Education Law May Hurt Bush

[Khephra]

FAIRLEA, W.Va. -- President Bush's No Child Left Behind education program -- acclaimed as a policy and political breakthrough by the Republicans in January 2002 -- is threatening to backfire on Bush and his party in the 2004 elections.

The signature education plan vows to improve the performance of students, teachers and schools with yearly tests and serious penalties for those who fail them. Although many Republicans and Democrats alike are confident the system will work in the long run, Bush is being criticized in swing states such as West Virginia for not adequately funding programs to help administrators and teachers meet the new, and critics say unreasonable, standards.

Bush hoped to enhance his image as a "compassionate" conservative by making this education program one of the first and highest priorities of his administration. But he could find the new law complicating his reelection effort, political strategists from both parties say, as some states report that as many as half or more of schools are failing to make the new grade and lack the money to turn things around promptly.

more......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17509-2003Oct12.html

[NJCher]

1. schools not qualifying

I heard on the radio where some ridiculous amount of schools in NJ will not qualify.


Cher

[texas_teacher]

2. It's rigged

That's the way it's meant to be. Call schools bad...say they don't qualify. It's opening the door for voucher programs.

I teach at an excellent middle school. We have great test scores yet we teach more than just the test. My school did not meet the No Child Left Behind Requirements and was written up in the paper for being a "bad school".

Do you know why we didn't meet requirements? For "participation". Two kids staying home on test day (and there are no make-ups) left us .2 percent below the level where the standards said we need to be. Now we are labled as not meeting requirements.

How are we supposed to make kids show up on test day? Drive to their house and force them into a van? It's rigged...especially since the kids are not allowed to make up the test if they are absent.

Rigged...riggged rigged.

[Dan]

3. Would you explain to me

How in the world, could Texas unleash such an asswipe like Bush on the world?

[mbperrin]

4. Oh no you don't

Daddy Fuckwad drove to Texas from Connecticut - we didn't invite him, we never advised him to reproduce; ask the rest of those immigrant Yankees in the Metroplex who were his neighbors what he's all about!

Blame it on Kennebunkport!

[treepig]

18. you do know the 'driving to texas' story is a myth, right?

The canonical Bush-approved printout is readily identified. One dead giveaway that became a joke among the authors of the present study was the inevitability with which the hacks out to cover up the substance of Bush's life refer to a 1947 red Studebaker which George Bush allegedly drove into Odessa, Texas in 1948. This is the sort of detail with which such hacks attempt to humanize their subject, in the same way that horseshoes, pork rinds, and country and western music have been introduced into Bush's real life in a deliberate and deceptive attempt to humanize his image. It has been our experience that any text that features a reference to Bush's red Studebaker has probably been derived from Bush's list of approved facts, and is therefore practically worthless for serious research into Bush's life. We therefore assign such texts to the "red Studebaker school" of coverup and falsification.

What is finally the truth of the matter? There is good reason to believe that George Bush did not first come to Odessa, Texas, in a red Studebaker. One knowledgeable source is the well-known Texas oil man and Bush campaign contributor Oscar Wyatt of Houston. In a recent letter to the Texas Monthly, Wyatt specifies that "when people speak of Mr. Bush's humble beginnings in the oil industry, it should be noted that he rode down to Texas on Dresser's private aircraft. He was accompanied by his father, who at that time was one of the directors of Dresser Industries." "I hate it when people make statements about Mr. Bush's humble beginnings in the oil industry. It just didn't happen that way," writes Mr. Wyatt. Dresser was a Harriman company, and Bush got his start working for one of its subsidiaries. One history of Dresser Industries contains a photograph of George Bush with his parents, wife, and infant son "in front of a Dresser company airplane in West Texas." Can this be a photo of Bush's arrival in Odessa during the summer of 1948? In any case, this most cherished myth of the Bush biographers is very much open to doubt.

http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1928

[fizzana]

5. Stupid, dishonest media and a stupid electorate.

n/t

[NJCher]

8. thanks for the info

Two kids staying home on test day (and there are no make-ups) left us .2 percent below the level where the standards said we need to be. Now we are labled as not meeting requirements.

I think it's important to know that such arbitrary standards can make a good school look bad. Sounds like this is deserving of a few letters to the editor.


Cher

[tabasco]

6. Another ill-conceived plan by an incompetent administration

Their plans are not thought out past Thursday. But what wonderful names they give to their initiatives. Too bad they have such disastrous results. Not surprising from a group of idealogues who do not respect a wide range of ideas.

[BeatleBoot]

7. The Connecticut Cowboy

Strikes again!

[Rose Siding]

9. Their solution is to get the message out?

snip>
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said: "The Democrats are still the default party in this setting, unless we are out there pushing our message." He said he is not surprised the GOP is starting "to slide" on the issue because Bush is focused on other matters, but he predicted education would rebound into a "political" winner when the president and others start contrasting their plans for accountability and standards with the Democrats' demand for more money.
end snip>

They actually plan on going into public and saying out loud that standards can be raised WITHOUT money? -the "message" being a fresh pack of lies.

