Jim Horn at Schools Matter shares:
... it just took Time Magazine seven years to ask someone on the inside if what we have been saying for seven years is true, but later is better than never, you might say. Susan Neuman, former Asst. Sec. of ED under Rod Paige, now admits that insiders at ED saw "NCLB was a Trojan horse for the choice agenda."
"Neuman gives no clue as to how she will make amends for staying silent during the past 7 years of educational genocide, as millions of children, parents, and educators have been brutalized by the policies she promulgated and promoted."
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From the Time Magazine article (with bold emphasis mine):
There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush Administration's signature domestic achievement. For one thing, in the view of many educators, the law's 2014 goal — which calls for all public school students in grades 4 through 8 to be achieving on grade level in reading and math — is something no educational system anywhere on earth has ever accomplished. Even more unrealistic: every kid (except for 3% with serious handicaps or other issues) is supposed to be achieving on grade level every year, climbing in lockstep up an ever more challenging ladder. This flies in the face of all sorts of research showing that children start off in different places academically and grow at different rates.
Add to the mix the fact that much of the promised funding failed to materialize and many early critics insisted that No Child Left Behind was nothing more than a cynical plan to destroy American faith in public education and open the way to vouchers and school choice.
Now a former official in Bush's Education department (Neuman) is giving at least some support to that notion.
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Horn also links to TeacherKen who wraps up his blog post:
"No Child Left Behind has been very destructive to many of America's public schools. And to have someone as connected as was Susan Neuman acknowledge that for some supposedly dedicated to the well-being of our schools and students it was instead serving as a vehicle to attempt destroy the public schools (and thus a chance at a meaningfully improved economic future for many of our young people) strictly on ideological grounds is something about which everyone should be aware."
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Some self-reflections about my job and responsibilities as a teacher as well as my responsibilities as a parent and the educational experiences I want my own children to have are posted here, here, here, and here.
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No wonder I need a hug!
Are vouchers and school choice a bad thing? I'm a bit confused. My sister's son has just completed 4th grade at a local private Christian school. She is home schooling next year because four children, one in particular, are running the school, bullying the other children. One boy was punched so hard in the nose, they weren't sure if the bleeding would stop and if they would need to take him to the e.r. The bleeding did stop before they made that decision. What has the school done? Nothing. These boy's parents are some of the richest in town and contribute the most to the school which is afraid of losing funding. Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that has specifically turned me sour about public schools is that in California, the Muslim religion is being taught as part of their curriculum. Children must memorize verse from the Koran and are encourage to dress according to Muslim culture and traditions. Prayer rooms are set up for Muslim children,yet nothing is done for children of other faiths. I think the only reason California 'outlawed' homeschooling the way it did is because they were losing too much money, and couldn't indoctrinate the children (brainwash them) and dumb them down.