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It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:47 am
by travelinman67
...and our beloved country slides a little farther down into the abyss.
Obama Administration Exempting Schools From Federal Law’s Testing Mandate
Monday, August 08, 2011
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/dun ... testing-wa
(AP) - State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break.
The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said.
The goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to have every student proficient in math and reading by 2014. States have been required to bring more students up to the math and reading standards each year, based on tests that usually take place each spring. The step-by-step ramping up of the 9-year-old law has caused heartburn in states and most school districts, because more and more schools are labeled as failures as too few of their students meet testing goals.
Critics say the benchmarks are unrealistic and brands schools as failures even if they make progress. Schools and districts where too few kids pass the tests for several years are subject to sanctions that can include firing teachers or closing the school entirely.
Through the waivers, schools will get some relief from looming deadlines to meet testing goals as long as they agree to embrace other kinds of education reforms such as raising standards, helping teachers and principals improve, and focusing on fixing the lowest performing schools.
Duncan and Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said the administration will encourage every state to apply and will work with them to meet the requirements.
Nothing in this plan for temporary relief from some aspects of the federal law will undermine what Congress is still discussing in terms of revising federal education laws, Duncan said. The long-awaited overhaul of the law began earlier this year in the U.S. House, but a comprehensive reform appears far from the finish line.
"What we do in terms of flexibility can be a bridge or transition," he said. "We all want to fix the law. This might help us get closer to that."
The chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, however, says he is worried about Duncan's waiver plan.
"I remain concerned that temporary measures instituted by the department, such as conditional waivers, could undermine the committee's efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., in a statement, referring to the formal name of the No Child Left Behind law.
The Obama administration requested a revision more than a year ago. Duncan said another school year is about to start and state education officials have told him they can't keep waiting for relief from the mandates.
"I can't overemphasize how loudly the outcry is to do something now," Duncan said.
Duncan has warned that 82 percent of U.S. schools could be labeled failures next year if No Child Left Behind is not changed. Education experts have questioned that estimate, but state officials report a growing number of schools facing sanctions under the law.
Don't fix the problem: Lower the standards.
The new American way.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:49 am
by AZGrizFan
Apparently Matt Damon is the new Education Secretary.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:52 am
by TheDancinMonarch
So kids can now go to school in the AM for their free breakfast; throw spitballs till time for their free lunch; and then nap till closing time. This sounds like a real plan.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:54 am
by dbackjon
I thought you guys hated the DOE, and wanted the federal Government out of local schools.
Isn't that what he is doing?
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:58 am
by AZGrizFan
dbackjon wrote:I thought you guys hated the DOE, and wanted the federal Government out of local schools.
Isn't that what he is doing?
Just another set of laws he's unilaterally choosing to not enforce. Much like the immigration laws...or his own healthcare laws......
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:06 am
by TheDancinMonarch
dbackjon wrote:I thought you guys hated the DOE, and wanted the federal Government out of local schools.
Isn't that what he is doing?
So we can expect your support for closing the Departmernt of Education? Glad to have you aboard.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:20 am
by Ivytalk
More payback for the teachers unions.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:40 am
by travelinman67
Ivytalk wrote:More payback for the teachers unions.
Bingo!
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:35 pm
by dbackjon
TheDancinMonarch wrote:dbackjon wrote:I thought you guys hated the DOE, and wanted the federal Government out of local schools.
Isn't that what he is doing?
So we can expect your support for closing the Departmernt of Education? Glad to have you aboard.
I have mixed feelings on the DOE. On one hand, having national minimum standards is a good thing. But the Feds don't need to be involved in every aspect of education - that is something that is best left to locales (even below state level, imho).
Only thing the Feds should be involved in is making sure there is not discrimination/All Americans treated equally, but that is more of a DOJ job.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 1:36 pm
by TheDancinMonarch
dbackjon wrote:TheDancinMonarch wrote:
So we can expect your support for closing the Departmernt of Education? Glad to have you aboard.
