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Education Standards Likely to See Toughening
By Sam Dillon
The New York Times
April 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his team have alternated praise for the goals of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law with criticism of its weaknesses, all the while keeping their own plans for the law a bit of a mystery.
But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. The law’s testing requirements may evolve but will certainly not disappear. And the federal role in education policy, once a state and local matter, is likely to grow.
Read more HERE.
4 comments:
As much as I detest local politicians on Boards of Education (as BOE's tend to be the MOST corrupt level of local government in ANY locale) so called "National Standards" are not the solution. This notion of "every child can learn" and "by 2014 everyone will be proficient" are dandy notions, but foolishly out of touch ones.
The first question about National Standards is "Who would create them?" Certainly not classroom teachers. They couldn't possibly understand what students need. How about a Bureaucrat? Or a co-called administrator. Or maybe a politician with no knowledge, experience, or training of any kind in education. But they did coerce enough members of their cult-like church to vote for them.
And what would happen if a kid didn't meet these "standards"? We would pull them out of every class imaginable and give them free before and after school tutoring and free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Surely some kids do need extra help because of a whole variety of individual issues. BUT we have lost sight of a simple premise. If a kid doesn't do the work, the kid should fail. Period. Can't read at the end of 8th grade? Fail. Can't pass Senior English? Fail. Let them fail! We are doing these kids a disservice by bending over backwards and making everyone EXCEPT the kid responsible for his/her lack of effort and procrastination.
Finally, think of how useless the Maryland State BOE has been as well as the National Department of Education. We are going to let these clueless individuals decide "standards"? Please.
As much as I hate the politics of local BOE's local control over education has proven time and time again to be far superior to state or national control.
Anonymous,
Although I usually don't like to respond this late at night because I'm tired and might make mistakes, I'm making an exception to my rule.
I actually agree with your comments as a whole...except of course for the part about detesting politicans on Boards of Education. I guess I still have a hard time seeing myself as a politician because I too detest politicans.
However, I agree, if a child fails, he should fail. I actually went through elementary school in South Carolina and if you failed, you failed, for up to two years at any one grade level. I was shocked to learn that in the state of "Merry-land" if a student fails, a parent can protest and demand the child to be advanced.
(shaking my head)
Ms. Abell,
While I'm about 50/50 when it comes to agreeing/disagreeing with your views I will give you this much credit,...you do not seem to be using a BOE post as a stepping stone to "higher" political office, and I think that's great.
Go through the roster of Southern Maryland politicians who got their start on the BOE...it's a lengthy list. Even some of the current members have run or are rumored to be considering a run for other offices in SoMd politics.
And look at many of them that did get their "start" at the BOE.
Minimal or poor education, no real "high-tech" connection nor understanding of the Washington D.C. business community. I don't think that we need to go on about that.
CCBOE lags so far behind in the technical preparation of four-year university students, it's just plain laughable.
Well, we now have an official graduating class from the "MIT" esque "North Point." I hope that the taxpaying parents of these students will be happy with the AP, SAT, and other standardized scores by which others will measure the students, teachers, and administration by.
Since the federal schools have sold their souls to uncle barry hussein, they will know that their top priority will be to continue to brainwash their students, and continue to tow the line of the socialist and Marxist philosophies that the school system so eloquently lays on each student, year after year.
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