Posted on 03/10/2011 5:32:11 PM PST by Kaslin
Government: Education Secretary Arne Duncan blames — you guessed it — George W. Bush for the steep decline of public schools. How much failure does it take for politicians to recognize government as the problem?
It was shock time at the House Education and Workforce Committee on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Education unveiled an almost unbelievable number regarding the breakdown of the public school system: By next year, some 82% of all U.S. public schools could be failing.
Secretary Duncan, in warning the panel, actually echoed longtime criticisms of federal education policy.
"By mandating and prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions," Duncan charged, the Bush administration's bipartisan No Child Left Behind law "took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to the unique needs of their students."
President Obama's purported answer is a political no-brainer: cut the locals some slack from federal rules.
But what Duncan actually proposes has been described as "a single national assessment system" by critics like University of Arkansas professor of education reform Sandra Stotsky, who was a longtime commissioner in the Massachusetts public school system.
A year and a half ago, Duncan was telling the National Press Club that the various state educational benchmarks amounted to "a race to the bottom" because "we have 50 different standards, 50 different goal posts."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
There are no words.
Ruh-Roh....
She forgot to check with The Messiah; as there are 57 States.
She didn't know that, and she's the Top "Educator" in this Country?????
ROFL
Keep the immigrants coming and get rid of the 3 Rs in favor of social consciousness and diversity training.
That should get us out of this pickle.
“By mandating and prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions,” Duncan charged, the Bush administration’s bipartisan No Child Left Behind law “took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to the unique needs of their students.”
It’s Bush’s, and yet it’s bipartisan. I guess that means Bush couldn’t make up his mind whether he was a Democrat or a Republican when he signed it.
The White House can’t pass new laws so they put new regulations and controls on people. Dictators. What’s the difference between a law and a regulation?
Try firing those in charge and cutting their budgets to the bone. If they want money, make them show results FIRST. Reward only success.
Simple solutions work.
CLOSE the U.S. Department of Education, end it now.
Let the state and local school boards run the schools, finance them and be responsible for the results......
Here’s a scary story for you.
Last week I was turning in paperwork to enroll my daughter in 9th grade for this fall. They gave me some papers to take home. By mistake, they gave me a transcript of a 10th grade student that was tranfering from one Colorado school district to this school. This students GPA was 1.4. The scary part is that she ranked 348 out of 490. 30% of her class was doing worse than she was! Amazing!
If children are learning in the so-called successful schools it is because their parents and the children are AFTERSCHOOLING!
I would like to see the **proof** that the “successful” schools have anything at all to do with the academic success of the children attending. I would bet my entire 401K that if looked at carefully, nearly all of that success happened IN THE HOME. The schools had LITTLE to do with it.
Think about it. Ask successful homeschoolers and institutionalized children about what they are doing IN THE HOME. Anecdotally, you will find that both sets of families have very similar home habits. Both the successful homeschoolers and institutionalized children are spending the **SAME** amount of **TIME** in study IN THE HOME at the kitchen table or child's desk!
So?...If it is really parents and children who are doing the hard work IN THE HOME, why are we spending THOUSANDS of dollars a year per child on schools that are ALL failures??? Huh?
If every government school in this nation were to close tomorrow the **same** children who are getting an education today, would get one tomorrow. Why? Answer: Because all of the REAL work is being done IN THE HOME!
That won’t really help either. As a teacher I implore you to demand the privatization of education before the likes of “Wisconsin’s Brightest” destroy it altogether.
I just wish the school system didn't have a monopoly on daytime hours.
The whole thing is hopeless and will never change. We just go round and round. Let parents (or teachers whom the parents trust and hire) teach kids to read, write, and do arithmetic on a grammar school level. If a kid wants to learn history, he can read a book; if he wants to learn a language, he can get Rosetta Stone. Same with science and anything else. Public schools are obsolete, and in many cases devisive and they usurp parental authority They sure are expensive enough.
NY state is thinking about adding 20 more days to their school calendar, with an eight hour day. That probably means that schools will have more time with students than the parents will. It’s ridiculous. Stop the insanity. It’s nuts.
I gave up on public schools a long time ago. And we have some of the better ones in the country here in northern Colorado Springs.
I agree wintertime that anything learned by a child is IN SPITE of public school not because of it.
Homeschooling is the only choice we have as concerned parents. My 15 y/o is doing great, and she is able to make such better decisions that her private schooled and public schooled sisters.
She has never been inside a public classroom her whole life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
With salary and perks teachers are bringing in close to a hundred grand a year for an 8 month a year job. The obvious solution is to give them another hundred grand a year, fewer students to teach, and more ‘earth day’ type classes to teach... /s
Here’s a report issued in 1983 when President Reagan was in office regarding the state of America’s education. I had the honor of helping provide the committee (that issued this report) with students paperwork, school district curriculum, and photocopied examples of pages out of textbooks to illustrate their poor quality and content. The NEA has been using their propaganda in our public schools for three or more decades.
A NATION AT RISK
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html
“...If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament...”
The human nature of it is that we the people will find or insist on competent education, with NO need, none, for centralized federal government interdiction. Basic Algebra has NOT changed since 1060 AD.
Really, just eliminate the US Dept of Education! The States, or the local jurisdictions, CAN administer it (as they did for decades). This is a teacher speaking.
Johnny Suntrade
Isn't that rich...coming from the folks who always want to centralize everything in DC...I am sure she'll join us then in dumping the Dept. of (un)Educationing
So the huge federal program that is Teddy Kennedy’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ is a failure.
So if a huge federal program is a failure what is the right thing to do?
Well if you are a Dimocrat the answer is obvious create an even larger and more expensive federal program.
Oh, and do not even think of abolishing the previous failure, we could not possibly do that!
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