With No Child Left Behind Waivers, Obama Turns Some Education Powers Back to States - NYTimes.com

Mr. Obama invited states to reclaim the power to design their own school accountability and improvement systems, upending the centerpiece of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, a requirement that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

“This does not mean that states will be able to lower their standards or escape accountability,” the president said. “If states want more flexibility, they’re going to have to set higher standards, more honest standards that prove they’re serious about meeting them.”

via www.nytimes.com

[posted by Brent]

Comments

[robert dixon]

Hi DUDE: The article says:

"The No Child law that President George W. Bush signed in 2002 was a bipartisan rewrite of the basic federal law on public schools, first passed in 1965 to help the nation’s neediest students. The 2002 law required all schools to administer reading and math tests every year, and to increase the proportion of students passing them until reaching 100 percent in 2014".

I always remember BOE member Bruce Pavalow continually admonishing us not to set goals that were unrealistic-it was unfair to all concerned-especially those poor devils who had to achieve them. He also preached that there could be no goals without measurement.

So Dude: Is the 100% achievable in 2014 or are localities being asked to spend huge sums for things that can not be achieved and perhaps if achieved have diminished value because measurement is flawed? I think the goals as we understand them are not achievable; I suspect that the goals might be modified without having to change the tests so that students would have at least some additional aquired abilities that could be measured by a test. A while back I bought some cookies from a girl scout at the mall; when I gave her a $5 bill she became confused and had to get help in making change. Maybe some modification of the math program would result in at least her being able to make change for a fin.

BTW: I heard today that North Carolina is formally asking to opting out of NCLB.

BOB D

[KLDude]

It is impossible in any community for 100% of students to meet the standards. No matter how much money is spent, the results are bound to resemble the Bell Curve. A simple knowledge of statistics will tell you that the goals if NCLB were never achievable.

I'm guessing that many, many states will now ask to opt out of the NCLB requirements.

Can we do better for our students? Yes, we can always do better. But the requirement of a 100% success rate of NCLB are unrealistic.

[robert dixon]

Hi Dude

If the bell curve is a valid reason why the goal(s) can not be achieved, I wounder why this law (or segment) has not been challenged in court.

If we applied the teaching to the test metric to some parts of a math course, would that at least improve part of a students math ability vis a vis doing no measurement because one believed teaching to the test is a bad metric.

Bob D