Even top Florida schools may fail NCLB standards.

[madfloridian]

There is an interesting article in the Orlando Sentinel about coming school failures because of the No Child Left Behind program. It has been predicted that by 2013 public schools would fail to meet the impossible standards, and thus would be deemed failures.

As a retired teacher who spent her last few years at a school in a depressed neighborhood, it breaks my heart. They took money from our school and gave it to the schools in better neighborhoods, sometimes giving them two sets of textbooks while we had old decrepit ones. They had one set for school and one for home....so they did not have to strain their backs taking them back and forth.

Even top schools may fail

More than 1,000 Florida public schools do not meet federal academic standards and are drifting toward failure. Although some of these schools earn A's and B's under the state grading system, they cannot show success on the long checklist required under the federal government's controversial No Child Left Behind law.

More than 70 percent of Florida's eligible schools are off track toward satisfying the 7-year-old law, which demands high-poverty campuses receiving federal money meet tough academic standards.

"It's a little frustrating," said Jim Leslie, principal of B-rated Azalea Park Elementary in Orange County. "We do a pretty good job, and we're improving."

More:

But federal law says the improvements must come at a certain clip, and Azalea Park hasn't met those targets. So the school may be just a couple of years shy of having to overhaul its entire operation and, perhaps, replace the entire staff.

Statewide, 1,002 schools, including dozens in Central Florida, are on a similar path. Under the law, every child at these schools, regardless of race, handicap or family income, must read and do math on grade level by 2014. If one group falls short in one category -- black youngsters struggle with reading, for example -- the whole school is labeled in need of improvement.

It's a very long article, read it all. Very telling.

I really became aware of this flawed program back in 2003 when Howard Dean began to speak of it during his campaign.

2003 Howard Dean on NCLB... "every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school."

"The president's ultimate goal," said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, "is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he's starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools."

..."MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean on Sunday urged states to reject federal No Child Left Behind funding, and said he would if still governor of Vermont.

''It's going to cost them more in property taxes and other taxes than they are going to get out of it,'' Dean told The Associated Press following a campaign stop. Earlier in the day, he told a crowd of teachers and supporters at Merrimack High School that ''Vermont would have been the first state to turn down that money'' if he still was governor.

Dean criticized President Bush, saying his administration will lower the standards for good schools in New Hampshire, making them more like poorly performing schools in Texas. The Bush administration believes ''the way to help New Hampshire is to make it more like Texas,'' Dean told supporters in Manchester, adding that ''every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school....Every group, including special education kids, has to be at 100 percent to pass the tests,'' Dean said. ''No school system in America can do that. That ensures that every school will be a failing school.''

From another source:

NCLB Outrages

But as the first nominating contests approach, the leading Democratic candidates -- most of whom voted for the legislation -- also have begun to criticize the accountability requirements as too burdensome on school districts. Some say they would undo pieces of the sweeping law.

"The standards are so ridiculous that every single public school in America will be deemed to be a school in need of improvement or a failing school by 2013," former Vermont governor Howard Dean said in a teleconference yesterday. He said the law, which he has pledged to dismantle, was "making education in America worse, not better."

Retired Army General Wesley K. Clark has called the law's first two years a failure. Senators John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina said they want to change the way student achievement is measured. And Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri proposed giving states more latitude in testing.

The end of the Orlando Sentinel article above lists some of the percentage of failing schools with low income students. Instead of beefing up education opportunities for these schools, many are being deprived.

Schools that receive federal funding for low-income students that did not meet standards of No Child Left Behind:

Lake 65% 11 of 17 schools

Orange 78% 47 of 60 schools

Osceola 69% 9 of 13 schools

Seminole 71% 10 of 14 schools

Volusia 76% 31 of 41 schools

Statewide 73% 1,002 of 1,365 schools

That's a lot, and it is scary to comtemplate. It is my understanding that as they fail, they will be restructure into charter schools, in partnership with the corporate community. If that has changed, correct me if I am wrong.

[madfloridian]

1. Hey, MInnesota, top ranked schools underperforming under NCLB

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2008/12/top-ranked_scho.php

"Top-ranked schools are underperforming ... huh?
Filed under: Education
U.S. News and World Report came out with its list of best high schools in the nation, and 13 Minnesota schools made the list.

Yay high schools! The confusing thing is, those same schools are listed as underperforming based on the standards of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Huh? We don't get it.

The Star Tribune had this explanation Friday in its print edition:

Unlike the magazine, the state looks only at the results of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment tests when determining whether schools are meeting Annual Yearly Progress as defined by the NCLB act.

"If you have a subgroup that does not meet standard for that test, it is labeled as a non-performing school," Noyed said. "You have a school that is doing extraordinary things with students, but still needs to make improvements for a small segment of students. That is part of the difficulty with the state's process of determine Annual Yearly Progress."

[madfloridian]

2. I have a feeling NCLB will be funded and kept going.

Maybe with modifications. As long as the minds of children are dumbed down with so much testing there will be little room to learn to think and grow.

My classrooms were so diverse...some could grasp it all, some could grasp little no matter how hard they worked. You can't have the same standards for each child. It will never work, because they are individuals.

[Fumesucker]

3. As long as the minds of children are dumbed down with so much testing there will be little room to

think and grow.

Which is basically the entire raison d'etre for NCLB, the powers that be do not want thinking or growth, they want obedience. Citizens who think too clearly are dangerous to a system predicated on pumping the electorate full of bullshit in order to vote against their own self interests.