Republicans admit to being failures in education.

Mott the Hoople said:
The GOP gave us NCLB and teaching to the test and now they want to get rid of it and go back to local control and block grants for federal education. Which is pretty much what we had before Brown vs Board of Education....which tells you how those block grants would be spent. In other words the GOP is admitting failure at improving education.

http://news.yahoo.com/house-debate-bill-replace-education-law-080713281.html
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Should we give them credit for admitting their prior efforts failed and they're trying something new?

The new approach may be right or wrong, but at least they are willing to say they need to do something new.
 
tekkychick said:
Should we give them credit for admitting their prior efforts failed and they're trying something new?

The new approach may be right or wrong, but at least they are willing to say they need to do something new.
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At the time it came out I was excited by it. I was thinking this was going to force schools to perform better and not let them get away with not meeting certain expectations. As I saw it implemented I then started turning against it as I realized (again) that kids are different and learn in different ways and forcing all schools to meet one national standard is not the optimal way to benefit the greatest number of kids.

So I can't be mad at those who wrote and passed the legislation at the time because I supported it but I am glad they are admitting their mistake and are working to change it.
 
As an educator I was against NCLB from the get go ... no surprise there. Bt my reasons were not for fear of my students passing or not passing a test. It is a cookie cutter system and cookie cutters don't work with kids. I do have some radical viewsfor a democrat about education. I believe in segregation, Y's and W's, merit pay of sorts, etc. Oh, and I'm very authoritarian believe it or not. ;)
 
cawacko said:
What's your argument on behalf of keeping NCLB?
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None. I didn't support it in the first place. It set unattainable goals.

The problems in our education system are not going to be solved by some panecea by any politicians. They are deeply rooted cultural and social issues that have contributed to our educational problems and which have created serious educational inequities in our society. You have very large regions of our nation in which minorities and working class people have been denied access to sound education due to out right discrimination to public policies that defund and undermine public education which in turn create a culture in which large segments of our population do not learn to value and support education that has a vast cost to our society.

These sort of grass roots social and cultural issues have to be addressed before any public policy to improve education in this nation has a hope of suceeding and the GOP's call for "greater local control" is just bigotry in sheeps clothing for further attempts to defund public education. Conversely, unless these fundamental grass roots issues are addressed no centralized federal program has a hope of success.

It all comes down to community support. We are becoming a two tiered nation educationaly. We have some sections of the nation that support public education and invests in it heavily and other sections of the nation which do not have community support for public education and do not invest in it to the degree it should and those sections of the nation, due to lack of education, self perpetuate a lack of value for education in those regions. To fix our system we must find a way to convince those in the regions that don't value public education of its huge strategic importance for our nations future and that they/we can end this cycle of ignorance by strongly supporting public education.

The problem is, you have powerful vested interest in those regions who do not want that cycle of ignorance broken.
 
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tekkychick said:
Should we give them credit for admitting their prior efforts failed and they're trying something new?

The new approach may be right or wrong, but at least they are willing to say they need to do something new.
Click to expand...
No.I'm not stupid. If they called it a failure and tried to address the grass roots issues that are the underlying problem in public education than I would give them credit. But I'm not niave and I know that their call for increased local control is at heart the same reasoning for public support for private education, it's a systemic plan to undermine public education. I'm not fooled one bit.
 
cawacko said:
At the time it came out I was excited by it. I was thinking this was going to force schools to perform better and not let them get away with not meeting certain expectations. As I saw it implemented I then started turning against it as I realized (again) that kids are different and learn in different ways and forcing all schools to meet one national standard is not the optimal way to benefit the greatest number of kids.

So I can't be mad at those who wrote and passed the legislation at the time because I supported it but I am glad they are admitting their mistake and are working to change it.
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Who do you think you are fooling, you married a teacher and she straightened your ass out! ;)
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No.I'm not stupid. If they called it a failure and tried to address the grass roots issues that are the underlying problem in public education than I would give them credit. But I'm not niave and I know that their call for increased local control is at heart the same reasoning for public support for private education, it's a systemic plan to undermine public education. I'm not fooled one bit.
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Well yes, there is that problem - motives.

I'm really mixed - I think the only way schools will get better is one at a time, with local input, local control. On the other hand, we need the federal govt to set the level playing field so that kids get a good education no matter what state, city, district they live in.

Not sure how we balance all that. NCLB wasn't the answer.

Also, the mistaken math that schools can always improve another X percent sucks - you have very good schools that get put on probation because once you're excellent, it's really hard to improve another 5 or 10 percent!
 
