Posted on 01/31/2010 7:16:30 PM PST by Steelfish
Obama to Seek Sweeping Change in ‘No Child’ Law
By SAM DILLON January 31, 2010
The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.
Educators who have been briefed by administration officials said the proposals for changes in the main law governing the federal role in public schools would eliminate or rework many of the provisions that teachers’ unions, associations of principals, school boards and other groups have found most objectionable.
Yet the administration is not planning to abandon the law’s commitments to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and encouraging teacher quality.
Significantly, said those who have been briefed, the White House wants to change federal financing formulas so that a portion of the money is awarded based on academic progress, rather than by formulas that apportion money to districts according to their numbers of students, especially poor students. The well-worn formulas for distributing tens of billions of dollars in federal aid have, for decades, been a mainstay of the annual budgeting process in the nation’s 14,000 school districts.
Peter Cunningham, a Department of Education spokesman, acknowledged that the administration was planning to ask Congress for broad changes to the No Child Left Behind law, but declined to describe the changes specifically.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Kevin Jennings wants to rename it “No Child’s Behind Left Alone”...
They (children) can't be taught to read and write while at the same time turned into "Obama Youth!" Especially in todays economic climate.
Such a shame.
as Don Luskin would say: The conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid.
Just what we need - children “educated” by folks who have “education” degrees and are union members.
Big woop.
ACORN could easily fudge test results from public schools.
One year from now, Lame-stream media will be glorifying Bambi’s “dramatic improvements in academic achievement” till the cows come home.
The only problem with it in the first place was that teacher’s union wouldn’t allow it to be applied to the classroom, for fear Bush would get credit for the results.
No one knows how to bring every child to proficiency. No one.
Average yearly progress (AYP) is a joke. It assumes that 100% of students will be at grade level in math and reading. I believe it is at 78.5% for this year. If you have 100% of your students at grade level then the material is too easy.
Here are some of the major problems with NCLB
Special Education students are expected to score the same as regular Ed. students. Unless severally disabled, for example traumatic brain injury. An I.Q. score of 73 can not compete with a score of 105 with all things but I.Q. being equal.
Students that come from Mexico are put in age appropriate grade instead of remedial programs. I have students that are totally illiterate in Spanish and English, and I teach 7th and 8th grade. Some kids only attended until 2nd or 3rd grade in their home country.
Attendance is used as an AYP factor. How the kids not making it to school is our fault is beyond me.
If you have over a certain number of students in given racial groups or special education groups then they count as sub categories. If the whole school makes AYP but African American, or special education students don’t, the whole school fails.
Students that are home schooled have their test scores added to their local school. Local school is usually determined by attendance zone or jurisdiction.
While that may sound like a great thing many students are home schooled to avoid discipline issues within the district, or to lessen the likelihood that the parent’s illegal activities are discovered by the authorities. Every time I get word that a student is leaving because parents want to home school it is a troubled student. All of the good home school kids start the year at home.
Testing, testing, testing. Can we please get some time to teach before we start testing these kids? We must give half a dozen different types of tests in a year, some of them 3 or more times.
Even Tom DeLay called this a horrible bill. I couldn’t agree more.
No matter how much we despise these Marxist, Fabian, commie scum that control, run, and work in the government indoctrnation asylums, you have to admire their tenacity and their relentless adherence to the teaching and imposition of their ideology.
Would that the Conservatives of the past 130 years had been as smart and ruthless...They have won...We have lost...
IMHO, the government asylums to which the serfs commit their offspring must be completely abolished. We need to return to the original "public" school system that was completely controlled and funded by neighborhood parents.
Only then will we have educated and freedom-loving children once again...instead of the endless uneducated drones that have been stamped out in Marxist cookie-cutter fashion over the past 30 years or so.
The schools will now be fully operational indoctrination centers.
Here’s another one.
Private,Religious or Home school. Only options.
Abolish the Department of Education. Eliminate the Federal participation in our childrens education. It’s a Parental responsibility. Public education should be in the hands of the locale be it City, or State.
Home Schooling should be encouraged. It keeps parents educated on education.
The public education system K-12 cannot be reformed. It must be dismantled brick by brick and education dollars should be directed to privately run schools as was the case in the beginning of the Republic.
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