort to reform education that would have worked by demanding accountability and punishing failure through the loss of funds and school choice. Now the Democrats are castrating it.
JMO—the single best thing that could be done for American public schools would be to scrap the federal education department in its entirety. The sooner, the better. Safer odds of hell freezing over, sadly.
Anyone know Constitutional Law? I don't know why "The Pierce Doctrine" sticks in my head - it may not have been called that...
Meyer v. State of Nebraska In a 1923 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state statute forbidding public and private school teachers from instructing students in languages other than English conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment and infringed upon both the teacher’s rights and parents’ rights “to control the education of their own.”[
conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment and infringed upon both the teacher’s rights and parents’ rights “to control the education of their own.”
Ahhh, wouldn't that still be the law?
Supreme Court Decisions on School Choice
Pierce v. Society of Sisters
In this 1925 decision, the Court struck down an Oregon law mandating that all children attend public schools. Justice McReynolds wrote for the Court:
Under the doctrine of Meyer v. Nebraska…we think it entirely plain that the Act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control…. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations
So would not these and possibly other SCOTUS rulings give parents the right to say "NO" to such programming as "Intolerance" aka, homosexual indoctrination?
We need to get some class actions suits going - with a couple real good Constitutional lawyers///
the Socialist/commies don't want to hear this - or to know that we know and might just reign these school indoctrination programs in -
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