Spellings: "No Child Left Behind...99.9% pure"

Education Secretary Defends School Law

By BEN FELLER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; 3:55 PM

WASHINGTON -- Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Wednesday the No Child Left Behind Act is close to perfect and needs little change as its first major update draws near.

"I talk about No Child Left Behind like Ivory soap: It's 99.9 percent pure or something," Spellings told reporters. "There's not much needed in the way of change."

Spellings' comments signal what amounts to the Bush administration's starting position as the law comes up for renewal. That is scheduled to happen as soon as next year.

--snip--
Yet her view that the law needs little change is notable because it differs so sharply from others with a stake, including many teachers, school administrators and lawmakers.

Already, the House education committee is holding hearings on how to improve the law. So is a prominent bipartisan commission, which is touring the nation to gather opinions.

More than 80 organizations have signed a statement urging fundamental changes, in areas such as how student progress is measured and how schools are penalized when they fall short. And the National Conference of State Legislatures has given the law a scathing rebuke.


(Sorry I don't have a link - I got this emailed to me, but it's an AP story so it shouldn't be too hard to find.)

Woman is delusional as hell!!! Alternate universe anyone?

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/06/Tampabay/Education_secretary_d.shtml

The woman is crazy as hell. The sick part is that I was in a hearing with her Deputy Secretary, Ray Simon, and he said that the administration has been "very generous" with regards to funding for education. Just batshit insane.

crap...

.......without funds it's not worth the paper it's written on.....

I shit you not.

and would never understand why anyone (let alone for the sake of children) would want some more.

Frankly it is a law designed to drive public schools out of business, and force all children to attend private, either for profit schools or religious schools, all on the taxpayers' dime. It's definitions and requirements are ludicrous, and since now teachers are teaching to the tests, they are ignoring entire areas and disiplines that fall outside the tests.

For example, the Missouri school system recently recieved an F for having "highly competent teachers" Why was this F handed out? Because 16,000 vetran teachers had been awarded life time teaching certificates before 1988, when Missouri switched to renewable, area specific teaching certificates. Sorry, but these are our best, most experienced, dedicated, rewarded, recognized teachers in the state, yet they're being told by the federal government that they're failures simply because of when their teaching certificates were awarded.

It is past time to get rid of NCLB. It is destroying out public school system and doing a huge disservice to our children. And sadly, we're going to keep paying for this mistake for years to come.

The scarry part is that some of these people actually believe the lies they are telling. I'm not sure about this woman, but supression of ambient stimulation is common in the * administration.

That .1% is the acknowledgement of the "achievement gap." It's real, there is a gap, and we should be doing something to close it.

That goal is not going to be accomplished under NCLB, which does not address the sources of the gaps. My professional prediction.

States have the option of not reporting cohorts that they feel are statistically insignificant, and privacy laws prevent them from reporting on groups small enough such that you could pick out a specific person's scores. Unfortunately, no national definition was made as to what that number is, so states have been hiding behind this loophole. For what it's worth, it does look like they're going to close that in the reauthorization.

They might be a big factor, if the only problems were the tests.

There is a much larger machine operating behind the "test 'em til they croak" brigade, and most of it has nothing to do with test scores.

The legislation does not address the source of the achievement gap. It depends on tests that are not always reliable, not always valid, and are not able to offer tests in a format than many students can access successfully. It remains difficult to test higher level thinking. Many critical skills cannot be tested by these tests, and training people to bubble correct answers on tests does not address the source of the gap, which still affects their performance and their futures.

The legislation does open the door for many negatives, including:

privatization of public education, bit by bit
corporate control of curriculum through mandated commercial "programs"
An intense focus, mandated to those schools whose subgroups keep them from making AYP, on low-skill rote drill and kill exercises.
A reduction in time and dollars for anything not direct reading and math instruction.

I could go on. Much of this directly contradicts brain research, and is obviously set up to produce the next generation of cheap labor, cannon fodder, and obedient ballot bubblers. N-sizes are trivial in the bigger picture, in my 23 years of professional experience.

Best Bush administration quote ever. :rofl:

Given No Child Left Behind has it faults especially in dealing with the ever increasing culture of testing, the question comes up as to what the federal government actually can do in determining where money should go. We have established the problem with this topic, now what are the solutions? The federal government has to have some way to determine how money is given to schools since Constitutionaly it can't set up its own schools. Spelllings and the Bush administration have chosen test scores to be the criteria. Is there a better way?

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I have one myself-pure cuteness.

:smoke:

Jayzus H. Or something.

Are these people daft?

the entire regime. Did anyone really expect something different? She is, afterall, a NAZI appointment.

military's call list. Yeah, that's part of NCLB. I don't even want them tracking his age and grade status.

More than Williams?