Ok. Can we all agree... at long last... that the Obama/Duncan education policy has ....

[Smarmie Doofus]

been a complete failure? The numbers don't lie.... as dataholics at the US DOE would be the first to point out.

If we can agree on THAT... then there is a *possibility* that we MIGHT be able to think of ....and implement.... better policy.

But first we have to agree that the policy of the last seven years has been a failure. To do so, we do not have to believe that Obama is evil, that he was born in Kenya or that he's a secret Muslim

We only have to agree that he doesn't know much about public education ( He doesn't.) and has shown poor judgment by selecting people to guide him who know even less. ( He has.)

The first step...any shrink will tell you.... is admitting we have a problem. Let's just get that far, for now.

From today''s OP-ED New York Times:

>>>......The goal was audacious — by 2014, the law decreed, 100 percent of students would perform at grade level.

Instead, things have gotten worse by almost every measure. SAT scores have declined, as have the scores of American students, compared with their counterparts in other nations, on the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) exam. The rate of progress on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation’s report card, was actually higher, both over all and for specific demographic groups, during the decade before No Child Left Behind than after it was passed.

At the same time, the law’s aspiration morphed into a high-stakes target for accountability — not for the politicians, with their unachievable demands, but for school officials who were given an impossible burden of meeting annual testing goals. Under the law, schools that didn’t make “adequate yearly progress” faced ever more draconian sanctions, including wholesale reorganization and closings.

As a result, public schools have turned into pressure cookers. Teachers are pushed to improve test results. A vanishingly small amount of time is spent on art, music and sports, because they aren’t part of the testing regime. >>>>

More at :http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/opinion/why-the-new-education-law-is-good-for-children-left-behind.html

[Mona]

1. Did you actually read the OpEd?

They are referring to Bush' NCLB in your quoted part.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Tragically and enthusiastically embraced by Obama/Duncan....

and the calamitous effects of which were/are exacerbated by this:

>>>Race to the Top, abbreviated R2T, RTTT or RTT, is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education competitive grant created to spur and reward innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education. It is funded by the ED Recovery Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and was announced by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on July 25, 2009. States were awarded points for satisfying certain educational policies, such as performance-based evaluations for teachers and principals based on multiple measures of educator effectiveness (and are tied to targeted professional development and feedback), adopting common standards (though adoption of the Common Core State Standards was not required), adoption of policies that do not prohibit (or effectively prohibit) the expansion of high-quality charter schools, turning around the lowest-performing schools, and building and using data systems.>>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top


RTTP is Obama, not Bush.

[Mona]

4. you still have

Completely misrepresented the OpEd, there appears to be a reading comprehension problem.

[AngryAmish]

3. Demographics drive student achievement.

Also, half of the students are below average. We don't see it but more people care about Kardashions than the fine arts.

Laws can't change DNA.

[hifiguy]

5. But Profits Were Made.

And THAT is what counts.

[Scuba]

6. /\_/\_This right here_/\_/\