School Information System
Newsletter Sign Up |

Subscribe to this site via RSS: | Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

March 28, 2010

Obama Retreats on Education Reform

Karl Rove:

"Teaching to the test" means teaching real skills.

In a week dominated by health care, President Barack Obama released a set of education proposals that break with ideals once articulated by Robert F. Kennedy.

Kennedy's view was that accountability is essential to educating every child. He expressed this view in 1965, while supporting an education reform initiative, saying "I do not think money in and of itself is necessarily the answer" to educational excellence. Instead, he hailed "good faith . . . effort to hold educators responsive to their constituencies and to make educational achievement the touchstone of success."

But rather than raising standards, the Obama administration is now proposing to gut No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) accountability framework. Enacted in 2002, NCLB requires that every school be held responsible for student achievement. Under the new proposal, up to 90% of schools can escape responsibility. Only 5% of the lowest-performing schools will be required to take action to raise poor test scores. And another 5% will be given a vague "warning" to shape up, but it is not yet clear what will happen if they don't.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 28, 2010 1:02 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas