State education plan makes parents responsible

State education plan makes parents responsible:

"Giving parents their choice of schools. Making sure teachers are qualified. Forcing bad schools to improve."



All are tackled in the huge school reform package signed into law Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and approved with lightning speed by state lawmakers this week, to give California a shot at winning $700 million in the national education competition called Race to the Top. The application deadline is Jan. 19.


But to anyone who has spent time in a school over the past decade, such reforms will sound familiar: They have been part of the federal No Child Left Behind Education Act that has strictly governed school accountability since 2001.


California's new Race to the Top plan "sounds very similar to No Child Left Behind," said Mike Kirst, education professor emeritus of Stanford University. "What's different is that NCLB relies on top-down enforcement from the state and federal governments," while the new plan requires parent participation to fix low-scoring schools.


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