313 schools fail to meet federal standards

[walkon]

More than 300 poor Alabama schools - almost four times as many as last year - will have to offer parents a choice of what schools their children attend this year.

In the Birmingham-Hoover metro area, that number is 54, according to a list released Monday by state school officials.

The 313 schools on the list are there because they have large percentages of poor students who are struggling to meet standards in areas that include reading, math, language, writing and science.

snip

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1123579148309460.xml&coll=2

A quick vote poll has 93% saying that they would consider transferring their child from an "under performing" one.
Any idea how other states are doing. Are we witnessing the dismantling of the public schools as a planned consequence of "no child left behind"?

[TheFarseer]

1. Is overcrowding some schools and

emptying out others the answer?

[wtbymark]

2. i have an alarming statistic

my g/f is an 8th grade english teacher in Vermont, and has actually written some curriculum for all of New England. She says, that by 2012 it will be impossible for ANY school in the United States to pass the NCLB requirements. NCLB is the end of the public school system in the United States. By 2012 NOT ONE school in the US will be funded with fed dollars. Millions of US children will go without any education at all!

It's a staple of the neo-con ideology, it's socio-class Darwinism.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

3. This is their Fucking NeoCon PNAC plan

We've got to stop it now. Cindy is a
gift to us! We are lucky to have her

[walkon]

4. That is more than alarming!

My son will just be starting high school by then. What chance is there that NCLB could be killed? Or at least have adequate funding and reasonable standards.

In the articles locally the administrators keep saying they can meet standards and next year there will be fewer non-conforming schools. Number doubled this year (state wide up 400%) and a neighbor county had several schools become "non-conforming" for the first time under the standards. Are these officials foolish, blind or in on it?

Federal funding is still a small proportion of local school funding but all these "schools failing" headlines are bound to erode support for and faith in public education - already a convenient whipping boy for so many "politicians". Seems designed to fulfill the "can't be fixed" line of the neocon crowd - privatize and deregulate. Pour money into private hands with little or no accountability for anything. Do people really see this as a better alternative?

[quaoar]

5. The list of schools around Birmingham

consists of rural and inner city schools. No surprise there. Not a single school from Vestavia, Homewood, Mtn. Brook, Hoover or Shelby County on that list. But there are 22 schools from the Birmingham school district on the list and practically the entire Bessemer school district.

It goes to show that you get what you pay for. When you underfund schools, you get shitty results. The suburban schools that are not on the list have the highest property tax rates in the state.

[walkon]

6. Shelby did have schools on list

None were from the northern end of the county. The trick here is that if any sub-group of students fails to meet standards then the whole school "fails". With the mandate of including special education students and non-english speaking students as sub-groups then one would expect more schools to "fail".

It is complicated but NCLB, if followed by the letter, will have no impact other than the destruction of the public school system.

Some good info RE: NCLB

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/hoax.shtml