Obama signs education law rewrite shifting power to states

WASHINGTON (AP) — Calling it a "Christmas miracle," President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law on Thursday, ushering in a new approach to accountability, teacher evaluations and the way the most poorly performing schools are pushed to improve.

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This works. Well done Mr. President and Congress. See, there ARE things you can find common ground on, and it's about time.

Article is here.

danarhea said:

This works. Well done Mr. President and Congress. See, there ARE things you can find common ground on, and it's about time.

Article is here.

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This is clearly a plot to convert the nations children to Islam and Homosexuality.

danarhea said:

This works. Well done Mr. President and Congress. See, there ARE things you can find common ground on, and it's about time.

Article is here.

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Power back to the states, where the Founders intended. Obama never would have agreed to that if the Bill did not pass by a Veto Proof Majority.

danarhea said:

This works. Well done Mr. President and Congress. See, there ARE things you can find common ground on, and it's about time.

Article is here.

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Doubling down on the taking of power his office and the federal does not possess.

danarhea said:

This works. Well done Mr. President and Congress. See, there ARE things you can find common ground on, and it's about time.

Article is here.

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I would agree that a reduction in "teaching the test" is a good thing, however our issue becomes how many State benchmark type exams start to take the place of less Federal benchmark type exams that in the end changes nothing in total testing applied to the student. And then of course, apply that to teacher performance.

We might be better off simply removing all Federal standardized tests and go with something like the Finland model. Far less standardized testing, reasonable testing at the course level, far more competition at the school level anyway, and they consistently kick the hell out of the US (and just about everyone else) in results. Start teaching kids how to really learn instead of just preparing for a test, one that we argue all the time on effectiveness.

Chainsaw said:

Power back to the states, where the Founders intended. Obama never would have agreed to that if the Bill did not pass by a Veto Proof Majority.

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I doubt this bill gets to a veto proof majority without approval from Obama.

OrphanSlug said:

I would agree that a reduction in "teaching the test" is a good thing, however our issue becomes how many State benchmark type exams start to take the place of less Federal benchmark type exams that in the end changes nothing in total testing applied to the student. And then of course, apply that to teacher performance.

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I think the recent alterations federal guidance on testing might still have some effect, although I am not sure if it is still controlling given this new piece of legislation. Essentially, the DoE issued guidance that they wanted students to spend no more than 2% of class time preparing for exams and left it up to the States to decide which tests were pertinent enough to keep.

danarhea said:

This works. Well done Mr. President and Congress. See, there ARE things you can find common ground on, and it's about time.

Article is here.

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We'll see how this goes. No Child Left Behind was a disaster, but we'll see if we get any improvement with this.

Ironic considering the recent decision on homosexual marriage.

clownboy said:

Doubling down on the taking of power his office and the federal does not possess.

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Doubling down on WHAT!?!? This bill was passed by both houses of a Republican Congress, with Democratic support too. IT GIVES POWER BACK TO THE STATES.

Did you even bother to read the article before you posted what you posted? LMAO.

Ikari said:

We'll see how this goes. No Child Left Behind was a disaster, but we'll see if we get any improvement with this.

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No Child Left Behind was a good concept, but the patchwork way it was implemented was horrible. The new law corrects the problems in the original bill.

We will know much more over the coming months. Regulations will take some time to prepare, particularly with the election upcoming.

What I will say, though, is that the law is likely going to be a needed corrective to the grossly exaggerated achievement mandates of NCLB.

What No Child Left Behind did for the minority community cannot be understated though. Before the law, a number of us were as close as possible to the invisible students. In special education, in particular, there was a significant lack of interest in us as a student population by general education staff and administration. After the law, however, they were forced to confront us and the myriad of ways that the education system had systematically screwed us over for decades. Advocates from across the country have been able to report in good numbers that after that law, suddenly some of the right people were wanting to come to meetings.

It didn't come without struggles, however. In the immediate years after NCLB, I sat in on state legislature hearings, where I heard nothing but teacher representatives rant about us being counted for once. We were ruining their school's reputation and status with the Department of Education, they said. Some state lawmakers agreed, some of them family members of teachers themselves who they heard complaining about how unfair it was.

Now, however, I heard a 180 from our state's main teacher union (and the National NEA). Now they say the data collection is just swell, as if they never spoke out against it about a decade ago. It's to the point now where the national NEA just glosses over last summer.

At least we've progressed enough to the point where the union members don't curse us in public and private circles for having the audacity to be tested and have our educational progress be a big priority for the education system.

Do I like that the federal government is easing its reigns on the states? Absolutely.

Do I think that that means that the local school districts don't need a hot poker to the ass from the feds to do the right thing? Not on your life.

Chainsaw said:

Power back to the states, where the Founders intended. Obama never would have agreed to that if the Bill did not pass by a Veto Proof Majority.

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Not true. Obama didn't like NCLB...but then who did, except Bush? Surprisingly, Obama doesn't like teacher unions, either.

Moot said:

Not true. Obama didn't like NCLB...but then who did, except Bush? Surprisingly, Obama doesn't like teacher unions, either.

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Although significant, the differences between the two aren't meant to be dramatic. While from Reagan to now we have seen the political success of the conservative accountability and standards movement, President Obama and Bush both kind of shared this belief that there were underserved demographics and data was going to drive effective reform efforts from here on out. The minority's education experience incentivized utilizing disaggregated data and achievement benchmarks for the public schools.

President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political (Education Policy): Robert Maranto, Michael Q. McShane: 9781137030924: Amazon.com: Books

This is a reason why good teachers are leaving the profession.

I came into teaching under NCLB. I was already prepped for all the testing and documenting that we had to do. Then in came Common Core. So we had to revamp things again - more paperwork, new training, new testing. Many states have already implemented programs where student test scores are tied to teacher evaluations and teachers have already had or are getting the training to do all of THAT paperwork. Now it's changing AGAIN.

And I've only been teaching for 11 years.

Teachers are sick to death of the government forcing them to do dumb paperwork, dumb training and dumb documentation when all they're going to do is change it in a couple of years. We want to TEACH and we're tired of bureaucrats thinking they know how to make things better when all they're doing is making teachers want to quit.

Chainsaw said:

Power back to the states, where the Founders intended. Obama never would have agreed to that if the Bill did not pass by a Veto Proof Majority.

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So how did the bill get a veto proof level of support??? Bi-partisanship, which means, coz I know we rarely see it these days, but it means both Libs and Pubs support the bill so to opine the President doesn't support it is absurd. But not unexpected... eace