Thursday, September 22, 2011

The problem with Obama’s plan to issue NCLB waivers - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

The problem with Obama’s plan to issue NCLB waivers - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

The problem with Obama’s plan to issue NCLB waivers

President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan would do well to listen to Daniel Domenech on the subject of issuing states waivers from key provisions of No Child Left Behind.

Obama is expected to announce on Friday the details of his plan to issue the waivers, according to this story by my colleague, Lyndsey Layton.

Last month administration officials announced that because of the


Republican bills in Congress don’t solve NCLB’s main problems

This was written by Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a Boston-based non-profit dedicated to ending the misuse of tests . A different version was published on the National Journal Education blog.

By Monty Neill

If you're a parent or teacher fed up with the way high-stakes testing drives more and more of what happens in school, a new bill from Sen. Lamar Alexander and some Republican colleagues offers little hope of relief. Their package of five bills to change the federal No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) would help by getting rid of the disastrous Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) provisions which mandate all schools reach 100% proficiency by 2014. However, the bills keep too much testing in place and does nothing to address the way the current law increases educational inequity by turning schools for poor children into test prep centers and little else.

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