America’s Education Crisis

http://www.broadcenter.org/americas_education_crisis/education-crisis
americas-education-system-game-over.jpg
 
Mott the Hoople said:
None. I didn't support it in the first place. It set unattainable goals.

The problems in our education system are not going to be solved by some panecea by any politicians. They are deeply rooted cultural and social issues that have contributed to our educational problems and which have created serious educational inequities in our society. You have very large regions of our nation in which minorities and working class people have been denied access to sound education due to out right discrimination to public policies that defund and undermine public education which in turn create a culture in which large segments of our population do not learn to value and support education that has a vast cost to our society.

These sort of grass roots social and cultural issues have to be addressed before any public policy to improve education in this nation has a hope of suceeding and the GOP's call for "greater local control" is just bigotry in sheeps clothing for further attempts to defund public education. Conversely, unless these fundamental grass roots issues are addressed no centralized federal program has a hope of success.

It all comes down to community support. We are becoming a two tiered nation educationaly. We have some sections of the nation that support public education and invests in it heavily and other sections of the nation which do not have community support for public education and do not invest in it to the degree it should and those sections of the nation, due to lack of education, self perpetuate a lack of value for education in those regions. To fix our system we must find a way to convince those in the regions that don't value public education of its huge strategic importance for our nations future and that they/we can end this cycle of ignorance by strongly supporting public education.

The problem is, you have powerful vested interest in those regions who do not want that cycle of ignorance broken.
Click to expand...

I agree that politicians are only a (small) part of the answer but from their perspective you don't want local control but you don't like federal standards either. What do you want them to do?
 
cawacko said:
I agree that politicians are only a (small) part of the answer but from their perspective you don't want local control but you don't like federal standards either. What do you want them to do?
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I personally want them to wave a wand and make it all better...

It's a tough issue.

Think it still needs to be a mix; federal govt needs to keep ensuring all schools meet a minimum standard, but local control needs to decide how best to get their public schools to meet that goal.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
None. I didn't support it in the first place. It set unattainable goals.

The problems in our education system are not going to be solved by some panecea by any politicians. They are deeply rooted cultural and social issues that have contributed to our educational problems and which have created serious educational inequities in our society. You have very large regions of our nation in which minorities and working class people have been denied access to sound education due to out right discrimination to public policies that defund and undermine public education which in turn create a culture in which large segments of our population do not learn to value and support education that has a vast cost to our society.

These sort of grass roots social and cultural issues have to be addressed before any public policy to improve education in this nation has a hope of suceeding and the GOP's call for "greater local control" is just bigotry in sheeps clothing for further attempts to defund public education. Conversely, unless these fundamental grass roots issues are addressed no centralized federal program has a hope of success.

It all comes down to community support. We are becoming a two tiered nation educationaly. We have some sections of the nation that support public education and invests in it heavily and other sections of the nation which do not have community support for public education and do not invest in it to the degree it should and those sections of the nation, due to lack of education, self perpetuate a lack of value for education in those regions. To fix our system we must find a way to convince those in the regions that don't value public education of its huge strategic importance for our nations future and that they/we can end this cycle of ignorance by strongly supporting public education.

The problem is, you have powerful vested interest in those regions who do not want that cycle of ignorance broken.
Click to expand...

Applause, Applause.
 
cawacko said:
I agree that politicians are only a (small) part of the answer but from their perspective you don't want local control but you don't like federal standards either. What do you want them to do?
Click to expand...
Well here's the issue in a nutshell about local control. If the local school boards are focused on the kids. If it's all about the kids and their curriculum and the quality of their education than local control is great but when it's about politics on the local boards than that can sink public education quicker than a Serbian submarine and that's when Federal involvement becomes neccessary. There are too many regions where too many school boards have political agendas that are NOT about the kids. That shit needs to stop. Big question....how do you do that?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Well here's the issue in a nutshell about local control. If the local school boards are focused on the kids. If it's all about the kids and their curriculum and the quality of their education than local control is great but when it's about politics on the local boards than that can sink public education quicker than a Serbian submarine and that's when Federal involvement becomes neccessary. There are too many regions where too many school boards have political agendas that are NOT about the kids. That shit needs to stop. Big question....how do you do that?
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Politics on a local school board? INCONCEIVABLE!!!!!

(oh my is there politics... and in my old town, the one school board meeting I went to - I didn't have kids in the system - I swear half the school board members were missing half their brains... maybe more. Local control isn't always good control, fer shure)
 
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