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Posted on 08/08/2011 5:29:01 AM PDT by markomalley
State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break.
The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said.
The goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to have every student proficient in math and reading by 2014. States have been required to bring more students up to the math and reading standards each year, based on tests that usually take place each spring. The step-by-step ramping up of the 9-year-old law has caused heartburn in states and most school districts, because more and more schools are labeled as failures as too few of their students meet testing goals.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
In their eyes, this must be better than teachers cheating. Too much work otherwise.
Public schools lower standards, refuse to maintain discipline, and exclude parental involvement. The results are predictable.
My cynical side suspects that those exempted schools will be those whose students the law was designed to not “leave behind” but whose parents are more interested in the free breakfast and lunch programs than in whether Jr. can read or multiply.
Losers attempting to ensure an increasing number of losers.
(If we want an intelligent electorate, education MUST be reformed.)
My experience with public schools — and it is considerable — is that they have little control over students whose parents don’t care.
And they are many.
They not only encourage, but beg, for parental involvement, but parents have better things to do than rear their own kids.
And, as you said, the results are predictable.
I am still wondering why we have a Federal Education law for STATE schools to be concerned over.
Incredible. While a lot of Freepers criticized this program on principle, this was one of Bush’s few effective measures and did result in improvements in state-run schools educational standards and the use of education dollars.
So now because a bunch of fat-butted loser government teachers in Atlanta got caught cheating - cheating the kids more than anybody else - we have to get rid of the main objective of the law. Of course, the extra money they got to assist with compliance will keep on coming.
Maybe because the states have done such a crappy job that it’s affected the country as a whole, causing the Feds to step in?
Mike
I see.....so we should just get rid of truancy laws? Maybe we should get rid of compulsary education all together?
No Child was legislation that was passed into law. I really have to question another one of these Obama by fiat being a legal move to bypass legislation. It would seem that another bill would have to be written approved by both chambers and signed by a president.
That is why they have “alternate” schools for the kids who don’t want to learn. It gets them out of the way of those who do.
Standards are so mean! What about self esteem, those nasty standards make some kids fail and that damages their self esteem. s/
later
Exactly, many parents just use school as a daycare center
They must not be in the ‘alternative schools’ if they’re “ kids who do not want to be taught” and “waste(ing) teachers time with misconduct”
The voucher movement is the only rational way to break the cycle—and after 60 years of Teacher Union control and liberal indoctrination, the effects on our society will take another 60 years to undo.
To get our money back that we send to Washington every year. That way, they can mandate free day care, free lunch, free breakfast, diversity training, sensitivity training, sexual deviant training, global warming training, sustainability training, choo choo training, etc. We send a dollar in taxes and get back 60 cents but we get to support a host of bureaucrats along the way.
Well, they should be. I know where my kids went to high school there were two alternative schools for the troublemakers. From what I could see, it was a way to conform to the requirements that they attend school, but there was very little learning going on. “Out of sight, out of mind”.
Many don’t understand how NCLB works. States set standards for what they expect kids to master at each grade level. Each year the number of kids who must be rated “Profcient” or higher is raised. This year the number was set at 75 percent. (in 2014 it will be 100 percent.)
No one really believes it is possible to achieve this. Logic tells us that half of the population at large is below average in intelligence. Some are far below average, yet we are expected to get them to basically work at grade level. On a personal note, I have 8th graders who are reading at an 11th or 12th grade level and some as you might expect, read at a 4th grade level on their best days.
So what are we to do? Some schools, like Atlanta choose to cheat. Some states have tried to lower the standards—states that had high standards before NCLB got hammered by its yearly rise in what constitutes a passing grade. Many schools now devote their entire curriculum and classroom day to passing the test. Many elementary schools are dropping classes like history since it’s not on the test.
And even then, most schools fail to meet the standard. This year 16 percent of Missouri school districts passed NCLB. And it is not enough that 75 percent of your students pass...75 percent of students on free/reduced lunches have to pass, 75 percent of identifiable minorities (which includes blacks, Asians, Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Pacific Islanders if memory serves) have to pass, 75 percent of limited English speakers have to pass and 75 percent of IEP students (that’s “special Ed) also have to pass.
Just thought some of you would be interested in why so many schools are not meeting NCLB standards. In a couple of years none will.
Obama and his liberal followers are rapidly turning America into a country of losers.
I see this reversal today as pure pandering for votes. Obama is bleeding liberal support and he is going to do more of these types of things to get it back. He is SCUM (but we already knew that).
No Child Left Behind = All Children Left Behind
Obama needs his followers dumb and clueless. Pretty soon learning to read will be a privilege.
What am I missing here?
Since the tests are supposed to measure what the curriculum is supposed to teach, isn't that what they should be doing - teaching the students the material needed to pass the test?
If there's any mismatch, they can either change the tests to match what's being taught or change the curriculum to match what's being tested.
“My experience with public schools — and it is considerable — is that they have little control over students whose parents don’t care.”
And WAY to much control over students whose parents DO care!
Alternative schools are upheld to the same state tests. Unfortunately, in our county the test scores at the alternative high school lead to the entire county being found 'failing.'
...where do you go to school son?
...Obama elementary...
...how old are you?
...36...
Well, one thing is, do you want the curriculum to be set by local districts or by the state board of education? Since I started teaching 30 years ago the trend has been toward state control of curriculum. There are some who are wanting to see it become federal control. There is a saying (don’t know that it is true) that a Frenchman can look at his watch and know what lesson is being taught in every classroom in the country. That is not how we have approached education in this nation.
