Bush v. The Board of Education

[Spinaroonie]

Hah hah hah. See I took the title of that one supreme court case and put another name on it. What a fucking comedy genius I am!

Anyways... let's talk about somethign that sounds really good. Something so good that if you heard just a soundbyte you'd say "YEAH! That's a good idea! So good that I won't even bother listening to the rest of it or looking more into it whatsoever".

In effect, my hyperbolized internal theorectical monologue is what is happening with the American people.

"Leave No Child Behind".

Sounds good, doesn't it? When you think of it you imagine some clean homogonized fourth grade classroom where children of all races are wearing poloshirts and some are working on an art project and some are doing math and some are writing for an assignment, and there are colorful pieces of construction paper on the wall detailing who has lost a tooth this month and who's birthday it is next week.

Sounds really good, doesn't it?

In effect, the "Leave No Child Behind" program will work to prevent this monstrosity of a nightmare to ever happen. Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever.

Two main goals of the program are:
1.) 100% Literacy profeciency
2.) 100% Graudation rate

Both of these goal must be met by 2012. If not the school district loses it's title funds, meaning that they begin to worry how they're going to pay for the electicity to run flourescent lightbulbs for six hours a day for nine months.

Very few, if any school districts will be able to meet these goals, oh, so one of your students wasn't able to graduate because his father was killed in a motorcycle accident which left his mother seriously injured and he has to work full time to provide food for his younger siblings? Sorry, you've lost your money.

In effect, this will wipe out most of the tax payer's money going to urban schools, making the gap between the rich and the poor incredibly wide.

In effect, what happens is because a student misbubbled a test or had a problem come up so that they couldn't graduate, instead of just them being left behind, ALL of the children get left behind.

THANK YOU, VERY MUCH, W!

Remember: A 50% literacy rate from a school that can't afford textbooks, is better than a 0% literacy rate that a school with not enough money to pay for one third of their teachers would have.

 

[medjay]

I remember when Reagan said that Ketchup counted as a vegetable in school lunch programs.

Yeah . . . our kids are in good hands.

 

[Spinaroonie]

I remember when Reagan said that Ketchup counted as a vegetable in school lunch programs.

Yeah . . . our kids are in good hands.

Leave no vegtable behind.

 

[Purple Haze]

What we need is to do is take all that money those overpaid teachers are making and give it to Rumsfeld.

There you go...

 

[morninggirl5]

The school has to make adequate progress to keep Title I funds. Title I funds are for children who are already behind or those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

My problem with the way No Child Left Behind is set up is that it doesn't measure progress for students, it compares classes from year to year.

It requires each state to administer a test in Reading and Math every year to determine if the school is making progress in moving students to satisfactory performance. Georgia already has those tests in place, they are CRCT (Criterion Referenced Curriculum Tests). The CRCT's are based on the curriculum that we're supposed to teach in Georgia and the students are given a score in Level 1, 2, or 3. Level 1 means the student did not meet the acceptable standard for that area, Level 2 is meets the standard, and Level 3 is exceeds the standard.

Sounds good, doesn't it.

Here's the problem. The way No Child Left Behind is set up, our school has to move kids from Level 1 into Level 2 each year or we're a failing school. Not just overall, but kids in each ethnic, socio-economic, and special ed breakdown. If you don't move kids in all areas, you're a failing school.


Last year in our school in reading 18 % of our students scored Level 1, so this year we have to decrease that amount by 5% to 17%. So THIS YEAR's first graders (a completely different class) will be compared to last year's first graders.

They include Kindergarten (in fact our school's scores for the past three years have been based on K results because they didn't have comparisons for the upper grades. Last year my class average was 191 out of 200 on the Kindergarten assessment. None of my students scored Level 1. In order to stay off the failing school list, i have to have higher scores this year. Okay, i'm a good teacher, shouldn't be hard, right? Wrong, this year my class is a self-contained Early Intervention Class..... all of my kids came to me already behind. Instead of comparing them to where they were at the beginning of the year (all of them Level 1) they're compared to last years group that had only 3 kids in Level 1 at the beginning.


