Overriding a Key Education Law (executive authority to rewrite No Child Left Behind)

[kpete]

Source: New York Times

Overriding a Key Education Law
By SAM DILLON
Published: August 8, 2011


Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

Mr. Duncan told reporters that he was acting because Congress had failed to rewrite the Bush-era law, which he called a “slow-motion train wreck.” He is waiving the law’s proficiency requirements for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs and are making other strides toward better schools, he said.

The administration’s plan amounts to the most sweeping use of executive authority to rewrite federal education law since Washington expanded its involvement in education in the 1960s.

Conservatives said it could inflame relations with Republicans in the House who want to reduce, not expand, the federal footprint in education. But Mr. Duncan and White House officials described their plan as offering crucial relief to state and local educators as the No Child law, which President George W. Bush signed in 2002, comes into increasing conflict with more recent efforts to raise academic standards.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/education/08educ.html?_r=1

[mrdmk]

1. It is a law designed to fail schools and put them out of business

NCLB had no business being passed in the first place...

[exboyfil]

2. On the flip side

can the Executive branch just ignore a law? It seems like an impeachable offense to me. Unless the law allows for discretion to make thes changes, then Duncan is in violation of that law.

I frankly think the whole thing should be flushed, and, except for setting national standards, equitable funding for pupils by state, and open source textbooks, the federal government has no business being in a local issue like education.

[Demeter]

3. What's One More Law Ignored?

Already the war crimes laws and treaties are ignored, the war powers act ignored, the whole damn Bill of Rights ignored...ignoring this abomination would at least have some legal basis.

[femmocrat]

7. True, this could be tied up in the courts for a long time.

It might amount to a big fat nothing.

[dogmoma56]

9. States are allowed to write their own programs.. no other way to repeal the Bullshit NCLB,

i was in Texas when a tiny article in the back of the paper said an error had been made in the statistic's of the original pilot NCLB, they didn't factor in the 48% drop out rate in the program that STILL EXISTS.!!!

IT IS TIME TO FLUSH THAT PIECE OF CRAP.!! TEACH OUR KIDS TO THINK, REASON, AND READ.!!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. You do realize that it had bi[artisan support headed up by Ted Kennedy

[dogmoma56]

11. excellent example of what happens when you cooperate with th GOP looking to eliminate public schools

[No Elephants]

27. Actually, Kennedy cooperated in order to get funding for education.

[dogmoma56]

12. proof that good people can do stupid things

[No Elephants]

26. Especially if their motives are impeccable, but Bush lies to them. Please see Reply 25.

[mrdmk]

19. Yes, by the same Ted Kennedy who came up with CORBA

Do you know how expensive CORBA is? My Ex Wife and I had to use it when she retired from her job. The total cost was $10,000 a year not including co-pays and other expenses if we went out of network.

BTW: The Bush Jr. Administration used Ted Kennedy to push NCLB until the last couple of months. Mr. Kennedy was side-swiped by all of the provisions place into the bill to kill public education. Mr. Kennedy quietly backed-off at the end of the process. What to do?

[No Elephants]

22. Your anger seems badly misdirected.

Kennedy acted on legislation throughout his life to help folks get access to health care, from neighnorhood health clinic to the public option bill he wrote as he was dying.

COBRA (not CORBA) saved many a life. It was designed primarily to allow people, including those with pre-existing conditions, to stay insured until they got another job where they would be covered under an employere group plan.

Sorry it did not work out financially to your liking for you and your wife on her early retirement, but it was not designed as retirement health care plan. That would be Medicare, not COBRA.

"The total cost was $10,000 a year not including co-pays and other expenses if we went out of network."

I am not sure whose network you are talking about or why you would not want to stay in network. All that would be a function of the insurance your wife's former employer chose for employees. None of that has nothing to do with Kennedy or COBRA. Neither does the annual cost of private health insurance.

Sadly, 10K a year for a couple for private health insurance is not bad at all these days, but that has nothing to do with Kennedy or COBRA either. COBRA only required that private insurers continue to insure people during your unemployment, instead of dropping you entirely and leaving people, esp. those with pre-existing conditions, no way at all to get any health insurance whatever.

"Q2: What does COBRA do?

COBRA provides certain former employees, retirees, spouses, former spouses, and dependent children the right to temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates. This coverage, however, is only available when coverage is lost due to certain specific events. Group health coverage for COBRA participants is usually more expensive than health coverage for active employees, since usually the employer pays a part of the premium for active employees while COBRA participants generally pay the entire premium themselves. It is ordinarily less expensive, though, than individual health coverage."

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-consumer-cobra.html

It seems from your post that staying in network was your less expensive solution. And, if you were unable to pay that, you could have applied for Medicaid, which I'm guessing Kennedy also voted for. So, one way or another, you would have been able to access medical care, even without Medicare, which is the entire point.

Finally, you did not explain how you and your wife would have been better off COBRA did not exist. If COBRA improved your situation at all, without disproportionate cost to taxpayers, I really don't get your beef against Kennedy.

Moreover, I don't know why Kennedy has to take the blame anyway. I don't know if he authored COBRA, but I'll take your word on that. Didn't all of Congress vote on it in 1986 and didn't President Reagan sign it?

BTW, I recommend posting here more often. It's good for perspective--and for facts!

