Support for NCLB in the Mercury News:
For five years, California's attempt to fix failing schools was confused and in disarray. But the federal No Child Left Behind Act has a timetable and sanctions that hold the state's feet to the fire, and this has forced California to make a long-overdue change. State officials now have adopted an academically focused school-improvement method that should work to rescue failing schools. The state and its school districts need to persist in this effort.
Authors Bill Evers and Lance Izumi are of the "schools benefit from facing a takeover" mindset, which is anathema to educrats who'd like schools to remain immune to outside criticism, much less dismantling. For an example of such educrats, Martin West and Paul Peterson suggest the NEA ($ubscription required), using a comparison that is sure to make the union see red:
The National Education Association, its affiliates in 10 states, and a ragbag of school districts have just filed a federal lawsuit alleging that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is an unfunded mandate. If the NEA's complaints sound hauntingly familiar, it's because Americans have heard them before -- 40 years ago, when Southern segregationists did their best to evade the desegregation requirements of Lyndon Johnson's original law offering federal aid for education.Then, recalcitrant school districts complained about an unfunded mandate. Then, they objected that the dollars did not cover the full cost of desegregating their schools. Now, resistance comes from those who claim to represent public-school employees. Now, as much as then, the resistance is woefully misguided.
Ouch.
Posted by kswygert at April 29, 2005 02:21 PM