NCLB Archive

  • Excerpts from this article: Over the last few years America has invested a great amount of talk into the low quality of education. Most of this talk focuses on teachers. Teacher accountability programs have been mandated by NCLB and created in almost every state. However, as we shall review below, most of the major decisions affecting the quality of education are not made by teachers. …Education is primarily top-down. Politicians and administrators make the decisions about the methods, the curriculum, and the goals. They give teachers mandates. Teachers are frequently not permitted to draw on their training and experience to contribute to the decisions about curriculum, methods, or student needs. …This top-down approach is plagued by fads and constant reform. …NCLB and other reforms place increasing pressure on educators to teach all students the same material – regardless of the...

    Can We Be Confident In Standardized Test Results? – Part 9

    Posted on January 4, 2012 | 1 Comment
    Excerpts from this article: Over the last few years America has invested a great amount of talk into the low quality of education. Most of this talk focuses on teachers. Teacher accountability programs have been mandated by NCLB and created in almost every state. However, as we shall review below, most of the major decisions affecting the quality of education are not made by teachers. …Education is primarily top-down. Politicians and administrators make the decisions about the methods, the curriculum, and the goals. They give teachers mandates. Teachers are frequently not permitted to draw on their training and experience to contribute to the decisions about curriculum, methods, or student needs. …This top-down approach is plagued by fads and constant reform. …NCLB and other reforms place increasing pressure on educators to teach all students the same material – regardless of the...

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  • Excerpts from this article:  …We have had a full decade of No Child Left Behind, and we now know that the law has been a disaster. …Now we know the results of this absurd law. More than 80% of our schools have been labeled failing schools. By the year 2014, nearly 100% of our schools will be considered failures. Has any other national legislature in history ever passed a law guaranteed to label every single one of its schools a failure? I don’t know of any.  …Let’s be clear about what NCLB has really accomplished: It has convinced the media and major philanthropies and Wall Street hedge fund managers that American public education is a failure and that radical solutions are required.  …We have now had ten years of No Child Left Behind, and we now know that there has...

    Diane Ravitch Knows How to Improve Public Education

    Posted on December 12, 2011 | 1 Comment
    Excerpts from this article:  …We have had a full decade of No Child Left Behind, and we now know that the law has been a disaster. …Now we know the results of this absurd law. More than 80% of our schools have been labeled failing schools. By the year 2014, nearly 100% of our schools will be considered failures. Has any other national legislature in history ever passed a law guaranteed to label every single one of its schools a failure? I don’t know of any.  …Let’s be clear about what NCLB has really accomplished: It has convinced the media and major philanthropies and Wall Street hedge fund managers that American public education is a failure and that radical solutions are required.  …We have now had ten years of No Child Left Behind, and we now know that there has...

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  • Valerie Strauss, Washington Post reporter and blogger, recently published an important document we feel should be made available to all parents and other citizens interested in the role of public schools in our society.  The document comes from Parents Across America (PAA), a grassroots organization that connects parents and activists from across the U.S. to share ideas and work together on improving our nation’s public schools.  The topic is reauthorization of ESEA (aka NCLB).  The article was recommended to us by the local affiliate of PAA, Parents Across America – Tri-Cities http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_114859748589921. By Valerie Strauss A national grassroots organization called Parents Across America — a leading group in a young, growing protest movement against test-based school reform — just released its own blueprint for the rewriting of No Child Left Behind. If only President Obama would read it. The document...

    Parents spell out detailed school reform blueprint

    Posted on April 23, 2011 | 3 Comments
    Valerie Strauss, Washington Post reporter and blogger, recently published an important document we feel should be made available to all parents and other citizens interested in the role of public schools in our society.  The document comes from Parents Across America (PAA), a grassroots organization that connects parents and activists from across the U.S. to share ideas and work together on improving our nation’s public schools.  The topic is reauthorization of ESEA (aka NCLB).  The article was recommended to us by the local affiliate of PAA, Parents Across America – Tri-Cities http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_114859748589921. By Valerie Strauss A national grassroots organization called Parents Across America — a leading group in a young, growing protest movement against test-based school reform — just released its own blueprint for the rewriting of No Child Left Behind. If only President Obama would read it. The document...

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  • Federal Relations Network Of the Washington State School Directors Association 2011 Participation Washington DC, February 5-9 Kathy White Kennewick School Director, Position 3 I arrived in Washington DC on Saturday, February 5, 2011. The first event was orientation on Sunday morning for first time participants, that’s me! We were given a brief overview of this year’s legislative agenda and spent more time on how to influence your senators and representatives. Different role plays were shown and the most effective techniques were emphasized.

    Kathy White Reports on WSSDA Trip to DC

    Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment
    Federal Relations Network Of the Washington State School Directors Association 2011 Participation Washington DC, February 5-9 Kathy White Kennewick School Director, Position 3 I arrived in Washington DC on Saturday, February 5, 2011. The first event was orientation on Sunday morning for first time participants, that’s me! We were given a brief overview of this year’s legislative agenda and spent more time on how to influence your senators and representatives. Different role plays were shown and the most effective techniques were emphasized.

