News

Quote of the Day

March 9, 2011

Laura Waters

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told Congress today that his department estimates that 82 percent of America’s schools could fail to meet education goals set by No Child Left Behind this year. Duncan urged Congress to fix the law before the next school year begins so that the schools and students most at risk get the help they need.

“No Child Left Behind is broken and we need to fix it now,” said Duncan during testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

“This law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk,” Duncan continued.

From a U.S. DOE press release issued today.

Laura Waters

2 Comments

The Vicar, March 11, 2011 @ 12:34 pm Reply

This is a partial repose from the DU,(Democratic Underground).This shows what many do not know, that the NCLB bar is raised every year till all public schools will be failures By 2013. For the whole article See:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/7419

Arne having to change tune since NCLB is causing 82% of schools to fail….
Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion
Fri Mar 11th 2011, 12:39 AM
instead of causing them to be successful. As soon as the students meet a testing goal, the next year they raise the goal. The parents are not clued in that the standards are being raised, so they blame the schools and the teachers, especially the teachers.

I remember in 2003 when Howard Dean made an offhand comment after a rally, and remembered I was even questioning the accuracy of the statement myself until I thought it out. While the Bush administration was claiming it was a way for the schools to succeed, Dean said the opposite.

2003 Howard Dean on NCLB… “every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school.”

“The president's ultimate goal,” said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, “is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he's starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools.”
kallikak, March 12, 2011 @ 12:52 am Reply

Only 82%, Arne?

Howard Dean, Diane Ravitch and others figured this one out years ago.

Fast-forward to Chris Christie and “our failing schools”.