Laughing at the Pieces: Leaving Schools Behind

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Kevin Drum has a really perceptive blog post about No Child Left Behind. It’s short, and definitely worth a read.

UPDATE: He follows it up here and here and here. Busy guy.

Rob

Kit said...: According to NCLB, I work at a failing school, Moorestown HS. Yes, the same M-town rated number 1 place in the US to live (Money Magazine). The same high school rated #1 in South Jersey, and one of the tops in the state. Why? Every school is required to have a certain percentage more students pass than the year before. A school that has, say, 97% passing has less room for improvement than one that has 50%. Yet it is more difficult for the first school to improve to 98% passing than the second school to improve to 55%. And the way the standards & tests are written in NJ, the tests become more difficult each year ("raising the bar"). No one I know thinks that standards should be lowered, but there must be some more realistic goal-setting. There will always be a certain number of students who don't do well on dot-tests, or who haven't mastered the info, or, heck, don't even read English all that well. So a school's funding should depend solely on those kids?

As a side note, the US constitution says nothing about educating the citizens; it is left up to the states. Each state sets its own standards. Thank you W, and your unfunded mandate.; 3/15/2007 7:52 PM
Rob S. said...: He's a peach, ain't he?; 3/15/2007 9:20 PM

Laughing at the Pieces