Trading the Frying Pan for the Fire
by admin
Please read the following letter to the editor for the Charlotte Observer by Kris Nielsen, a middle school teacher, activist and blogger living in North Carolina–a state that is drowning in testing mandates. In addition to making sure students grow to love learning, he is highly motivated to make sure that parents, teachers and the community are educated about the educational affairs that affect them and the rest of the country. Kris blogs at http://www.mgmfocus.com/ and can be reached at klnielsen74@gmail.com.
Dear Editor:
In May of this year, North Carolina celebrated its waiver from the all-or-nothing AYP standards of the No Child Left Behind act. Secretary Arne Duncan says we have a strong condition to meet, though, if we want to continue avoiding those standards: all of our students must be “college- or career-ready” by the time they graduate. Oh, and our graduation rates had better go up. And we had better come up with a good way to account for all of this. It all sounds like a very positive way to move our education policy forward as a state, instead of under the heavy hand of the Federal law.
Here’s why it’s not positive. North Carolina DPI officials had to write a