Accountability isn't a problem if there are realistic goals and implementations. No Child Left Behind has unrealistic goals and completely unrealistic implementations. I'm sorry to say i see it eventually going the way of the Goals 2000. Remember them, pretty much the same goals, 100% literacy, Every child coming to school ready to learn, etc.

100% Literacy is a nice goal, but it's not ever going to be a reality. My goal every year is that 100% of my students go to first grade reading and writing, and meeting all the Math objectives. I do everything i can to reach that goal. But if a child isn't ready, has to learn all the prerequisite skills, doesn't have the support at home, they may not reach my goal. That's reality.

 

[ma_guy]

In effect, the "Leave No Child Behind" program will work to prevent this monstrosity of a nightmare to ever happen. Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever.

Two main goals of the program are:
1.) 100% Literacy profeciency
2.) 100% Graudation rate

Both of these goal must be met by 2012. If not the school district loses it's title funds, meaning that they begin to worry how they're going to pay for the electicity to run flourescent lightbulbs for six hours a day for nine months.

The program has no such mandate that the "goals" be acheived by 2012. The program mandates that the states must have a developed plan for striving toward acheiving them and implemented systems for measurement (state developed testing and reporting) of these goals by 2012.

Very few, if any school districts will be able to meet these goals, oh, so one of your students wasn't able to graduate because his father was killed in a motorcycle accident which left his mother seriously injured and he has to work full time to provide food for his younger siblings? Sorry, you've lost your money.

Sorry.. You've totally screwed the pooch on what the program is and this statement of yours is just flat out wrong.

 

[Spinaroonie]

It requires each state to administer a test in Reading and Math every year to determine if the school is making progress in moving students to satisfactory performance. Georgia already has those tests in place, they are CRCT (Criterion Referenced Curriculum Tests). The CRCT's are based on the curriculum that we're supposed to teach in Georgia and the students are given a score in Level 1, 2, or 3. Level 1 means the student did not meet the acceptable standard for that area, Level 2 is meets the standard, and Level 3 is exceeds the standard.

The people who don't like teachers teaching towards a test should be having a field day, but they are silent.

With such focus on this you can say goodbye to art, music, threatre and perhaps even sports programs. If all of your money rides on one test, guess what your children are going to learn?

BTW, It should be noted that Texas already has an evaluative test, a lot of money rides on it, but the requirements are NOWHERE near as strict as LNCB programs would mandate.

Bush's strategy? Encourage minorities in lower class areas who are at the bottom of their class to drop out before the test so that test results (and the state average) seems higher.

Edit: Doesn't it strike you as MASSIVELY WRONG that a dyslexic should be forcing these sorts of things? He should know the struggle that other dyslexic children have and be more aware of that and be more sympathetic to their needs.

 

[ma_guy]

BTW, It should be noted that Texas already has an evaluative test, a lot of money rides on it, but the requirements are NOWHERE near as strict as LNCB programs would mandate.

Come on now. Are you just making this up as you go along here or what?

The LNCB legislation doesn't create any mandates as far as what the standards are. Read the bill! It very clearly states that every single one of the standards are to be created BY THE STATES in about 100 different places so there is ZERO way anyone can say that the mandates of the LNCB bill are any tougher than what already exists. If the state already has standardized state-wide testing in place they can use those tests if they choose to - they don't have to change them at all.

 

[It'sasecret]

No Child Left Behind is going to do nothing but cause problems. When you have the low performing schools offering the parents school choice, you will have the parents who are somewhat aware of what is going on moving their children to "better" schools. The parents of the kids who don't give a shit (often your students who are lower performing) keep them were they are. So the level one school now has the lowest of the low, and the higher school now has kids from a "low" schools pulling down their scores. So ALL schools scores eventually go down. It's a loose- loose situation.

 

[Spinaroonie]

It's a loose- loose situation.

That sentace proves my point. Denying funding to good students based on somebody else's mistakes and shortcomings is not right.

