Several "wealthy" MA schools placed of Federal "Watchlist".

[Raven]

Some of you know that I've been researching the No Child Left Behind Law and writing some anti-Bush fliers. Today on the Boston news it was announced (with shock!) that several MA schools in wealthy communities have been placed on the NCLB watchlist for underperformance. The state Education Commissioner, when asked how this could happen, pointed out that in Weston (a gated community if there ever was one!) it was because of those pesky Metco kids (black kids bused in from the inner city). In some other communities he said it was because of the special needs kids.

Now, it is clear to me where we are going to go from here...no more Metoc kids in Weston or any other suburban community...too risky. THE METCO PROGRAM, WHICH HAS BEEN THRIVING FOR YEARS IN MASS. WILL BE ABANDONED. SPECIAL NEEDS KIDS WILL NOT BE "MAINSTREAMED" ANY LONGER.

This is diabolical and it's part of Bush & co's master plan.

[Raven]

1. I am going to kick this because

for people of color, people with disabled children and people with just plain struggling children...in school...this will be the wave of the future and it is the death knell for equal education and opportunity. If this thread dies again, I won't kick it, but at some point in the future I will say " I warned you guys".

[VelmaD]

2. I think you're right...

it's pretty obvious where this is headed.

Did they really do something SO short-sighted as to include Special Ed kids in the overall performance measures for NCLB? That's just insane.

[tlcandie]

4. I don't believe it was short-sighted.. I believe it was done to

boot kick public education out the door as we know it now. As others said, it will be a whole different world where only the affluent are educated while the rest slave away trying to put food on the table for their families living in hubbles.

[K-W]

3. And it was planned to do this.

The No Child Left Behind Law is designed to make schools fail, and make all kinds of schools fail. They designed it to torpedo public education.

Now people everywhere can use the failings to justify all sorts of measures.

[Killarney]

5. Weston is on the watch list?! WTF?

I wonder if this was in the Globe today (or tomorrow). This should cause some rich Weston Republicans to get a little pissy at the shrub.

[K-W]

6. or they could fidn scapegoats in the schools

like most people are doing in these situations

[smirkymonkey]

7. Kick!

:kick:

Sick bastards!

[welshTerrier2]

8. the facts aren't clear about this

source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/09/16/384_mass_schools_faulted_on_progress/

some affluent suburban districts made the list because they failed to make acceptable gains, often for a single group of students. This is the first year the state has named school districts to the federal list.

what's unclear to me is the phrase "make acceptable gains" ... it could be the case that affluent schools remain the "best" schools but made the watch list because they failed to do even better than they did the year before ... the documentation provided by the Boston Globe was very weak ...

what gets lost in all of this is that illiteracy rates, even among high school graduates, is still very high ... the press loves these sensational stories about wealthy Weston failing to make the grade ... the reality is that most students in Weston have it far better than students in poorer communities ... stories like this almost seem happy to bury that inequity ...