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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

UPDATE: Schools Matter: Third Graders Face Retention in 13 States for Failing a Test

Schools Matter: Time for Weingarten to Go:


Third Graders Face Retention in 13 States for Failing a Test

In 2000, Louisiana became the first state in the Nation to require elementary school children (4th graders), to pass a test to move on to 5th grade.  Since then hundreds of thousands of poor children have learned failure at an early age, with many of them now entering the "correctional" system of Louisiana, which is a major employer in the state.

Research shows that failing a grade is as traumatic to 3rd graders as losing a parent, but with the help of Jeb Bush's team and the lawyers from ALEC, we now have this bare-knuckled legislation to mandate 3rd grade retention in 13 states, as reported in this story at WaPo by Lyndsey Layton.

Where are the pediatricians, the child psychologists, the educational researchers who publish their important 



Time for Weingarten to Go


Too bad it took Randi Weingarten 10 years to "get arrested" when the writing was on the blackboard with the obviously insane, destructive and impossible goals of NCLB  calling for 100% proficiency by 2014. The noose around the teachers' necks has been getting tighter and tighter and now the ones in the most vulnerable communities are gasping for air and about to expire. The stories form Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle and New York about what's happening to these communities barely made news at all. Does anyone even care that the head of the AFT was arrested?
 The public schools, the unions and the freedom to teach and to learn have been under attack for three decades and today the results are playing out all across the