I have mixed feelings on the DOE. On one hand, having national minimum standards is a good thing. But the Feds don't need to be involved in every aspect of education - that is something that is best left to locales (even below state level, imho).
Only thing the Feds should be involved in is making sure there is not discrimination/All Americans treated equally, but that is more of a DOJ job.
The Department of Education does not educate anyone. And over the years it has probably been more of an impediment to actual education. We could surely do better.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:33 pm
by Cap'n Cat
AZGrizFan wrote:dbackjon wrote:I thought you guys hated the DOE, and wanted the federal Government out of local schools.
Isn't that what he is doing?
Just another set of laws he's unilaterally choosing to not enforce. Much like the immigration laws...or his own healthcare laws......
Nope, Conks make their own rules and change the rules along the way.
No Child Left Behind was a massive failure with no enthusiasm behind it from anyone. Too many vagueries and too much Big Brother, which, again, to hear Z and T's mewling, is surprising given their penchant for shit to be handled at state and local levels. Penalty for double talk, Conks.
Conks have no business leading anything any longer.
Oh, and edit: Give me a teacher any day over a soldier.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:34 pm
by Pwns
NCLB is just a disaster just needs to be nixed altogether. Evaluating schools based on test scores is the least of its problems. Instead of having an education system where kids can learn at their own place and find their place in the world, we have the mindset that every kid belongs in college and every kid can be a f%^&ing brain surgeon. Some things just aren't possible no matter what the touchy-feely "reality-is-a-social-construct" crowd says.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:40 pm
by AZGrizFan
Perfect. I can't think of a better use for the vast majority of America's teachers than to use them as bulletcatchers on the front line of the war against terror.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:43 pm
by travelinman67
Cap'n Cat wrote:AZGrizFan wrote:
Just another set of laws he's unilaterally choosing to not enforce. Much like the immigration laws...or his own healthcare laws......
Nope, Conks make their own rules and change the rules along the way.
No Child Left Behind was a massive failure with no enthusiasm behind it from anyone. Too many vagueries and too much Big Brother, which, again, to hear Z and T's mewling, is surprising given their penchant for shit to be handled at state and local levels. Penalty for double talk, Conks.
Conks have no business leading anything any longer.
Oh, and edit: Give me a teacher any day over a soldier.
On the day the Dow dropped 634 points under the Obama "Failure" Administration, I'd say your remarks epitomize ignorance. Sorry Cappy, but our education system doesn't need any more "waivers" of integrity.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:57 pm
by JohnStOnge
Nope, Conks make their own rules and change the rules along the way.
No Child Left Behind was a massive failure with no enthusiasm behind it from anyone. Too many vagueries and too much Big Brother, which, again, to hear Z and T's mewling, is surprising given their penchant for **** to be handled at state and local levels. Penalty for double talk, Conks.
Conks have no business leading anything any longer.
Only thing is that "No child left behind" was not a "conservative" initiative. Never, ever agreed with Bush's belief that the Federal government should be involved in education like that.
In addition to my belief that education is a local and State responsibility that the Federal government shouldn't be involved in, the standardized testing approach is unfair to school systems. The "raw material" school systems have to deal with is a huge factor in how students from those systems are going to perform on standardized tests. That line about "the soft bigotry of low expectations" may sound good. But it's not realistic. Expectations
should be tempered by knowledge of associations between demographic factors and test scores.
That's not to say people shouldn't try to exceed expectations. But it's not fair to expect a school system predominately populated by poor, minority students to wave its magic wand and create a situation in which some idealistic goals with respect to proficiency levels are met. And even the concept of "proficiency" is problematic. It's subjective.
Every student "proficient" in reading and math by 2014? What the heck does that mean? And do you realize how ridiculous it is to have a goal involving "every student" and
anything?
No. The "No child left behind" nonsense is one thing I ALWAYS disagreed with Bush about. Bush was the lesser of two evils but he was kind of a hybrid. In some areas he might have been conservative but in other areas, like education, he believed in a lot of federal involvement.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 6:07 pm
by JohnStOnge
Of course, if there were no Department of Education dispensing funds to bribe and coerce school systems to do things to begin with, it wouldn't be a problem.
