No Bullsh*t: What is your opinion on Bush's 'No Child Left Behind'?

[battleknight24]

Does he truly want to improve public school education?

Or does he have an ulterior motive?


Peace,

[maveric]

1. Schools that dont score well NEED the xtra funding.

Not the schools that score high.
Its class warfare at its worst.

[Lars39]

2. I believe it is a plan to privatize all the schools.

There's money to be made and Bushco and friends aim to have the monopoly on the profits.

[ulysses]

22. bingo.

Privatization is the goal, with the added benefit that education becomes a privilege instead of a right.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. See Orwell's "newspeak."

Cutting funding and giving a positive spin.

Sick.

[Mythsaje]

4. Education

is as much 'indoctrinization' as it is education. It's not so much about learning how to gather and disseminate information as it's about accepting tailor-made information in suitable chunks for later regurgitation.

Their first task, beginning from the earliest grades, should be to instruct students on HOW to learn...how to search out information, how to view it critically, and how to put it in terms that others might understand.

Kids start out WANTING to learn. It's almost instinctive. But, somehow, before a kid is all the way through Jr. High (if not grade school) they've been forced to learn and regurgitate so much through rote that they're bored by the whole process.

Unless something serious is done the whole idea is to take control of the indoctrinization process themselves...as is happening in Kansas right now.

[Hubert Flottz]

5. He used it like tthe GOP uses God!

To fool the foolish! It's PR trick to get some votes!

[Initech]

6. No Child Left Behind = death of creative thinking

That's basically what it is. NCLB is teaching kids to think alike so that no child is left behind. My mom's a teacher and she thinks it should be called "no child gets ahead".

[alcuno]

7. My middle school is in the top ten percent in the state.

And yet we are not meeting standards because black male special education students in 8th grade did not reach the amount of progress needed. Aaaagh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, all we hear are threats of having the state take over our school. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

It's true purpose is to DESTROY public education by further eroding the public's confidence in the schools.

[MountainLaurel]

14. All sorts of built-in trapdoors like this

In my area, ESL students and learning disabled students are a huge "problem" within the current testing structure. Theoretically, ESL students can get a bye for a couple years after entering the U.S. (even though it should be at least five based on current research knowledge about how long it takes non-English speakers to learn the language so that they're on an equivalent level as natives speakers on standardized tests). HOWEVER, NCLB also has regs about the percentage of students that can be absent on the day of the test before a school is penalized -- I think 95 percent of students have to take the test. This rule stemmed from a problem seen in earlier state efforts at standardized tests where middle- and upper-class parents who realized what a bullshit racket these tests are would keep their kids home from school on the day of the tests. So, if you're in a school where 30 percent of students should be exempt from taking the tests because they're ESL or learning disabled under IDEA, because of the attendance rule, they usually have to take the tests anyway, bringing overall scores down. In the school where my friend taught last year, they were giving the tests to kids who literally had arrived in the U.S. the week before and had no functional English skills, because of this attendance rule: They told the kids to just fill in the bubbles.

[China_cat]

8. It's a way to dismantle public education.

One of the requirements of NCLB is the amount of improvement a school makes over the previous year. Schools that are doing everything right in the first place will fail because they didn't improve.

Right here in Charleston we've just had 2 schools close because of NCLB and failing to meet the requirements. The kids from those 2 schools are being funneled into one school that has met all the requirements. Which means that next year that school will be closed because they'll have gone backwards.

Project it out...pretty soon there are no schools left.

[teamster633]

12. And once we have an entire generation of stupid...

...school children * will finally have a group he can feel intellectually superior to. And evolution will be proven by its inverse.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. It IS bullsh*t. Worst thing to ever happen to education.

[Nite Owl]

10. Too much empahsis on

the testing. Tests should be constructive but with this they aren't, like everything he and the GOP does it's punitive in nature. There is too much time being spent to teach to the test not and not for any kind of real learning. Isn't Neil Bush in some kind of deal with the testing companies in FL? If there isn't money for them in it for sure they would never want it. There is nothing altruistic about that family or their mafia friends.

[teamster633]

13. At our UPS shop, one of our largest customers is...

..."Measured Progress", a testing company whose name just might be Orwellian enough for most of us. They frequently fill entire trucks. Sometimes we even end up with whole trucks full of overnight shipments. If the freight charges are any indication of all the loot they're skimming off of our community, there's gold in dem dar hills. And I can't imagine these guys weren't big contributors to the chimperor.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. I agree

When I was in the public system we had chapter tests and then we'd just have quiz's and at the end of the year we'd have exams and if I was in elementary school we had TCAP testing that would be a whole week for all the subjects and we'd spend the whole year preparing for it and for things to sink in your mind so you can actually learn.

[w8liftinglady]

11. a recruitment tool for the military

http://www.leavemychildalone.org/ This link elaborates on a little-known clause of the "no child left behind" that targets kids in public schools by giving their names,addresses and phone numbers to recruiters,and allowing the recruiters to visit the public school campuses.

[carpetbagger]

15. It means each child gets a remedial education.

That's the yardstick, so that's what they get. I sure wouldn't want to be a college professor 15 years from now.

As to Bush's motives, I don't think it's possible for him to separate any desire to improve education from the endorphin rush he and the rest of the country club chaps get from telling the world that they're going to get tough with students in the ghetto. It makes 'em higher than a kite. I mean this quite seriously.

[WLKjr]

16. This act ignores the REAL problem

and that problem is INSUFFICIENT FUNDING! I hate the fact that republicans think that taking from public schools somehow is benificial to the child.


My suggestion is to start funding the schools more and more. Get the tools into ever school needed to get teh job done. More teachers, bigger and better facilites, better books, more computers, and more focus on literacy, mathematics and science.

This WILL pay off in the longrun if done correctly and put America back on the technology fast track and make the US a leader again.

[wellst0nev0ter]

17. Maybe If He Hadn't Done That Switcheroo After The Enactment

And actually FUNDED the mandate, then I would believe he was actually serious.

[cmd]

18. It is designed to end public education

Instead of taking each child as far as he can go, the bill requires that all children reach average. The gifted is required to be average. The disabled is required to be average. Instead of educating children, schools program them to pass tests.

The schools that don't need money are rewarded, those schools who need funds do not get them. It's all part of the plan to starve public programs out of existance.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. Ulterior motives

Google "No Child Left Behind and military." That's why he only cares about education. Remember the neocons are VERY pro-military as well. Bush wants to privitize everything so he doesn't have to do anything but war bongo's.

[greenbriar]

20. as a teacher

His NCLB is impossible to meet.

IF you want to test progress do a longevity study on the SAME STUDENTS not new ones every year.


His ulterior motive is VOUCHERS and no public schools.


probably cause his schooling obviously sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MelissaB]

26. This teacher agrees.

[Bluerthanblue]

23. no child left behind aka. no child moves ahead

as my very wise public school teacher friend said-

punish the shcools who need the most help

[justgamma]

24. Isn't Neil B. making a lot of

dough on selling software for this scheme?

[Gloria]

25. Just learned this today--that "No Child Left Behind" is derived from

some Rapture stuff, how the believers won't be left behind!

A letter to the Buzzflash Mailbag discussed this. Apparently, the writer's kid decided to research/Google the term and VOILA! he found that information and tied the two together...smart kid!!!