[No Elephants]

21. And? Not true anyway, but even if it were, so what?

BTW, this is not a Republicans v. Democrats thread. This is about a Executive Branch acting because Congress has not done so.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

24. Kennedy spearheaded NCLB from the Democratic side of the aisle

People tend to forget that good people originally thought it was a good idea and supported it.

[No Elephants]

25. Misleading. Kennedy did not support in its final form. But, again, even if had, so what? What is

your point in posting that Kennedy supported NCLB in the context of this thread about the Executive Branch acting because Congress hasn't?

As long as you did bring Kennedy into it for no apparent reason, though:


"After the bitter contest was over, many Democrats in Congress did not want to work with incoming President George W. Bush.<73> Kennedy, however, saw Bush as genuinely interested in a major overhaul of elementary and secondary education, Bush saw Kennedy as a potential major ally in the Senate, and the two partnered together on the legislation.<73><179> in return for increased funding levels for education.<73> The No Child Left Behind Act was passed by Congress in May and June 2001 and signed into law by Bush in January 2002. Kennedy soon became disenchanted with the implementation of the act, however, saying for 2003 that it was $9 billion short of the $29 billion authorized.<73> Kennedy said, "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not,"<179> and accused Bush of not living up to his personal word on the matter.<73><142> Other Democrats concluded that Kennedy's penchant for cross-party deals had gotten the better of him.<73> The White House defended its spending levels given the context of two wars going on.<73>"

(The above is from Kennedy's wiki)

Again, what was your point in mentioning Kennedy on this particular thread?

[dogmoma56]

14. special ed classes are factored in to the total schools score.. so they cut Special ed programs

[bemildred]

4. Stupid laws don't work. Who knew?

Next it will dawn on them that degrading and impoverishing teachers is a poor way to improve schools.

[Moonwalk]

5. About Friggin' Time! Three Years in and Someone Finally Does Something!

Three years is an entire high school education, wasted thanks to kids studying for tests rather than actually learning. Stupid law! If they felt they couldn't ignore or change it, they should at least have put it on hold.

[indurancevile]

23. obama's ed policy is more testing, not less.

[femmocrat]

6. The devil could be in the details.

Arne's Race to the Top initiative is no better, some say worse, than NCLB. Getting rid of the stringent proficiency hurdles is a good thing as they were too high for many students to clear. However, his requirements for teacher accountability and evaluation have been criticized by teachers.

[BadgerKid]

10. States codified accountability rules in order to be eligible for RTTT funds

way back when. Not sure whether I should interpret this as a dirty trick or not to relieve the federal gov't from blame if scores fall short.

[Tatiana]

13. Oh, so now the executive has found powers it can use?

NCLB is a heinous piece of anti public education law. However, Congress passed it. It should be repealed or at least the portion mandating 100% proficiency while Congress works on another ESEA authorization.

[ElboRuum]

15. Conservatives said...

...wait, who gives a shit?

[truth2power]

16. kpete, there is another thread on this, this morning (not complaining. I don't care) but I responded

on that thread and thought I'd post my comment, here, too.

I've never seen one person question how one can expect 100% proficiency when dealing with a diverse population which includes all public school students in the country. It's expecting perfection, which is impossible in the real world. And it just begs for the system to be gamed in order to meet that particular criterion.

Likewise, Arne has stated that he is striving for a 0% high school dropout rate. I don't see how this is possible unless you're speaking of a prison population.

I don't claim to be an expert in statistics. Far from it, although I was forced to take a statistics course, once. :wow:

I think the people running this thing don't have a clue about research methodology.

[Igel]

17. You're right.

In a lot of schools you really put the teachers and administration through the wringer, revamp everything, hire specialists and bend over backwards and you get a 5% bump in scores. 10%, and you're giddy with exhilaration. Of course, you're starting at 50% so the school still fails.

Their assumptions are bad. They so believe their narratives in grad school, in tenure-track jobs, in politicking, that they can't conceive of their assumptions being wrong. They've failed numerous times, but they must be right. The reality-based academics believe themselves right. The politicians believe themselves right. It gets pathetic after a while--and their response has been year after year for the last 40 years, "Give us more power. We can fix this: We've been right all along, we want yet *another* time to show that we're right."

The drive to improve test scores leads to schools not trying to retain potential drop-outs. Administrators in one school I observed nodded when one kid dropped out. He was old enough, and he left a week before the standardized tests. Woo-hoo! One kid fewer to fail.

One result is that GT kids are slighted. You need a certain percentage over a certain minimum score. You don't care how much over the minimum those who passed scored. That kid who got 62% right when he needed 60% is just as good as the guy who scored 99%, and you'd rather put your effort into getting another kid to go from 60 to 65 than from 80 to 99. You wind up with large bulges of students right above the passing mark. Of course, when the minimum score goes up to 65% you suddenly find that this large bulge is just *below* the passing mark. Tennessee redux.

[bemildred]

18. +1.

I don't think they have a clue education either. I mean, it's been a while now, are the schools in your town doing better or worse? They are going downhill fast where I live. I can remember when this country had a great education system, and it's been going downhill ever since they started talking about "fixing it".

[No Elephants]

20. So much for the alleged reluctance of Obama's Executive Branch to tread on the toes of Congress.

Another myth exposed, along with the myth that Obama has no power over how Democrats in Congress vote.