Obama and Arne Duncan are scrapping the No Child Left Behind project. They say it isn’t working. Here are the facts.
Percentage of eight-grader from households earning more than $40,000 a year proficient at math:
2000 34%
2001 37%
2002 39%
2007 42%
2009 45%
No Child Left Behind penalized schools, teachers, and states that don’t meet goals. This is obviously unfair, since so many inner city schools have made zero progress. This is a Capitalist plan. It involves accountability and pays for success. The Socialist Plan is much better.
Here’s the Obama plan. Reward states where union teachers and school boards rate schools highest. And, make sure you pick the states where you need votes in the fall election. Only two states qualify in the first beauty contest. Tennessee and Delaware. Tennessee will get $600 million and Delaware $100 million of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition. President Obama wants to win support from Senator Lamar Alexander(R) Tennessee and Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware(R) to rewrite No Child Left Behind. The Corn husker Kickback all over again.
No Louisiana Purchase though. Even though Louisiana has done more than any other state with charter schools, teacher accountability, and school choice. Guess what, low ratings from the teacher’s union. Same with Florida.
Best way to win the Obama lottery, raise teacher’s pay, keep non-performing teachers, and overspend. Limit school choice. And, appease school board by not closing non-performing schools. Mask poor reading and math scores by adding scores form classes like basket weaving. Hide the growing gap between the scores of minority and white students. Ignore the declining performance in inner city schools despite the money spent to improve performance.
The state of Illinois, with one of the poorest performances in the nation rated 5th in this convoluted, subjective analysis. Arne Duncan was the superintendent in Chicago, great school system. Do you need to know more?