Eliminate the Department of Education. Problem solved.
Even though it WOULD mean I wouldn't have that National Assessment of Educational Progress data to play with. That's good data.
But what would be gained in terms of getting the Federal government out of State and local education would outweight what would be lost in terms of cool data on standardized test scores of scientific samples of students.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:08 pm
by TheDancinMonarch
Let us not forget that "No Child Left Behind" was a collaborative effort between George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy, which was essentially written by Kennedy, or his staff, and squired through the Senate by Kennedy. The name "No Child Left Behind" was taken from the Bush campaign but the ideas contained wiithin were those of the "conscience of the Senate", Edward Moore Kennedy, otherwise known as "the long distance swimmer of Chappaquiddick". RIP.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:18 pm
by Grizalltheway
Pwns wrote:NCLB is just a disaster just needs to be nixed altogether. Evaluating schools based on test scores is the least of its problems. Instead of having an education system where kids can learn at their own place and find their place in the world, we have the mindset that every kid belongs in college and every kid can be a f%^&ing brain surgeon. Some things just aren't possible no matter what the touchy-feely "reality-is-a-social-construct" crowd says.
Post of the thread.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:01 pm
by AZGrizFan
Grizalltheway wrote:Pwns wrote:NCLB is just a disaster just needs to be nixed altogether. Evaluating schools based on test scores is the least of its problems. Instead of having an education system where kids can learn at their own place and find their place in the world, we have the mindset that every kid belongs in college and every kid can be a f%^&ing brain surgeon. Some things just aren't possible no matter what the touchy-feely "reality-is-a-social-construct" crowd says.
Post of the thread.
Agreed, GATW, but it's NOT nixed, they're just arbitrarily choosing to ignore it. If it sucks so bad (which it does), then fucking REPEAL it. Otherwise, obey the goddamed law until it's repealed.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:38 pm
by ∞∞∞
The problem are those tiny foil stars. Teachers give out for everything that kids don't realize the real stars are the ones they should be reaching for.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:50 pm
by SDHornet
Pwns wrote:NCLB is just a disaster just needs to be nixed altogether. Evaluating schools based on test scores is the least of its problems. Instead of having an education system where kids can learn at their own place and find their place in the world, we have the mindset that every kid belongs in college and every kid can be a f%^&ing brain surgeon. Some things just aren't possible no matter what the touchy-feely "reality-is-a-social-construct" crowd says.
From the teacher friends I have, this is pretty much their feeling about NCLB.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:25 pm
by bench
travelinman67 wrote:...and our beloved country slides a little farther down into the abyss.
Obama Administration Exempting Schools From Federal Law’s Testing Mandate
Monday, August 08, 2011
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/dun ... testing-wa
(AP) - State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break.
The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said.
The goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to have every student proficient in math and reading by 2014. States have been required to bring more students up to the math and reading standards each year, based on tests that usually take place each spring. The step-by-step ramping up of the 9-year-old law has caused heartburn in states and most school districts, because more and more schools are labeled as failures as too few of their students meet testing goals.
Critics say the benchmarks are unrealistic and brands schools as failures even if they make progress. Schools and districts where too few kids pass the tests for several years are subject to sanctions that can include firing teachers or closing the school entirely.
Through the waivers, schools will get some relief from looming deadlines to meet testing goals as long as they agree to embrace other kinds of education reforms such as raising standards, helping teachers and principals improve, and focusing on fixing the lowest performing schools.
Duncan and Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said the administration will encourage every state to apply and will work with them to meet the requirements.
Nothing in this plan for temporary relief from some aspects of the federal law will undermine what Congress is still discussing in terms of revising federal education laws, Duncan said. The long-awaited overhaul of the law began earlier this year in the U.S. House, but a comprehensive reform appears far from the finish line.
"What we do in terms of flexibility can be a bridge or transition," he said. "We all want to fix the law. This might help us get closer to that."
The chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, however, says he is worried about Duncan's waiver plan.
