Bush's High School Plan Faces Opposition

[struggle4progress]

By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

President Bush's plan to expand standarized testing in high schools is facing a fight from some of the same leaders in Congress who pushed through his first-term school agenda.

Bush wants Congress to require yearly reading and math tests in grades nine through 11, further extending a greater federal role in education. The No Child Left Behind law Bush championed requires tests yearly in grades three to eight, and once during high school.

Congressional education leaders are wary, if not opposed, to the way Bush wants to change high school, as outlined in his new budget proposal. He wants to spend $1.2 billion on high school "interventions," for example, but erase about as much from vocational education. Interventions could include dropout prevention efforts, individual assessments of students and programs to better prepare poor students for college.

That trade-off drew resistance from Rep. Mike Castle, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce's subcommittee on education reform. "It does not look likely" that Bush's testing plan will go forward in Congress, said Castle, R-Del. <snip>

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/02/09/national/w140037S87.DTL


'No Child' expansion likely to face trouble
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Bush's proposal to expand his signature education reform to high schools will likely face stiff opposition, even in a GOP-dominated Congress, lawmakers and observers said Wednesday.

Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware, a moderate Republican who has championed the No Child Left Behind law, predicted that objections from both parties could sink Bush's plan to test virtually every public school student from third through 11th grades.

Castle, the second-highest-ranking Republican on the House Education Committee, also chairs the Education Reform Subcommittee. At a forum on Wednesday he said he hopes lawmakers endorse the proposal, but "I can't give chances as being very high at this time." <snip>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-02-09-no-child_x.htm

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. I have mixed feelings

I teach elementary school and it infuriates me that our kids are held accountable but high schoolers are not.

On the other hand, I wouldn't wish this testing crap on anyone.

[Daphne08]

5. I was a high school teacher for 17 years

in a Southern state that early on adapted the now familiar program of Graduate Exit Exams, and it became a nightmare for the students, the teachers, the principals and the parents.

I really enjoyed my first decade of classroom teaching, and I know that I was a much more effective educator before the 'Accountability Testing' debacle began.

By the time I resigned in disgust, the pressure 'exerted from above' had taken a terrible toll on me personally, and the regimen had reached the point of being ludicrous since everyone (from the State Superintendent to the state legislators to the local school board members) expected nothing less than an ever-improving performance from the students. They became consumed with the production of test scores... often for their own political gains.

It was truly sad and frustrating, and it eventually devolved into the 'teaching of the test' in order to produce the expected results.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[expatriot]

2. Bush got NCLB through by suckering Kennedy... that won't happen again.

Bush needs Democrats to pass any 'federal' education plan.

[Mend]

3. I don't want vocational education destroyed....

this gives real careers to kids who are not academically minded but don't want to end up at Mal-Wart making $8 an hour.

[VegasWolf]

4. Why worry with testing? bush's budget leaves no support for colleges.n/t