Here's an item that flew under the radar these past few weeks.
President Obama has released 10 states from the mandates of No Child Left Behind. One of those states is Georgia. If you recall Georgia - specifically the Atlanta Public School System, came under fire in the last few years for numerous cheating activities.
The climate of cheating was spurred on by the rigorous demands of NCLB. NCLB, which was instituted back in 2001, requires all government-run schools receiving federal funding to administer a state-wide standardized test (all students take the same test under the same conditions) annually to all students. The students' scores are used to determine whether the school has taught the students well. If the school's results are repeatedly poor, then a series of steps are taken to improve the school.
Here's the kicker to NCLB. Each year the schools must see significant improvement, or they run the risk of losing funding or at the worst, possibly being taken over by the state. The problem is, some of the school systems already max out their improvement. They're scoring well on the tests - but they aren't scoring well enough to show significant strides in improvement. This has cost districts significant resources!!!!
Back in July of 2011, I asked the question, is NCLB a factor in the rampant cheating scandal involving the Atlanta Public Schools. It seems as if some agree with me with this recent turn of events.
But the question now is, how will all this shakedown - and will we see more school systems across the country opt out of NCLB before long?
President Obama has released 10 states from the mandates of No Child Left Behind. One of those states is Georgia. If you recall Georgia - specifically the Atlanta Public School System, came under fire in the last few years for numerous cheating activities.
The climate of cheating was spurred on by the rigorous demands of NCLB. NCLB, which was instituted back in 2001, requires all government-run schools receiving federal funding to administer a state-wide standardized test (all students take the same test under the same conditions) annually to all students. The students' scores are used to determine whether the school has taught the students well. If the school's results are repeatedly poor, then a series of steps are taken to improve the school.
Here's the kicker to NCLB. Each year the schools must see significant improvement, or they run the risk of losing funding or at the worst, possibly being taken over by the state. The problem is, some of the school systems already max out their improvement. They're scoring well on the tests - but they aren't scoring well enough to show significant strides in improvement. This has cost districts significant resources!!!!
Back in July of 2011, I asked the question, is NCLB a factor in the rampant cheating scandal involving the Atlanta Public Schools. It seems as if some agree with me with this recent turn of events.
But the question now is, how will all this shakedown - and will we see more school systems across the country opt out of NCLB before long?
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment