Doug Mann wrote: > And in my opinion, "No Child Left Behind" is not a blueprint > for closing the gap. NCLB is designed to promote the privatization > and charterization of the public school system. It does not address > the major systemic addressed by me in the preceding paragraph. And > if you look at the fine print, you will discover that school districts > are not required to make better performing public schools an option for > all of the students attending poor performing schools that don't show > acceptable improvement. NCLB is a fraud.
While I agree that NCLB is not a blueprint for closing the achievement gap it is far better than doing nothing. The major problem with public school education for the past 100 years has been the lack of public feedback. The achievement gap was not an issue because hardly anyone knew that it existed. (Now instead of "separate but equal" we have "integrated and unequal.") NCLB does something never done before, it requires the publication of performance measures of academic achievement nationally. This is a radical positive step forward. Beyond reporting, NCLB requires that certain actions be taken if schools are not helping students make progress. These are the basic steps. 1. Schools must provide additional tutoring. Well, this isn't very radical. Seems to me that the schools should have been doing this all along and many were. 2. If schools still don't make progress, then students can ask to be bussed to better schools. Well, this isn't radical either, at lease in Minnesota. Students in Minnesota already had the right to change schools and poor students could asked to be bussed. 3. If schools cannot be successful helping students then they can be reorganized. This is radical, but I think that it makes sense. If schools are failing to educate students and the first two steps don't help, then you should attempt to do something, maybe anything, but certainly not nothing. I won't gloss over the fact that there are some NCLB measurement requirements that are problematic, but the fundamental concepts of NCLB are sound and reasonable. Don't forget that NCLB passed Congress with bipartisan support. Who really hates this law? Public school administrators and teacher's unions. If you think about it for a while it won't take you long to figure out why. Michael Atherton Prospect Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
