Finally - What Might Happen with NCLB
Ed Week has a great chart showing the different ideas in Congress around NCLB. I'll have to sit down, read it and ponder it but it would be something of a game changer. I look forward to more dissection from the experts. I'd love to hear what teachers think.
(One peeve: so once again, Director Martin-Morris, after seeing a packed house during the School Board testimony and listening to impassioned speakers on Special Ed, the Center School issue, etc., completely ignored all that and went on his own way during his director comments. That might be okay except that he is always talking about something that seems out-of-context to everyone but him. He seems to exist, as a director, in some other non-SPS sphere.
The latest was saying something to the effect that "Congress is finally going to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Great but for probably 95% of the people out there, it's NCLB. I have a feeling virtually no one understood what he was talking about or its importance (given what had just been discussed). He also continues to be the only director to never thank speakers for taking the time to come down to the Board meeting. The only one. )
(One peeve: so once again, Director Martin-Morris, after seeing a packed house during the School Board testimony and listening to impassioned speakers on Special Ed, the Center School issue, etc., completely ignored all that and went on his own way during his director comments. That might be okay except that he is always talking about something that seems out-of-context to everyone but him. He seems to exist, as a director, in some other non-SPS sphere.
The latest was saying something to the effect that "Congress is finally going to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Great but for probably 95% of the people out there, it's NCLB. I have a feeling virtually no one understood what he was talking about or its importance (given what had just been discussed). He also continues to be the only director to never thank speakers for taking the time to come down to the Board meeting. The only one. )
Comments
I'm guessing the "experts" referred to actually are the teachers.
Common Core Standards Off Mark
excerpt=>
"Secretary Arne Duncan and the federal Department of Education ignored this prohibition by providing multi-hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts to encourage development of the core standards and the online computer tests to measure student learning and the effectiveness of teachers and principals.
The development of the core standards was bought and paid for by the Department of Education and large national and international computer and digital based corporations; e.g., Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. The seductive siren calls of the millions of dollars offered as bribes were too much for the National Governor’s Association, the Council of State School Officers, national and state associations of school administrators and school directors to refuse.
In fact, individual states “fought” each other via the submission of competitive grant proposals in an effort to receive funding. They sold their souls by buying into conditions that required them to surrender local control of education for an unknown, undeveloped and untested national curriculum."
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So NCLB will likely use CCSS as a base. What a "Ridiculous Country" we now live in. The oligarchs wish to rule nearly every aspect of life. The WA State politicians as well as NEA, WEA, SEA, AFT unions are largely complicit in the sell out. Yet the general public believes in a democratic republic.
Remember the WA legislature adopted CCSS sight unseen with the provision that Randy Dorn submit a full report to the Senate and House education committees on or before Jan 1, 2011 which would outline the full impacts of CCSS adoption. Mr. Dorn failed to do so and the legislators did not care. He violated a state law written specifically for him and the legislators did not care.
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So now we have Dr. Joe Willhoft formerly Mr. WASL as the executive director of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium which will produce CCSS assessments..... "This game is seriously rigged."