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  • The state and the nation are pursuing policies that have not closed the achievement gap and have aggravated the situation for many students.  “Indeed, No Child Left Behind’s ‘get-tough’ approach to accountability has led to more students being left even further behind, thus feeding the dropout crisis and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” according to this new report from a consortium of  education organizations.  Nearly 150 organizations have endorsed the paper. For further information, see expert contacts listed below. Ror immediate release, Thursday, March 17, 2011.     NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CATALYZES “SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE” New Report Shows High-Stakes Testing and Zero-Tolerance Policies Force Students Out of School and Into the Justice System Washington, DC– A report released today details the sharp growth in practices that push K-12 students out of schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems, with especially...

    NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CATALYZES “SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE”

    Posted on March 18, 2011 | 2 Comments
    The state and the nation are pursuing policies that have not closed the achievement gap and have aggravated the situation for many students.  “Indeed, No Child Left Behind’s ‘get-tough’ approach to accountability has led to more students being left even further behind, thus feeding the dropout crisis and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” according to this new report from a consortium of  education organizations.  Nearly 150 organizations have endorsed the paper. For further information, see expert contacts listed below. Ror immediate release, Thursday, March 17, 2011.     NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CATALYZES “SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE” New Report Shows High-Stakes Testing and Zero-Tolerance Policies Force Students Out of School and Into the Justice System Washington, DC– A report released today details the sharp growth in practices that push K-12 students out of schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems, with especially...

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  • ESEA/NCLB is coming up for re-authorization this year.  As anyone who has had to deal with it in its present form knows, it is riddled with problems.  The Forum on Educational Accountability has developed a list of recommendations designed to reduce the problems.  We present their summary statement here.   Forum on Educational Accountability http:www.edaccountability.org 2011 Recommendations for Improving ESEA/NCLB- Summary The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA) has released recommendations for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, currently “No Child Left Behind” or NCLB).These will strengthen public schools, improve learning, enhance equity and empower educators by improving federal policy in the areas of assessment, accountability, capacity building, and opportunity to learn. Our more detailed agenda is at http://www.edaccountability.org/Legislative.html. Our alliance carries forward the Joint Organizational Statement on NLCB, signed by 153 national organizations. Our plan, summarized...

    2011 Recommendations for Improving ESEA/NCLB- Summary

    Posted on March 10, 2011 | 1 Comment
    ESEA/NCLB is coming up for re-authorization this year.  As anyone who has had to deal with it in its present form knows, it is riddled with problems.  The Forum on Educational Accountability has developed a list of recommendations designed to reduce the problems.  We present their summary statement here.   Forum on Educational Accountability http:www.edaccountability.org 2011 Recommendations for Improving ESEA/NCLB- Summary The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA) has released recommendations for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, currently “No Child Left Behind” or NCLB).These will strengthen public schools, improve learning, enhance equity and empower educators by improving federal policy in the areas of assessment, accountability, capacity building, and opportunity to learn. Our more detailed agenda is at http://www.edaccountability.org/Legislative.html. Our alliance carries forward the Joint Organizational Statement on NLCB, signed by 153 national organizations. Our plan, summarized...

    Continue Reading...

  • My friend and mentor, Don Orlich (professor emeritus at Washington State University) is a long-time warrior in the battle to save our local pubic schools from corporate takeover. He sent me this well researched paper on educational standards. We have condensed the article here, but you can obtain the full piece with citations by contacting us at ksdcitizens.org. In My View Educational Standards—Caveat Emptor by Donald C. Orlich Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Education and select private foundations, state officials have rushed to establish and enforce sets of standards for the K–12 public schools sector (e.g., Achieve, Inc.; Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation; Goals 2000; No Child Left Behind [NCLB] 2002; and Race to the Top [RTTT]). Thousands of pages of standards have been developed. The newest brief enthusiasm is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). What follows...

    In My View: Educational Standards—Caveat Emptor by Donald C. Orlich

    Posted on December 17, 2010 | 1 Comment
    My friend and mentor, Don Orlich (professor emeritus at Washington State University) is a long-time warrior in the battle to save our local pubic schools from corporate takeover. He sent me this well researched paper on educational standards. We have condensed the article here, but you can obtain the full piece with citations by contacting us at ksdcitizens.org. In My View Educational Standards—Caveat Emptor by Donald C. Orlich Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Education and select private foundations, state officials have rushed to establish and enforce sets of standards for the K–12 public schools sector (e.g., Achieve, Inc.; Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation; Goals 2000; No Child Left Behind [NCLB] 2002; and Race to the Top [RTTT]). Thousands of pages of standards have been developed. The newest brief enthusiasm is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). What follows...

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  • Since “A Nation at Risk” came out denouncing public education in the 80’s, our educational system has been twisting and contorting in order to satisfy all the share holders. The problem is the paradox that has been created: While fixing what is bad about public education, we have been damaging what has been good.

    A Kennewick Teacher on Reform

    Posted on December 1, 2010 | 2 Comments
    Since “A Nation at Risk” came out denouncing public education in the 80’s, our educational system has been twisting and contorting in order to satisfy all the share holders. The problem is the paradox that has been created: While fixing what is bad about public education, we have been damaging what has been good.

    Continue Reading...

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