School Notebook

Oh, those legislators!

Get this: There is a new bill now in the Senate Appropriations Committee that, if enacted, would "request the University of California to conduct a study to research the meaning of the term 'proficiency' in California and other states and recommend a definition of the term to the Legislature, the state Board of Education and the superintendent of public instruction ...," according to the California School Boards Association's latest newsletter.

Further, the state board "would be required to consider adopting the definition of proficiency recommended by the University of California ... and to report the accountability data to the U.S. Department of Education by Jan. 1, 2010."

The No Child Left Behind Act already appeared to be pretty well-loathed, in its existing form anyway, but really, if our politicians are considering drafting entire laws to define what even the word 'proficiency' means in the Golden State, it must be even worse than I thought!

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Democratic lawmakers and teachers' unions were quick to denounce much of President Bush's education elements from the State of the Union speech, the New York Times reports.

President Bush’s call for a $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids is the latest effort by his administration to channel tax dollars to low-income parents to help them send their children to private or religious schools.

His proposal, in his State of the Union address Monday night, was denounced by some top Democratic lawmakers and teachers’ union officials as a national “voucher” program that would only drain resources from urban public schools that in many cases are in need of money.

In his final State of the Union, Bush also discused No Child Left Behind, the landmark law first passed in 2001 that his administration has so far failed to renew.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it just me or does the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act seem like a slow crawl toward irrelevence. OK, maybe that's a bit harsh.

But politics have stymied the effort to renew the nation's groundbreaking education law that aims to raise the academic bar and ensure high quality teaching in schools. As is often the case, the behind-the-scenes bickering and lobbying has trumped policy discussions about fairness and accountability for academic programs at schools.

This article in EdWeek takes aim at George Bush and the NEA (the nationwide teachers' union) as the prime culprits.

Here's an exerpt:

When Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., took over as chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee in January, he told audiences that reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act was doable. He occasionally appeared with Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings at his side, promising that such a bill would clear the House this year.

With that goal now unreachable, Rep. Miller sounds pessimistic about the law’s prospects for renewal in 2008, and he is blaming President Bush.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times has a great story this week about the plight of public schools fighting to meet the ever-more stringent standards of the No Child Left Behind act. They lead with some schools in East Los Angeles.

From Diana Jean Schemo's story:

"For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.

But more than 1,000 of California’s 9,500 schools are branded chronic failures, and the numbers are growing. Barring revisions in the law, state officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.

“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”

Read the whole thing here

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gannett News Service has an article that breaks down the leading presidential candidates' positions on the No Child Left Behind law. Read it here.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many of the South Bay's independent schools pass on 12 federal educational grant programs, even though the No Child Left Behind Act gives them eligibility to do so. Catholic schools, for reasons that have roots in President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society reforms, are a notable exception. Read our story for more.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A study being released today says the math tests being used by states as part of NCLB are harder than the reading tests. And The Associated Press story makes this interesting correlation:

The findings come a little more than a week after the federal government reported students have been making much more progress in math than in reading in recent years.
Michael Petrilli, the think tank’s vice president for policy, said it makes sense that students’ math skills are improving if there are high expectations of them in that subject.
“If the bar is higher, you’ve got to work a lot harder,” he said.

The study also found that California is among the states with the hardest tests in both reading and math.

Here's the link.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 4:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a story about the effects of NCLB on teachers in today's Orange County Register.

Here's the link.

Five years after the NCLB Act, what are the debates going on in your school about potential changes?

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Naush Boghossian, staff writer

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent David Brewer, board President Monica Garcia, board member Yolie Flores Aguilar and other district officials will brief members of Congress Thursday on the impact of the No Child Left Behind law on English Language Learners. They'll pop by for a chat with Rep. Laura Richardson, who took office Sept. 4, after winning a special election in August to replace Juanita Millender-McDonald representing Carson, Long Beach and Compton.

They will also recommend improvements to the law and outline the federal commitment necessary to fully address the needs of English learners.

Between five and six million English Language Learners are enrolled in public schools in the United States. NCLB was designed to guarantee that schools and districts were held accountable for teaching these students English and measuring their academic progress with tests they could understand.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)