Paige Finds Schools Act (NCLB) a Tough Sell | LA Times

[Ediacara]

Paige Finds Schools Act a Tough Sell
Parents, teachers and state officials are chafing under the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The Education secretary defends the reforms.

By Elizabeth Shogren, Times Staff Writer

CLEVELAND — The Whitney Young Middle School faculty was nothing if not polite when Education Secretary Rod Paige stopped by recently on a two-state trip to pitch President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.

But Susan Wander, the seventh-grade social studies teacher whose class was the first visited by Paige, said the educators were merely trying to be "good soldiers" — and trying to avoid criticizing a distinguished visitor in front of the students. In truth, she said, "there is a great deal of frustration" with the law, which many educators resent for forcing them to change their approach to teaching.

Little more than two years after Congress gave Bush his first major domestic policy success by overwhelmingly passing the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers, parents and state officials across the country are balking at the law's requirements. What figured to be an unquestioned accomplishment for Bush now looks like it could be a liability.

Conservatives attack it as a big-government approach to education reform. Liberals scream about what they call inadequate federal funds to meet the law's requirements. Legislatures are considering opting out of the law or refusing to comply with any requirements not paid for by Washington.

More at the Los Angeles Times

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Another Bush failure --

[The Spirit of JFK]

2. Another Bait and Switch

"Sure I'll fund it if you vote for it..." heh heh.... Just like the vote on Iraq ("Sure we will get the UN to authorize and help...just vote for it.")

It's only a failure if you try. This is more along the lines of "morally and ethically fraudulent". Not to mention a big fat LIE.

[TahitiNut]

3. The money was only intended to go to corporations, not teachers.

The Busholini rule on any kind of federal 'spending' (their term for pillaging) is that the payee must be some corporate money pit. NCLB money went to reichbot testing companies, not schools, not teachers, and not kids.

Need more soldiers? Well, just hire private companies to do what what soldiers did for cheap. Make sure the profits are generous for those who live off the labor of others. That's Rumsfeld's way of creating 300,000 "new jobs" ... just make sure that what's spent is about three times what the workers actually get.

That's what "privatization" is all about: profits for the "ownership class."