 

[morninggirl5]

The people who don't like teachers teaching towards a test should be having a field day, but they are silent.

Teaching to the test in this case means you're teaching the curriculum you are supposed to teach. The test is based on the standards that the State School Board have adopted for each grade level. It's actually a fair test for each individual child.

With such focus on this you can say goodbye to art, music, threatre and perhaps even sports programs. If all of your money rides on one test, guess what your children are going to learn?

Art, music, and theatre are already gone in most schools.

BTW, It should be noted that Texas already has an evaluative test, a lot of money rides on it, but the requirements are NOWHERE near as strict as LNCB programs would mandate.

Bush's strategy? Encourage minorities in lower class areas who are at the bottom of their class to drop out before the test so that test results (and the state average) seems higher.

Edit: Doesn't it strike you as MASSIVELY WRONG that a dyslexic should be forcing these sorts of things? He should know the struggle that other dyslexic children have and be more aware of that and be more sympathetic to their needs.

There's a common saying in education that "As Texas and California go, so goes the rest of the country."

The strategy isn't to have the minorities to drop out, although in many cases it seems to be.

It strikes me as massively wrong that ANY politician should be "reforming" education without ever spending any time in the classroom or talking to the teachers who are still there.

 

[morninggirl5]

That sentace proves my point. Denying funding to good students based on somebody else's mistakes and shortcomings is not right.

The good students won't be losing any money. They don't receive any instruction through Title I.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Sounds good, doesn't it? When you think of it you imagine some clean homogonized fourth grade classroom where children of all races are wearing poloshirts and some are working on an art project and some are doing math and some are writing for an assignment, and there are colorful pieces of construction paper on the wall detailing who has lost a tooth this month and who's birthday it is next week.

My daughter's Kindergarten classroom is already very similar to that. Our district is considered 'low income', not because it's urban, but because the parents are farmers or mechanics with TWA. We're also one of the highest rated school districts in the state.

Bush's plan sucks. My child shouldn't have to pass a test based on last year's Kindergartners' scores just so her school can continue to receive funding.

The real irony is (and correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard this blurb on the radio) in the year since W signed the bill, he's consistently cut funding to public education.

 

[miles]

I always liked Bubba Clinton's "mandatory volunteerism."

 

[ma_guy]

Re: Re: Bush v. The Board of Education

The real irony is (and correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard this blurb on the radio) in the year since W signed the bill, he's consistently cut funding to public education.

The Federal Budget allocated for elementary and secondary education increased by $4.7 Billion (a 27% increase) from FY 2001 to FY 2002. That was the first FY budget that Bush had any hand in. For FY 2003 (which started Oct 1, 2002) there is a $8 Billion increase.

There are other issues that effect the amount of monies flowing into schools but Bush hasn't cut education spending overall. The numbers in his budgets have increased every year.

 

[Spinaroonie]

Re: Re: Re: Bush v. The Board of Education

The Federal Budget allocated for elementary and secondary education increased by $4.7 Billion (a 27% increase) from FY 2001 to FY 2002. That was the first FY budget that Bush had any hand in. For FY 2003 (which started Oct 1, 2002) there is a $8 Billion increase.

There are other issues that effect the amount of monies flowing into schools but Bush hasn't cut education spending overall. The numbers in his budgets have increased every year.

Don't worry. LNCB will fix all of that substantially.

 

[Don K Dyck]

What we need is to do is take all that money those overpaid teachers are making and give it to Rumsfeld.

There you go...

heheheheh . . . I always am amused y the number of philistines who owe their literacy to teachers who cared . . .

the next thing that will happen is some of those literate kids will start to think . . .

then they will start to ask questions like "Why should some of the people get all of the benefits?" . . .

Then perhaps, maybe we should follow the redneck education model and leave the kids home milking the cows and weeding the cornfields . . .

As Bob Carr, State Premier (American "Governor" equivalent) of New South Wales said this morning, the most dangerous person is an uneducated patriot.

 

[Tantrikenetic]

As Bush himself said, "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"