I expect that if you are more than 30 years old, what you were taught was decided at the local level—perhaps even by your teacher or administrators in your local district. The requirement of state standardized tests leads to a state standardized curriculum.
Well, one thing is, do you want the curriculum to be set by local districts or by the state board of education? Since I started teaching 30 years ago the trend has been toward state control of curriculum. There are some who are wanting to see it become federal control. There is a saying (don’t know that it is true) that a Frenchman can look at his watch and know what lesson is being taught in every classroom in the country. That is not how we have approached education in this nation.
I expect that if you are more than 30 years old, what you were taught was decided at the local level—perhaps even by your teacher or administrators in your local district. The requirement of state standardized tests leads to a state standardized curriculum.
So now because a bunch of fat-butted loser government teachers in Atlanta got caught cheating
How do you know it resulted in improvements? You think Atlanta is the only district cheating?
The cheating was the most predictable outcome of this boondoggle law.
“Maybe because the states have done such a crappy job that it’s affected the country as a whole, causing the Feds to step in?”
The stupid kids get to vote. That’s why we have Obama in charge.
The Jeffersonians may not want to accept it but the countries that are beating us in math and science all have strong national standards.
Originally, Bush was to have the failing schools to allow parents to choose their own schools, if the school didn’t pass and have enough kids on track.
He caved to Teddy, and it didn’t make it into the bill.
Now, it is being dismantled. Can’t have choice of education for the sheeple.
“No one really believes it is possible to achieve this. Logic tells us that half of the population at large is below average in intelligence. Some are far below average, yet we are expected to get them to basically work at grade level. “
You need to be an Einstein in order to come up with a theory of relativity but you don’t need to have an Einstein IQ in order to master an elementary school curriculum. Just a lot of hard work. That’s the problem with this country. Nobody wants to do any work and there are some who want want to reward such laziness by offering vocational school offerings.
Most mandates have been socialist in nature. No Child Left Behind (NCLB)is an example.
NCLB was the brain child of Senator Edward Kennedy, with the agreement of one of our better presidents compromising with the Democrats to try to improve education.
The unions, especially the NEA have tried through the federal level to dictate a socialist curriculum, in an effort to bring the general population into the “progressive family”.
When and only when the Federal Department of Education is abolished, or defunded, will states again gain local control of curriculum.
If thing continue, just as in Europe, every child will be on the same page on the same day of the month, and will take the same test from the federal level, about the material they have learned. National tests will be given to graduate. The problem is that the further you get away from local control, the more socialist the nature of the curriculum.
Also a lot of those same countries don't have public education, everyone has to pay.
Remember, until approximately WWI most countries had a defacto caste system, when who you were born to determined what occupation you might aspire to.
“other school reform requirements”
which are....
Refuse to discipline, no-legal suits, parent attitudes, removal of the authority of teachers, parents letting their children know that no one but they can discipline them, and again numerous law suits that have removed any idea of in-loco-parentis (not really refusal, but dictates from the federal level). By the way we still paddle in my school district.
Excludes parental involvement, no-parents are really involved until the child is about 11, but once the students move into middle school, or high, they disappear. This is despite numerous, and repeated efforts to get them involved.
I worked in the school system for 35 years, and during the first 12, you did not have “expulsions”. But once the generation came to school that watched TV programs that denigrated education, and repeatedly depicted disruptive children as “cool”, things changed. Now there is not a school board meeting where two or three are being expelled for drug possession, attacks on teachers or staff, repeated disruption, and out right crimes.
Society has changed, and so a school is only as good as those who attend it. that's why I like church education (even they have problems), or private schools, that can expel and discipline.
For the first time, Federal dollars were tied to performance. I know that it has helped in some states where there was already a push for standards (such as Florida, where I live) and it has introduced the concept for the first time to certain other states, particularly in the South.
Some states were much stricter in monitoring and had much tighter control of the process; Florida, for example, routinely examines the scores for suspicious “bulges,” and just this year cited something like 5 school districts as places with possible problems. In at least a couple of them, charges were brought against some of the people involved, and the districts lost the money they had been allotted.
Atlanta is a notoriously corrupt city and it’s actually a little surprising that they were even able to investigate it.
So it’s obviously going to be uneven, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. I don’t like public schools in general and think we need vouchers and school options for everybody, but if we have to have them, they should at least be able to produce results.
Did the law not set the standards? Does the law include an exemption clause? Someone explain to me where the education secretary gets his authority to issue waivers from a law passed by the legislature and signed by the President.
Federal dollars shouldn't be going to education anyway.
Some states were much stricter in monitoring and had much tighter control of the process; Florida, for example, routinely examines the scores for suspicious “bulges,” and just this year cited something like 5 school districts as places with possible problems. In at least a couple of them, charges were brought against some of the people involved, and the districts lost the money they had been allotted.
So Florida had corruption too? I didn't here about that. I did hear of about 15 other places. I also have to assume of course the Florida state officials aren't corrupted (long shot).And I pretty much figure I'm only hearing about the tip of the iceberg.
So it’s obviously going to be uneven, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
I don't see how creating a whole new Federal program the elicits corruption (which they usually do) is a step in the right direction.
I don’t like public schools in general and think we need vouchers and school options for everybody
School vouchers will do to private and good public schools what Section 8 vouchers did to the inner suburbs.
The Jeffersonians may not want to accept it but the countries that are beating us in math and science all have strong national standards.
Yes,that may well be true, but we Americans haven’t really had that discussion yet, have we. I seriously doubt that most FReepers want their schools’ curriculum set by the U.S. Dept. Of Education.
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