Re: Re: [eddra] [ HuffingtonPost.com ] Recommendation: The Zero Percent Chance of 100 Percent Success

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

Chaka Fattah has for several sessions introduced a bill, something like 
Student Bill of Rights, which would require states to equalize funding in 
order to obtain federal $ (I am over-simplifying). Gets about 150 Dem 
co-sponsors. Has not gone anywhere. My recall is it continues to assume the 
testing regime, but that is not essential to the bill. Don't know if it has 
been re-filed, but I expect it will be if it has not. Could check Fattah's 
website under www.house.gov or go to thomas.gov (I think that is write url) 
to hunt for it there. Far as I know, civil rights groups support it. Among 
them, the ones who like NCLB probably would want both, not $ as a substitute 
for "accountability."

Monty



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dwilmer@netzero.net>
To: <monty@fairtest.org>
Cc: <arn-l@interversity.org>; <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>; 
<eddra@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 1:10 PM
Subject: [arn-l] Re: [eddra] [ HuffingtonPost.com ] Recommendation: The Zero 
Percent Chance of 100 Percent Success


"...And what ways of phrasing this issue will they hear and
understand, positively react to. The more such folks we win over, the
easier it is to win the battle over whether NCLB is or is not
a "civil rights" law.

Monty Neill
FairTest"


I'm not sure if this is way out in left field, but how about focusing
their attention on the "funding gap." It was my impression that ESEA
was initially passed in order to help poor/minority schools out
financially, and I even recall reading that desegregating schools was
a requirement for receiving Title I funds. Perhaps an amendment to
NCLB could require states to develop funding schemes that, at the
very least, equalize funding between rich and poor districts, and at
best weight funding so that poor districts get proportionally more
money to meet the higher needs of poor children.

Certainly civil rights advocates can get behind that.

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