THIS, folks, is why you don't tie school funding to student performance.
Yet one more example of something that George W. Bush and the Republicans got their greedy little hands on that turned to absolute shit. Nice going, jack holes.
Given Rush Limbaugh's enlightened commentary on the matter, I would like to propose walking into his studio and beating him to death with his microphone stand. But then... I still need to post my bit about capital punnishment, so maybe that will have to wait.
(Hey Rush: Last time I checked those schools were in a pretty red state, kind of how you be if I'd had my 'druthers and society allowed it, you lying, hypocritical fuckwad.)
I tried to post a comment on a strange computer the other day, but Blog never recognized my password. This is also not my computer, but I got in. What can I tell you?
ReplyDeleteOn topic:
I was working on a Master's in Education when NCLB was being debated, and we discussed it at length, coming down squarely against it. Our reasoning was this:
1) No system of business-type metrics can accurately assess the educational progress of a child.
2)The imposition of test-driven metrics will damage children in a number of ways, principally by short-changing many subjects necessary for a well-rounded education and by narrowing teaching in the tested subjects down to a battle for institutional survival, with the children becoming metrics themselves. In other words, "teaching to the test" will become necessary for the survival of the school.
3) Institutions will do what they have to do to survive. Fudging of scores was predictable and, at least in my "cohort," predicted.
In every case, the child will be the loser. We called it the "No Child Left Unscathed" Act.
It was an all around TERRIBLE idea. Poorly conceived, poorly designed, doomed to failure, and yet, in a rather ironic example of politics making strange bedfellows, SUPPORTED by the late SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY; probably becuase he thought it might get some money to failing schools. Which means he's about as easy to manipulate / dupe as Obama. (OK, you know what? I don't really know WHAT he was thinking!) But then, I was never a fan of he, the least of the three siblings.
ReplyDeleteThough... I still would have supported him in 1980 though, if he'd beaten Carter in the primary. Strange world we live in, huh? (Of course, I was only 7 at the time, so I liked Reagan. I've grown up since then.)