"I remain concerned that temporary measures instituted by the department, such as conditional waivers, could undermine the committee's efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., in a statement, referring to the formal name of the No Child Left Behind law.
The Obama administration requested a revision more than a year ago. Duncan said another school year is about to start and state education officials have told him they can't keep waiting for relief from the mandates.
"I can't overemphasize how loudly the outcry is to do something now," Duncan said.
Duncan has warned that 82 percent of U.S. schools could be labeled failures next year if No Child Left Behind is not changed. Education experts have questioned that estimate, but state officials report a growing number of schools facing sanctions under the law.
Don't fix the problem: Lower the standards.
The new American way.
Since we're addressing the issue on its own merits and not who proposed doing something about it:
NCLB and AYP testing ought to be thrown on the shitheap. Lowering standards doesn't have anything to do with it. Ask any superintendent, any principal, any teacher, even one whose school made AYP, and they'll tell you the system is arbitrary, capricious, and an enormous pain in the ass that accomplishes nothing.
It's all or nothing with AYP. For each subgroup you have, you're one step closer to watching the whole school fail. And especially if they're in historically lower-performing demographics. Have 39 students at your school who are in a students with disabilities subgroup? Limited English proficiency? Congratulations! You just won the lottery. Have 40 students? That one extra student now means you're royally fucked. You just added a subgroup, and it doesn't take many low performers in that sample to miss a target goal that will drag down the rest of the school.
AYP results often have no correlation whatsoever with other metrics used to evaluate schools and school districts. A school can easily get high marks from state ABC evaluations and composite test scores, but be on probation for not making AYP two out of three years. Letters are required to go out to some very confused parents telling them their school is falling down and their kid can transfer to another because of it.
Of course, I'm sure you knew all that and was just being a fucking hack for the sheer hell of it. Troll harder, bro.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:56 am
by GannonFan
IMO, this could be a chance for teacher's unions to get back in front of the issue of teacher assessment and finally start leading this issue again rather than fighting it. I come from a teaching background - parents were teachers, sister a teacher, and my wife is a teacher. Like any profession, there are a good number of really good teachers who deserve all the praise they get, and even the praise they don't get. There are also, of course, those that don't. There needs to be a system in place that fairly evaluates and rewards the good teachers while trying to weed out and jettison the bad ones. And unlike other professions, teaching has the added element of parental involvement that can be very protective of their children and criticism, even fair criticism, of those children. Unions, to an extent, are still necessary in that regard in the educational field - you don't want a system where one renegade parent can hold a vendetta against a good teacher for a tough but fair review of their child and through connections and influence work to have that teacher removed. And really, I don't think there's anyone out there that thinks the current system of student testing and how it's set up is really going to make schools and teaching any better - no one can really think it's that simple I hope. But teacher's unions have for too long resisted any rethink on how to evaluate teachers to the point that in the absence of anything rational from the unions we were stuck with the NCLB. So maybe this is a good reset when we can step back from the crap that is NCLB and actually have a legitimate and real review on how best to assess teachers so that it's not just about protecting jobs for everyone and instead is actually focused on rewarding good teaching and punishing bad teaching. Although I'm an optimist by nature, I realize this probably won't happen and we'll end up with another crap-like NCLB, but at least I can hope.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:00 am
by Cap'n Cat
The Cap'n is vindicated.
Re: It's Real: Obama Admin To Scrap Mandatory K-12 Testing
Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:18 am
by AZGrizFan
GannonFan wrote:IMO, this could be a chance for teacher's unions to get back in front of the issue of teacher assessment and finally start leading this issue again rather than fighting it. I come from a teaching background - parents were teachers, sister a teacher, and my wife is a teacher. Like any profession, there are a good number of really good teachers who deserve all the praise they get, and even the praise they don't get. There are also, of course, those that don't. There needs to be a system in place that fairly evaluates and rewards the good teachers while trying to weed out and jettison the bad ones.
Pie in the sky thinking, GF. There's no way on God's green earth the unions will EVER do this shit.