Exposed! NCLB designed to gut public edumacation

[KamaAina]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0503,perlstein,60130,6.html

That's just how the Bushies do things: They plan. Every action is calculated to set in motion a cascade of consequences, to change the world. Take "No Child Left Behind," the education "reform" so brilliantly named you can't be against it without betraying some perverse desire to, well, leave children behind. It is a stone hustle, meant to lay the groundwork to destroy the entire American public school system.

Look at it this way. You've heard of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the one that produces those anguished news reports every four years about all the countries American schoolchildren lag behind in basic skills. But according to the TIMSS, if Minnesota were a country, it would have the second-best science scores and the seventh best in math. By No Child Left Behind's statutorily required benchmarks of "Adequate Yearly Progress," however, only 42 percent of Minnesota fourth-graders were proficient in math. And NCLB's test targets increase every year. So by one estimate, in 2014, some 80 percent of the schools in Minnesota's world-class education system will be rated "failures."

The benchmarks are insane, you see. If one group within a school out of the 37 categories NCLB measures "fails," the entire school does. Which means, according to the president of the American Educational Research Association, 12th-graders should be proficient in math in exactly 166 years.

Which serves the administration's purpose admirably. Failure, glorious failure: In Chicago, the city must now offer 200,000 students the chance to move out of "failed" schools—but there are only 500 spaces in which to place them elsewhere. So now the public school system must be destroyed.

Couldn't've put it better myself, Rick.

Bonus coverage! Just above the NCLB piece is proof that the repukes have been gunning for Social Security for the past six decades after all.

[pmbryant]

1. Yep

This is the kind of thing I've been hearing ever since NCLB was passed. The standards are ridiculously high, and within a few years, almost all public schools will be deemed "failures".

:eyes:

Peter

[sandnsea]

3. The standards are ridiculous

Not ridiculously high, framing issue. The schools in my little district are rated failing because we missed the testing quota by one point. That's just flat ridiculous, not ridiculously high.

[cosmicaug]

5. Private schools.

sandnsea wrote:

Not ridiculously high, framing issue. The schools in my little district are rated failing because we missed the testing quota by one point. That's just flat ridiculous, not ridiculously high.

<SARCASM>So I take it that NCLB has equivalent standards that it requires for private schools, right?</SARCASM>

[sandnsea]

2. Bradley Foundation - $3 million vouchers

To Milwaukee private Christian schools through PAVE. Not only do they want public education to fail, they're working behind the scenes to help get kids out of the public schools any way they can. That's alot of money to invest into the destruction of the public school system, they're not going to back down easily.

http://www.pave.org/jahia/Jahia/pid/77

[Old and In the Way]

4. They're wrecking our public school system.

They're wrecking our economy.
They're wrecking our international reputation.

At what point do we begin using the "T" word? When does the lightbulb go on with the 50% who don't see the big picture of where the Republicans are taking this country?

[cosmicaug]

6. Try the other list.

Old and In the Way wrote:

They're wrecking our public school system.
They're wrecking our economy.
They're wrecking our international reputation.

Try the other list, it might be shorter. You know, the one listing the things that the administration has been doing right.


...



I'm waiting!

[Old and In the Way]

7. I'm hard pressed to think of anything that I could say they've done

well AND in the interests of this country.

[sphmug]

8. Lothar of the Hill People

Public education is a very good idea, but it is a very non-privitized idea, therefore Bush fears it.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi sphmug!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DeepModem Mom]

10. kick