Education Secretary: 82% of US public schools may ‘fail’ this year

[cory777]

Source: Raw Story

In testimony to Congress Wednesday, US Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a startling claim: This year, up to 82 percent of public schools could "fail" the government's "No Child Left Behind" standards.

"No Child Left Behind is broken and we need to fix it now," he said, according to a transcript provided by the Department of Education.

"This law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed," Duncan added. "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."

Last year, just 32 percent of schools were failing the government's rigorous testing standards.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/09/education-secretary-82-of-us-public-schools-may-fail-this-year/

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Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[ReggieVeggie]

1. maybe it's his fault

I bet he never thougt of it that way

[Drale]

2. When are they going to get the picture that its the lack of funding

and lack of parental involvement thats the problem? I'll answer own question, when their precious charter schools run into the same problems, if they ever get the picture.

[Plucketeer]

7. SPOT ON !!!

Arne's "settin' us up" for the GOP's education desires. Both sides are suckin' from the same teat! We have been SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SOOOOOO Sold a bill of goods!

[Igel]

10. It used to be lack of funding.

The claim can be made that it's now, again, lack of funding.

But for the last decade or two, most schools have seen large increases in funding. Since the school system could absorb a 500% increase in funding and *still* barely admit that it has enough money, nobody wants to admit it. But adjusted for inflation, even removing special needs funding, there's still be a very large increase in almost all education budgets across the country.

There's been no increase in achievement in the schools that got large increases in funding.

Now, correlation may not mean causation. But a lack of correlation, by the standards and criteria proposed by those insisting on causation, pretty much rules out causation (or means that those setting the initial standards and criteria had no clue).

"Not enough funding" wasn't available for a long time to explain the crappy educational achievement of many schools. It might account for the (yet future) decline in some schools, but isn't available to account for schools that have been failing straight along.

[Patchuli]

19. Cite your facts, please. nt

[wordpix]

15. actually, charter schools have the same problems as "regular" public schools

Research shows charters do not have a lead in test scores. Some charters do better, some do worse than regular schools. Right now, it's about 50-50 and depends on the school district and individual schools as to which is better.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. Which actually makes them worse because they often cherry-pick the student body.

[LeftishBrit]

26. +1

Was just making the same point in another post. We have exactly the same issues in the UK, with the current Tory education minister trying to push a massive increase in the number of academies, as we call charter schools, despite lots of evidence that this does not benefit education.

[No Elephants]

31. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo.

[fittosurvive]

20. Your second point is much more accurate than your first.

It is definitely all about parental involvement. Accordingly, like-minded parents who care about their children's educations must be afforded the opportunity to pursue options like charter schools and vouchers. We must free those who care about education from the monopolistic system that refuses to address their needs and meet the high standards that they have set for their children.

[LeftishBrit]

25. And what happens to everyone else?

It is precisely those children whose parents are NOT able to be seriously involved in their education - whether through lack of education themselves; because there is only one parent and she needs to do two jobs just to pay the rent; or much more rarely though lack of interest - who are dependent on education as a public service.

'monopolistic system': there are ALREADY private schools for parents who want them and can afford them (generally those in the USA are less expensive than in the UK). Parents who have the education and resources can ALREADY educate their children at home if they wish. Better-off and more education-oriented parents can move to areas with good state schools. It is always those who have the most money, education and other resources, who have the most choice, and the already-disadvantaged who have least; and vouchers will not solve this situation - there will still be insufficient resources for schools for *most* children, unless more funding and resources are put into education.

Charter schools, or academies as they're called in the UK, have been far from a panacea here. Despite having more opportunity to select pupils than most state schools do, they don't always do particularly well academically. Many are run, partly or wholly, by private companies that treat education as just one more type of business and are not particularly interested in or knowledgeable about principles of education. Some are run by hardline religious organizations, Christian or sometimes Muslim, which are free of the national curriculum constraints of church-aided state schools, and thus can teach children creationism in science classes, strong prejudices against other religious groups, etc.

