As many predicted, the No Child Left Behind Act is beginning to show signs of failure, and flaw by diagnosing too many sub-par schools or school districts based on school test scores. The problem with the system is that it is dianosing schools who little or not problems, but have some poor test scores, and lumping them into the same category as schools who actually need a large overhall. The secretary of education, Margaret Spellings vows to change and allow leeway for some states school disctricts who have been i.d.'ed schools disctricts in need. Under Spellings 's new program, the federal Department of Education will give up to 10 states permission to focus reform efforts on schools that are drastically underperforming and intervene less forcefully in schools that are raising the test scores of most students but struggling with one group, like the disabled, for instance. The problem with the system in place right now is that the rising number of failing schools is overwhelming states’ capacities to turn them around, and states have complained that the law imposes the same set of sanctions, which can escalate to a school’s closing, on the nation’s worst schools as well as those doing a reasonable job despite some
problems.
Critics of the system claim that the spectrum that allows for the federal government to access whether or not a school needs aid, or improvement, is too broad, and now schools are becoming mistaken and lumped in to conflicting groups, thus spreading the money and funds, and oversight that should be targeted at poorly performing schools, and making a blanket for thousands of schools.
Its interesting to see that the system put in place to monitor school progress, is still struggling to oversee all schools. An alternative im my own view is to let states handle education and give government aid based on income of neighborhoods. This would allow for an equal balance, and more productive means of helping faltering schools and districts.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/19child.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin>
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
As good as it sounds to leave it to the state governments, the gaps between states would inevitably grow, making the college process that much harder for students from states with lower standards. College professors can't always make up the gaps that are created. An A in one state may not be equivalent to that in another. When smaller groups start making up their own rules, the spectrum of problems only grows.
Post a Comment