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Posted on 07/11/2011 6:11:00 AM PDT by flowerplough
A provision of the controversial Bush-era education law mandates free tutoring for low-income children in failing schools. With the provision now at risk, Democrats are trying to save it.
These days President Obama is focused on getting Congress to agree to a deficit-reduction deal in order to raise the debt ceiling, but not so long ago he'd asked lawmakers, again, to reform No Child Left Behind. He recently used one of his weekly addresses to call for changing the controversial Bush-era law, which mandates standardized testing as a measure of school success.
"To strengthen education in this country, we need to encourage reforms not driven by Washington, but by principals and parents so schools can determine what is best for their kids," said Obama, criticizing the policy for being too rigid. "That is why it is so important that Congress replace No Child Left Behind this year, so that schools have that flexibility. Reform just cannot wait."
Despite frequent complaints from Democrats about No Child Left Behind -- namely that it imposes sanctions on schools that fall short of its standards without providing enough funding to help meet them -- there are elements of the law that they actually like. One example is the Supplemental Education Services program: free, mandated tutoring services provided to students in low-performing schools. Under the law, students from low-income families are eligible to receive the out-of-school services. According to data from the Government Accountability Office, the vast majority of the 650,000 students currently in the program are children of color.
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
Where do I vote, and how many times can I vote for all this?
Never forget that. Compassionate Conservative Bush laid the groundwork for Obama. Yet another reminder of what a mixed bag Bush was. Great on somethings. Absolutely horrible on others.
What was/is so controversial about it? Under than that Ted Kennedy wrote it.
Oh. This should be good. We need more government to bring about less government.
And the main thing they like:
it takes the power out of the many and puts it in the hands of the few.
Got a lot of power flickers here... hopefully this will post.
There’s a fairly new company called “Front Row To Go” which sells portable sound systems for K-12 classrooms which are touted to make the teacher’s voice equally loud and clear from the front to the back of a classroom, with an adaptive feedback suppression system such that no matter where the teacher goes in the room feedback squeals are impossible. This is touted to raise student comprehension levels while easing the burden on teachers’ voices.
Even the studies shown by these people clearly indicate that a certain percentage of poor students exist; however it seems impressive what happens to the learning of many of the rest when a speaker playing the teacher’s voice is nearby at all points in the classroom.
I have no connection with this company and have no idea if their product is worth what they ask for it or whether competitors exist. Certainly schools often fared well in the past without such a thing, and this may reflect a modern tendency for kids to focus in on the TV or computer speakers at home and tune out their parents or siblings.
FWIW, however, something like this may help supply the “ounce of prevention” that would make the “pound of cure” (tutors) less necessary.
The probem is not THAT they are tutored, but WHAT is being taught. They are getting the background propaganda to be made good little Marxists!
I start with the belief that the feds have no business in education to start with.
What Demoncrappers really like about NCLB is IGNORING and ALIENATING the BRIGHT and MOTIVATED students as well as erasing the concept of the INDIVIDUAL.
Kids that are BRIGHT are IGNORED. They are paced down and USED as “teacher aides” and have the TEACHER DO LESS WORK.
Kids that are MOTIVATED are paced down. Eventually they fail to see the point of moving ahead at a pace that is more agreeable to them.
GROUP WORK or “comparative learning” erases the INDIVIDUAL. GROUP THINK becomes the norm. The INDIVIDUAL that debiates from this GROUP THINK is ALIENATED from the GROUP and suffers in their grade. The individual could be RIGHT about an issue but the GROUP determines what is “right”. Again, GROUP projects are LESS WORK for the TEACHER and group memebers also serve as teacher aides.
LIBERALS HATE STRONG INDIVIDUALS.
LIBERALS WANT YOU TO BE AN IGNORNAT COG ON A WHEEL.
The irony here is that with Republicans out of the WH they dont feel a political need to pass a ‘historic bipartision reform’ like Bush did (looking to 2004 re-election) re-election, that is Obama’s mission now. So Republicans can hold out for a better deal, like private school vouchers that Bush gave up on.
Yes, I would like the Federal giovernment out of public schools altogether, no I dont see it happening.
Very few poor schools have been closed or teachers replaced. Typically the schools in good areas still do well and in low income areas, not as well. The parents or lack of play a bigger role than most believe. It all starts in the home.
Free? Where does the money come from?
How many of the ‘tutors’ are teachers making an extra buck on the state/ feds?
Why don’t the students STUDY? At the inner city schools where I worked, the problem was not that kids needed extra help. It was that they needed the self-discipline to go to class, read their books, study, etc. Or are they all really dumber than dumb? In which case, tutoring will not help.
Every time I read this kind of stuff, I get a picture in my mind’s eye of the kids at ‘my’ school milling around like jackanapes, rude and mouthy, tossing trash everywhere, and obviously NOT there to learn.
I teach at a failing school district ( you could also call it a failing parent district, but why quibble?????????)& I would say it’s half free babysitting & half tutoring. We happened to have two very caring & dedicated teachers running it.
Are you reading my mind???? Everything you say is true! I was just telling my mother when I visited her last month, how tragic it is that ALL the focus is on the poor achievers and the incorrigably bad kids. The really intelligent kids who will someday make something of themselves and contribute to society are left to their own devices.
The dirty secret is that in faling school districts you have so many out of control kids and no administrative support for kicking their sorry self to the curb ( don’t get me started............the bad kids have program after program to help them. The teachers end up filling out endless, pointless checklists on these kids.)that you are so grateful for the small handful (if you are lucky) of well behaved, intelligent students that they are often left to their own devices. Sad, but completely true.
NCLB is an unmitigated POS. Education is for the states to decide about; the Federal government does not need to be involved. Let alone the fact that NCLB’s goals are unattainable. 100% of people doing anything is nearly impossible. And yet, by 2014, 100% of our students (irrespective of their intelligence, their ability, their background, or motivation, are supposed to be passing the tests that NCLB mandates. 90%...maybe 80% is more likely. But, a lot of guys in suits, divorced from reality, and in Ted Kennedy’s case, not entirely sober, wrote it down, and said, this the law.
” Yes, I would like the Federal giovernment out of public schools altogether, no I dont see it happening. “
I agree, and let me tell you this; the public schools have been “dumbing down” the kids for some 35 years. U.S. History is now an “elective”. If they aren’t stopped, they will eventually destroy our country all by themselves.
I wholeheartedly agree with the both of you.
Not in the school district where I live.
With that said, I agree with you on everything else.
Hiya, Gabz.
Lomg time no see.
I think you mentioned the good school a couple of years ago. Virginia?
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