At my math department meeting today, one of the topics was the No Child Left Behind Act and it's requirement to show adequate yearly progress towards the goal of 100% of students achieving at grade level by 2014.
Some of the attendees, one in particular I've written about before, are just convinced that the (perhaps hidden) purpose of NCLB is to destroy public education. Yet, they cannot explain why, when "Friends of Education" run both houses of Congress, the law is going to be reauthorized.
And it is going to be reauthorized. Yes, there may be some changes to it, maybe/hopefully some good changes, but the law's going to be reauthorized, and for five more years. By a Democrat-controlled Congress. Despite CTA's net of deception that's been tossed over teachers in the last couple of weeks.
A couple of people there absolutely, honestly, truly believed it won't be reauthorized. You know what they say--denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
It will be reauthorized, but probably not anytime soon (look for it after the elections from what I've heard), and there is a real danger of watered down accountability thanks to multiple measures and district-level assessment.
ReplyDeleteI think when people say that NCLB is going to destroy public education, they really just mean that it's going to destroy the status quo. And they're right - which actually may be the only thing that can save public education.
Yes, it's the Law...duh.
ReplyDeleteReauthorization is a benchmark, and only that. I suppose there are still folks who are hoping that Brown will be reversed as well. (But ironically, schools are beginning to segregate themselves, voluntarily, and many with better results.) But ridding America of Jim Crow will not be reversed, nor the Civil Rights Act, nor the Abolishment of Slavery.
But strange as it seems, there are quite a few people on both sides, who think all of the above LAWS will eventually expire.
Let's bring Civics and Government back into the K-12, so people won't continue to be so stupid...