[DesignGirl]

14. Home School

I home school my children and there has been a lot of information lately about the federal government wanting the have some new regulations for us(right now home school regs. are by state). Today I recieved this in the mail.

http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/10-18-03/closing_1.asp

[Fish Eye]

23. Thanks for passing this on

Its a lonely world for the "liberal" home educator :(

I have always found it an irony that our family's politics run counter to the politics of those who protect our freedoms to home educate our children. The dems have really dropped the ball on parental rights.

Although we home educate we are very involved in community education programs and strongly support both public schools and teachers unions!

I wonder how many DU posters home school??

[CheshireCat]

10. SC is having problems meeting the standards

of "No Child Left Behind". Even some of the better schools in SC are barely making it or missing it.

Lots of "letters to the editor" and editorials in SC papers putting down "No Child". Bush is losing SC support on this one.

Maybe by 2004, SC will be a swing state.

[Rose Siding]

11. The Note calls this an "I-told-you-so bouquet to Howard Dean"

snip>
You don't have to be Laura Blumenfeld (but it helps … ) to understand that a big part of Dean's success is that he connects with his listeners.

But he doesn't connect because he is some sort of spell-binding speaker.

And he doesn't just connect because of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Dean actually has an integrated, coherent critique of why (to steal, yet again, from Bill Clinton) America should fire the guy in the job now and hire him on to take over.

One not-small example:

Well over a year ago, before the New York Times had given Dean stories Ornstein Banishment treatment (and then given up and allowed them again); before magazine covers became run-of-the-mill; before even Howard Fineman saw what was coming — before all that, Howard Dean was criticizing his party for signing on to No Child Left Behind.

Dean would tell any reporter or voter who would listen exactly what was going to happen with the law and why it wouldn't work and why Democrats in Washington had made both a substantive and political mistake by helping the president pass it. more......

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html

[Evanstondem]

12. Yes, Dean was out front on this one

Here's the link to a NYTimes story on the New Jersey test situation, plus on by Michael Winerip on a school that failed because it had too many special education children who didn't test at grade level. Keep an eye out for other Winerip articles on this subject, every one that I've read has been disturbing but outstanding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/education/04JERS.html?ex=1066190400&en=89d679464ccec113&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/08/education/08EDUC.html

[drfemoe]

21. Which Democrats??

"Although many Republicans and Democrats alike are confident the system will work in the long run, Bush is being criticized ... for not adequately funding programs to help administrators and teachers meet the new, and critics say unreasonable, standards. "

Nader has put the question to the coalition leader if he supports the republican platform in texas. (story on du somewhere) ..

OF COURSE HE DOES!!

The republican platform in tx calls for the end of the department of education aka public education.

As msg #11 points out

"Unlike most of the Democratic candidates, Governor Dean criticizes No Child Left Behind for more than just the inadequate funding levels. (snip for space)
Third, the bill places other requirements that have nothing to do with learning, but that take the power out of school boards and other local bodies where people have the most power to shape their own communities. (snip .. more .. )http://deandefense.org/archives/000616.html

[young_at_heart]

13. Teach to the test..........what kind of results will this bring?

As a retired teacher I believe that many teachers will lose the necessary ingredient for good teaching......fire! Without the fire and the creativity that goes with it many teachers will just give up.

[booksenkatz]

15. My Republican brother is a vice principal at

a swanky Texas public high school... even he is so disgusted with Bush's breathtakingly bad educational policies that he is planning to vote against Bush in 2004. All I hear when I go down there for a visit is my brother growling through his gritted teeth about "unfunded mandates" and "teaching to the test" and "kids aren't able to learn a damned thing under these circumstances" and "we don't have the funds to do anything," etc.

Believe me, if even my brother is disgusted, there's no question in my mind that plenty of other Republicans involved in public education are equally disgusted. My brother's always been a die-hard Repub, so it's nice to see his eyes opened. Whatever it takes.

[Iris]

17. Good! Public education is "ate up" with conservatives.

It's about time they all wake up and smell the chalk dust.

[fob]

16. Of course it will. Education is Kryptonite to a bush*!

nt

[Lindacooks]

19. I'm for ANYTHING

that hurts the chimp.

[callous taoboy]

20. I am an elementary school teacher

and this "No Child..." crap is CRAP! But forget about the tests for a minute. Not many people know what a sham the whole testing industry is, and believe me they are banging down the big bucks, bucks that would be better spent on schools. I worked at a company scoring tests for a short bit and it was a fiasco, so much so that I sent a letter to "Frontline" proposing that they expose these hucksters. I was a manager and I had people working under me that did not understand the rubric we were using to score the tests! I know for a fact that they were returning tests that were incorrectly scored. What we have with bush is lie upon lie upon lie.

[drfemoe]

22. so

from this thread I gather at least the 'tests' were funded?

B & R ?