Grijalva: No Child law hurts English learners (LibLoon RETCH)

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva said Saturday the No Child Left Behind educational law must either be dropped or drastically retooled if it is to serve, and not fail, Arizona students, particularly English-language learners.

To summarize the rep’s apparent position: NCLB means that school progress is now measured on the basis of actual achievement for ALL children instead of the past practice of macro-averaging performance and hiding that some groups are underserved. Now schools are being held financially accountable if they fail to execute their mission and darn it, some of our schools failed. Now they are being punished for failing the children and that is sooooooooo unfair. How will those schools continue to underserve the children? How will those teachers be able to afford to contribute to my re-election campaign? Well, the sure sounds to me like mr-buy-me-vowel’s position. Ok, that last part was mean.

I have to agree with Grijalva (although not for the reasons he would like). NCLB was poorly crafted and doomed from the start because it was intended as an appeasement to the Dhimmis (who, as we all know cannot be appeased - only defeated!). Education should be funded and managed at the same level as it is administered - at the local level.

Let it die a richly deserved death!

Disagree. If NCLB was crafted to appease the Dhimmis, then they had a fast one pulled on them. I know for a fact that our schools now very much consider each countable portion^* of the student population and measure their progress. Before, if a group was under-performing yet the bulk of the student body was doing better than average, it didn’t matter when rating the school. Note well I’m not saying all schools ignored those kids, although I am sure some did. Now, however, school ratings are done on the basis of looking at each measurable subgroup. Doing great for most of the kids but leaving the ESL spanish-speaking kids behind? It gets noted. Black males lagging behind? The offsetting smart kids no longer obscure that fact. You better believe school administrations now ask what they can do to boost each group's scores. And it doesn't hurt the better performing groups either, since a slip in their performance shows up too.

Is NCLB perfect? Far from it but it has made a significant difference for those pockets of kids who were lost in the high-level stats and were truly left behind. It is the old business adage, “that which does not get measured gets ignored.”

^* If there are only one or two kids in a specific demographic group, they might not get a rating category of their own but they will usually roll up into another group. For example, one or two Haitian immigrant children don't get rated separately so there is no subgroup oversight of their progress but they may be covered by ESL categories, etc. Most schools get the picture and work diligently to help their children regardless of their grouping. I've worked closely enough with my public school to be proud of their efforts and am impressed by the professionalism of the educators.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.