No child left behind except the ones in the wrong school.

[Cleita]

So our guest speaker at our monthly Democratic Club was one of the superintendents of our school district and he spoke about “no child left behind”. So apparently it isn’t working in our little rural district because many of the schools can’t comply with the 95% passing grades on the tests needed to get desperately needed funding.

Why? Special needs students are enrolled in the regular classrooms because we are a small rural area. Therefore in some of our schools, it takes only four special needs students to bring the percentage of passing grades down to 75%. Therefore, they don’t qualify.

So in the meantime, the private religious schools are salivating knowing that it won’t be long before these funds will be diverted to legally providing school vouchers. Of course the private schools don’t have to take special needs students so no doubt their ratings will be high.

In the meantime the public schools will deteriorate through lack of funding because they can’t meet the federal standards. When asked by a member if he thought this was a back door way of the Bush Administration to privatize education by pushing for private school vouchers, he shrugged and said it was a possibility.

Now I am not an educator, nor do I have children or grandchildren in school, so I haven’t been very in tune with this problem, however, it struck me like a ton of bricks that this is Bush’s intent. They want religious schools to take over the public school system, so they can teach creationism and fear and every other crap they consider Christian to our children.

How does this differ from the madrasas? How do we stop this? Incidentally, our governor Ahnold is backing Bush on this. He says he isn’t in the hip pocket of the Bush Administration but the liar’s actions speak otherwise.

On the other hand, any educators who had any liking for Gov. Gropenator, are turning against him. Maybe this will get rid of him finally.

[DistressedAmerican]

1. There Is One I'd Like To Leave Behind

[China_cat]

2. We're fighting right now

because 2 local middle schools in our area are going to be closed because they don't meet the NCLB standards and the students from BOTH schools will be funneled into a 3rd that's already overcrowded and just barely making the grade as it is.

Next year at this time, that school will be closing, as will one of the BEST public schools in the area. That one doesn't make the grade because it is doing everything right. One of the requirements of NCLB is that a school show a certain amount of progress over the year before. When you've done everything right and have no room to improve, you fail.

So yes, I'd say the idea is definitely to dismantle the public school system and create a permanent underclass whose niche in society will be either as de facto slaves or cannon fodder.

[Cleita]

3. This is what he said, that the bar was being set impossibly

high. One can only conclude that dooming the public school system is their plan.

[countingbluecars]

4. I agree.

The public school system had been set up for failure by NCLB. I have no doubt about it. Like you said, it's about obtaining vouchers.

[Cleita]

5. Too bad that we can't have an education system like

we had in California before Reagan became Governor and destroyed all the progress that had been made since WWII.

[Johonny]

6. Governor steroids

Has attacked the teachers union every chance he's got. He campaigned on a pro-education message, but has taken money away from the schools. He's horrible and a coward. Since he didn't have the courage to run again Grey Davis in a real election. Instead wasted my tax payer dollars on a phoney election in which Davis could not run.

Arnold the only Governor with calf implants...

[Cleita]

7. An itty bitty kick, just in case anyone cares about

the public schools and education anymore.

[Cleita]

8. Another big kick now because

the abortion crowd are sneaking in and we really have to focus on the real children.

[ulysses]

9. oh, we care.

:hi:

[Cleita]

10. Thanks.

:hi:

[ulysses]

12. you're exactly right about NCLB, by the way.

:thumbsup:

[KaliTracy]

11. Not so sure about the the "religious" take-over -- Some corporations

have taken over "failing" schools -- it's about privitization, not necessarily religious takeover

The teachers that are out there in the field need our support. It's important to know that they "decline" in education is a fabrication that the Right Wing Business Roundtable corporations want the public to believe. Don't be sucked into the RW agenda.

See: Why is Corporate America Bashing Our Schools? by Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian -- (they Name Names!)
http://www.susanohanian.org/books /


Another good book is Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business edited by Patrick Shannon and Alfie Kohn -- http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/ei.htm (includes information about the book in the link)

Also -- this is a website of mine -- but it contains a HUGE number of resources, including those from the right, about the push for high stakes tests, etc. Too much information for one night -- but there is a lot there if you want to learn the history of some of this testing mania.

http://stophighstakestests.org

[MissB]

13. Oh, I completely agree that it is an attempt to dismantle public education

My kids attend school in a good school district. We spend more per kid than the state average. I've just filed the district report card required by NCLB, but it seems like we met most of the requirements.

Except one. I think it was one of the high school categories- something like 10th grade reading. It barely didn't pass. But because of that, our district got marked as "not met" - which as far as I can tell means that we didn't *improve* our scores over last year.

Which is bogus as all hell. Our high school kids post SAT scores about *20 points* higher than the state/national average. They pretty much bust all the scores across the board. We have extra money coming into this school district. We have every freakin advantage available to a school district.

If we can't make it - with all of our advantages- then not one single fucking school district in the country can make it.

[Cleita]

14. You, who have children have to fight this.n/t

[KaliTracy]

15. we ALL have to fight this.... but many don't know about it, or think

that it's not a big deal....