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The Miami Herald published an op-ed piece yesterday from NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. He wrote specifically about the Florida legislature’s pattern of failing to provide adequate funding for the state’s schools . Van Roekel also brought to light the massive shift of taxpayer’s dollars that once went to public schools is now going to private entities.
The problem is especially critical in Florida, where state education funding was slashed by more than $1 billion for the current fiscal year, a drop of almost 8 percent. Even before that latest round of cuts, Florida ranked 50th among the states in per-capita spending on education. That poor investment has yielded poor returns — 44th in the high school graduation rate and 48th in
In a move that could give Illinois more flexibility over how it holds schools accountable, the Obama administration announced Thursday that it will waive key portions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act for states that commit to certain reform efforts.
In recent years, state superintendents, educators and critics of the law have argued that it does not provide an adequate picture of a school’s success, relies too heavily on testing and sets an unrealistic goal by mandating that 100 percent of students meet basic skills requirements by 2014.
“This is not a step back from accountability,” a senior official at the U.S. Department of Education said. “Our role is to simply get out of the way as best we can.”
Under No Child Left Behind, states are required to test students in certain grades on basic math and reading