[fittosurvive]

27. The issue of what to do about everyone else is far more problematic;

nevertheless, I agree that those problems must be addressed. However, it is a fairly simple matter to address the needs of parents who care--just give them the freedom to choose and they will figure it out for themselves. Once that problem out of the way, educators will be free to concentrate on how to educate the children of parents who do not care or understand the value of education.

Ignorance and negligence can no longer be allowed to block the paths of those who seek higher standards.

[No Elephants]

32. "It is definitely all about parental involvement. " You're statement is definitely wrong and

oversimplified. Nothing as complex as differences in human accomplishment would ever be that simplistic.

Socio-economic status, attendance-school, whether parents (or de facto guardians) speak English, whether parents, involved or not, had much education or even literacy in ANY language, peer pressure to do badly (or do well), the shool's physial plant and programs, even availability of school supplies-- and on and on-- all have a bearing.

And the luxury of cherry picking your students AND their parents or guardians has to be huge.

[yurbud]

29. the charters can weed out the problem kids

[No Elephants]

30. And poverty.

[msongs]

3. Too bad there are no tests for Mr. Duncan to take to see if HE is qualified nt

[Angry Dragon]

4. It seems the idea around the country is to make teachers

the devil and to cut funds to schools, that should bring up the failure rate

[LiberalFighter]

5. First step to fix the problem is to fire Duncan's ass.

[sakabatou]

6. It was a failure since it's inception

[mike_c]

8. Duncan is part of the problem, not the solution....

Shit can his sorry ass.

[fittosurvive]

21. The status quo is no longer acceptable and will no longer by tolerated

by parents who are paying the bills and care about their children's educations.

[sulphurdunn]

9. The Obama boys

have made no serious legislative effort to reform NCLB, nor will they. What they have done is graft Race to the Top onto it. RTT lays out the specific channels by which schools will be privatized using public money. Duncan and Obama are lying about their desire to improve public education.

[rgetzel86]

11. Just how they want it to be

Since the goal of NCLB is to have every single child in the nation proficient in math and English at their grade level by 2014, the public schools are doomed to fail. The best school, staffed with the most competent teachers, overfunded, and brimming with resources couldn't get 100% of their students to be at grade level. This is a deliberate effort to discredit public schools - make no mistake about it. How else could Ducnan usher in an era of corporate education?

[Sniper]

12. Bingo!

Notice that it's always poor schools that get the incredibly profitable canned programs like Edison. Why pay teachers when you can have script readers? Why should poor children be treated as individuals.

The private education industry is a horrible racket.

[LuckyLib]

18. Exactly. And "government's rigorous testing standards" is bullshit. Test obsession,

spurred by corporate testing/publishing companies is behind much of this craziness. NCLB was doomed from the day it was launched.

[muntrv]

13. Why? So that more charter schools can pop up like weeds?

[wordpix]

14. TRUE (short) story about preparing a student for DC-BAS (standardized test) today

I work with a certain student in a DC public school in remedial reading, and he is preparing to pass the DC-BAS reading proficiency with a tutor teaching to the test. She was going over a sample test question today that I happened in on; it asked him to select "one of the following italicized words," with four word choices. He appeared confused and could not answer. The tutor then started going over the four word choices. I said, "Ask _____ if he knows what italicized means." She did and he didn't.

[callous taoboy]

28. Have no fear, wordpix. I'm teaching my third graders about italicized

words this week (no joke) instead of actually interacting with fine literature and enjoying it at face value. But hey, at least they'll know what an italicized word is so they can pass some test down the line.

[sam sarrha]

16. isn't that the GOP's education plan.. privatize the public schools..because they are failing ??

:shrug:

[inwiththenew]

17. I can believe it, everyone around here is cutting or planning to cut

The districts don't have money so they have to cut teachers, programs, and classes. But then again city, county, and the state don't have money either. The whole situation is FUBAR.

[Joe Bacon]

22. Your corporate masters want a generation of idiots to do their bidding

That's the bottom line. The Kochs want a generation of stupid slaves to man their plantations.

[xchrom]

24. arne? -- i don't want you fixing jack shit that my tax dollars pay for. nt

[lovuian]

33. they can dumb down but they can't educate

this is war against American people
lets take that budget of the Military and educate our kids