Soooooooooo, Chimpy wants "No Child Left Behind" renewed?

[deminks]

Bush pushes Congress on 'No Child' law

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/politics/story/162387.html

WASHINGTON --
President Bush said Tuesday that he's open to new ideas for changing the "No Child Left Behind" education law, but will not accept watered-down standards or rollbacks in accountability. The president and lawmakers in both parties want changes to the five-year-old law - a key piece of his domestic policy legacy, which faces a tough renewal fight in Congress.

(snip)

Almost everyone agrees the law should be changed to encourage schools to measure individual student progress over time instead of using snapshot comparisons of certain grade levels.

There also is broad agreement that the law should be changed so that schools that miss progress goals by a little don't face the same consequences as schools that miss them by a lot.

There are, however, deep divisions over some proposed changes, including merit pay for teachers and whether schools should be judged based on test scores in subjects other than reading and math.

(end snip)

No insurance for poor kids, no school buses for handicapped kids, and now more BS unfunded mandates for education for all kids. Bush and his rethuglicans, why do they hate children after they are born?

[Hydra]

1. I love what George Carlin said about that

"No child left behind...no child left behind! Used to be, we were giving them a head start...Head start, left behind...head start, left behind...Someone's losing fucking ground here!"

[eShirl]

2. "why do they hate children after they are born?"

Because if they can turn them into maladjusted, mean-spirited children, they'll be more likely to become republicans when they grow up.

[DaveJ]

3. The only thing that matters is Niel's business

From http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/12/1534244

After Neil Bush was banned from banking activities for his role in the Savings and Loan scandal in the late 1980s, he decided to bank on education and founded Ignite Incorporated. Ignite sells software to help students prepare to take comprehensive tests required under the No Child Left Behind act that was pushed through by Neil's older brother - President Bush.

[Hydra]

6. Damn, you should always follow the money with this bunch

if they do anything, one of the family or cronies is always a beneficiary...

[City Lights]

9. Not just Neil's, but all the Bush family friends.

posted January 10, 2002 (January 28, 2002 issue)
Reading Between the Lines

STEPHEN METCALF

<snip>

While critics of the Bush Administration's energy policies have pointed repeatedly to its intimacy with the oil and gas industry--specifically the now-imploding Enron--few education critics have noted the Administration's cozy relationship with McGraw-Hill. At its heart lies the three-generation social mingling between the McGraw and Bush families. The McGraws are old Bush friends, dating back to the 1930s, when Joseph and Permelia Pryor Reed began to establish Jupiter Island, a barrier island off the coast of Florida, as a haven for the Northeast wealthy. The island's original roster of socialite vacationers reads like a who's who of American industry, finance and government: the Meads, the Mellons, the Paysons, the Whitneys, the Lovetts, the Harrimans--and Prescott Bush and James McGraw Jr. The generations of the two families parallel each other closely in age: the patriarchs Prescott and James Jr., son George and nephew Harold Jr., and grandson George W. and grandnephew Harold III, who now runs the family publishing empire.

The amount of cross-pollination and mutual admiration between the Administration and that empire is striking: Harold McGraw Jr. sits on the national grant advisory and founding board of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. McGraw in turn received the highest literacy award from President Bush in the early 1990s, for his contributions to the cause of literacy. The McGraw Foundation awarded current Bush Education Secretary Rod Paige its highest educator's award while Paige was Houston's school chief; Paige, in turn, was the keynote speaker at McGraw-Hill's "government initiatives" conference last spring. Harold McGraw III was selected as a member of President George W. Bush's transition advisory team, along with McGraw-Hill board member Edward Rust Jr., the CEO of State Farm and an active member of the Business Roundtable on educational issues. An ex-chief of staff for Barbara Bush is returning to work for Laura Bush in the White House--after a stint with McGraw-Hill as a media relations executive. John Negroponte left his position as McGraw-Hill's executive vice president for global markets to become Bush's ambassador to the United Nations.

And over the years, Bush's education policies have been a considerable boon to the textbook publishing conglomerate. In the mid-1990s, then-Governor Bush became intensely focused on childhood literacy in Texas. For a period of roughly two years, most often at the invitation of the Governor, a small group of reading experts testified repeatedly about what would constitute a "scientifically valid" reading curriculum for Texas schoolchildren. As critics pointed out, a preponderance of the consultants were McGraw-Hill authors. "Like ants at a picnic," recalls Richard Allington, an education professor at the University of Florida. "They wrote statements of principles for the Texas Education Agency, advised on the development of the reading curriculum framework, helped shape the state board of education call for new reading textbooks. Not surprisingly, the 'research' was presented as supporting McGraw-Hill products." And not surprisingly, the company gained a dominant share in Texas's lucrative textbook marketplace. Educational Marketer dubbed McGraw-Hill's campaign in the state "masterful," identifying standards-based reform and the success of McGraw-Hill's "scientifically valid" phonics-based reading program as the source of the company's eventual triumph in Texas.

more... http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020128/metcalf

[goddess40]

4. It is so flawed it should undergo a major rewrite

Recently,I was watching WisconsinEye, a new channel that broadcasts state legislative meetings, hearings and other things of interest in the state, and the Executive Director of Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators Miles Turner(http://www.wasda.org/public/contact.asp ) was addressing some legislatures regarding NCLB. I was truly impressed, he said that the majority of Superintendents want NCLB scrapped. When a republican Senator Luther Olsen told him since NCLB isn't going away what would he like to see changed Turner came back with a comparison - you're talking about a loaf of bread that half is better then nothing, well NCLB is a moldy loaf of bread and half isn't better then nothing. (It's not an exact quote but it's close)


Anything not directly related to education should be thrown out and clauses without someones name attached should also be thrown out. The republicans like to throw nasty laws into these big bills and when someone asks where it came from no one seems to remember.

[renie408]

5. This is the worst thing to ever happen to public school. Of course he wants it renewed. n/t

[valerief]

7. What Lord Pissypants wants, Lord Pissypants gets. No one will stop him!!!! nt

[liberal N proud]

8. He needs the program to stay in place so history is not taught

All the schools are too busy teaching for the "government designed standardized test" that they don't teach anything that isn't related to the testing.
The can leave certain parts of history off the tests and schools will not have time to teach the children what a criminal bu$h and his band of thieves are.