Why wait for and grind through reauthorization? Swift & Change Able argues that most, if not all, of the fixes called for in No Child Left Behind reauthorization ”can be done without any changes to the NCLB statute. Instead, they could be addressed in a matter of weeks rather than years either through regulation or separate, targeted legislation.”
Such [...]
Stateline.org’s Pauline Vu looks at the rise of standardized testing, weaving in some interesting numbers as well as raising a wide range of issues, from cost to effectiveness to the variations in rigor among states to the shortage of psychometricians.
The year before NCLB went into effect, Vu reports, states spent $423 million on standardized tests. During the [...]
Palm Springs teachers tell the Desert Sun what NCLB hath wrought. One teacher even speculated on showing her discouragement by wearing black on NCLB’s sixth anniversary this week.
Reggie Clark, a middle school robotics teacher, told the paper that under NCLB, students “are not really even thinking. They are just remembering certain skills.”
Well, at least it’s 21st [...]
Today is the sixth anniversary of No Child Left Behind. Ah, it was only six years ago that we were so full of hope about student achievement, so fed up with “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” so seduced by the law’s clever name, yet standing on the precipice of one-size-fits-all testing mania and never-to-be funding.
President Bush marked the anniversary in Chicago, and [...]
On the eve of NCLB’s sixth anniversary, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled yesterday that Secretary Spellings is violating the Spending Clause of the Constitution by requiring states and school districts to spend their own funds to comply with No Child Left Behind.
NEA, nine school districts, and nine NEA state affiliates brought the lawsuit in April [...]
On the eve of the sixth anniversary of NCLB, Ted Kennedy has a column in the Washington Post outlining where to go from here in “fixing” the law.
The biggest failure of the last six years? Not adequately funding NCLB. “Struggling schools can do only so much on a tin-cup budget,” Kennedy writes.
Other improvements Kennedy calls for include assessing students [...]
We’re back from winter break, and by winter break, we mean “flat on our backs with a cold…sigh.” Here’s a roundup of interesing articles:
Are Minnesota Republicans saying “C-ya” to NCLB? [Star-Tribune]
Sherman Dorn wraps up the top education stories of 2007 [shermandorn.com]
Forget the diet and exercise grind — an NCTE blogger makes a New Year’s resolution [...]
