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Re: Best Option for Students: Leave NCLB Behind
Cough, spit, barf...
Priscilla Gutierrez
Outreach Specialist
New Mexico School for the Deaf
...change is inevitable, growth is optional...
From: aburke5054@aol.com
Reply-To: arn-l@interversity.org
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Best Option for Students: Leave NCLB Behind
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:48:15 -0400
Whoa.? Citing this screed as reasonable opposition to NCLB shows how
out-of-touch FairTest is and how low you have sunk.? Do you really want to
climb into bed with people who don't want to spend money on schools and who
don't want the federal government "meddling" in schools to protect
children's civil rights?
The patriotic thing to do on the Fourth of July is to urge states to quit
cutting corners and quit playing games and meet their obligations to the
children NCLB is designed to help the most - poor children, minority
children, children with disabilities, and children learning English.?
Art
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>; arn2-strategy
<arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 5:24 am
Subject: [arn-l] Best Option for Students: Leave NCLB Behind
Though this editorial from a right-wing newspaper chain ignores the role
key Democrats played in developing "No Child Left Behind," it does show
how opposition to the law spans the political spectrum.?
?
BEST OPTION FOR STUDENTS: LEAVE NCLB BEHIND?
East Valley (Arizona) Tribune Editorial -- July 3, 2007?
?
The Republican Party under Ronald Reagan once promised to end the
federal government's grip on local education, with its oppressive
mandates that had little constitutional underpinning and a corrupting
but addictive drip of funding to hide the pain. The Republican Party
under George W. Bush pumped the federal government's education muscles
full of steroids and twisted our school systems into strangling knots
with the inaptly named No Child Left Behind Act. Bush has got his
syringe needle out again this year, proposing to throw even more tax
money at schools while dictating for the first time what classes high
school students must take to receive a diploma. If this trend continues,
it won't be long before local school boards and superintendents exist
only to collect property taxes and to fill out the paperwork for a
monstrous national system.?
?
But Congress has a chance to stop this travesty, simply by letting No
Child Left Behind expire this year.?
?
The promise of No Child Left Behind was that local schools would have to
teach every child to read, write, and do math at grade level. States had
to adopt standardized tests to gauge each school's success. Test scores
had to be reported not only by each school, but broken down by various
races and ethic groups and several other categories. Every group must
show progress each year, or the school is declared "failing" and could
faces severe penalties.?
?
The law is strict, and it is expensive - a total of $24.4 billion was
doled to states and local schools in the most recent federal budget just
to deal with No Child Left Behind.?
?
Five years since the law went into effect, we have had little progress
to show for all of the time, energy and money invested in this sweeping
mandate. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, a measure
independent of state standardized tests, indicates slight improvements
in lower grade levels but none in the upper grades. In some areas, test
scores have actually dropped.?
?
Many states have hidden this problem by designing standardized tests
that claim to show widespread success. A University of Berkeley 2005
study of 12 states revealed huge discrepancies between local testing for
reading and math and scores on NAEP, which is conducted by the U.S.
Education Department.?
?
Arizona's method of complying with No Child Left Behind is the AIMS
test, which has been rewritten several times and its "passing" scores
have been lowered. State officials have little choice but to find ways
to boost testing results, or they risk a huge number of schools being
declared "failing" under No Child Left Behind.?
?
An investigative report by the Associated Press last year found another
way states artificially help schools is by excluding millions of student
scores (primarily minorities and those with a learning disadvantage)
from individual category reporting. Arizona was leaving out tens of
thousands of test results from students still learning to speak English
for three years, until Education Secretary Margaret Spelling revoked the
Bush administration's informal approval of this arrangement.?
?
One benefit of the recent failure of immigration reform is Bush might
not have enough political leverage anymore to pursue additional
education mandates. But Democrats who now control Congress have grown
too comfortable with the idea of the federal government meddling in
education, and they certainly don't have a problem spending national tax
dollars on what should be local and state concerns.?
?
Republicans who remember Reagan's legacy can unite with critics who
realize No Child Left Behind is irreparably flawed, and release our
schools by simply blocking any attempt to renew the law.?
?
? http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/92661?
-------------------------------------------------------?
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