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 ...
“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.
Coincidence? I think not.
“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.”
I teach in a K-8 district. We still give an 8th-grade diploma. 100 years ago, finishing 8th grade (elementary school) was considered an accomplishment that not all students could acheive. Only the very best went on to high school. Today, every student is considered high school material. Districts are penalized for high dropout rates. Kids who can’t do high school level work are warehoused in what used to be called “bonehead” classes. There is no way they are going to ever pass any kind of grade-level test.
I believe that most foreign nations that are kicking our butts in education are not sending everyone on to what we call high school.
It often is laziness and an aversion to hard work as you point out. But it is a bit more than that. I teach 8th-grade history. Last year I taught a big farm boy who could barely spell his name. But he did understand things. If I asked a question about supply and demand economics, he’d often be the first in the class with the right answer. He will never be good at schoolwork, but he already knows how to put in a 15-hour day putting up hay. He no doubt brought down our test scores, but the almighty test doesn’t measure everything a student or a school does.
marker
“That’s really worked out well.”
Actually, there have been improvements. Bad underperforming schools are closing and student scores are generally better than they were before NCLB.
Rather than screw things up now, they ought to let it play out until 2014
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