ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) is now law. Here are a few different perspectives.
CSM NCLB Replacement
NBC NCLB Replacement
Examiner NCLB Replacement
Ed Week ESSA Cements Obama-Duncan Legacy
Politico New Edu-Era
DS Xmas Comes Early for Teachers
I hope the Local and State folks deliver for every child... However I am thinking many communities and States will go back to their old ways. Just lower the expectations and pass the unlucky students through... Hope I am wrong.
CSM NCLB Replacement
NBC NCLB Replacement
Examiner NCLB Replacement
Ed Week ESSA Cements Obama-Duncan Legacy
Politico New Edu-Era
DS Xmas Comes Early for Teachers
I hope the Local and State folks deliver for every child... However I am thinking many communities and States will go back to their old ways. Just lower the expectations and pass the unlucky students through... Hope I am wrong.
13 comments:
and one more link from which I've drawn this quote:
“But our schools aren’t ‘failing’,” Brown said. “They’ve been failed.”
School Closures Hurt Communities, Advocates Warn
when I have something new to say I will comment in more depth.
People like these are idiots and part of the problem. They want to keep dozens of partially filled buildings in neighborhoods where academically challenged parents raise academically challenged children.
"Jitu Brown, the national director of Journey for Justice Alliance did not mince words. “School closings are a human rights issue,” he said."
Jitu apparently thinks it is better to keep sending unlucky students to poor performing schools that are full of poor performing students/parents.
"The anti-school closure movement has gained momentum thanks to parents like Anna Jones, a single mother of four children who spoke at Thursday’s congressional briefing. Jones participated in a 34-day hunger strike this past fall in Chicago to fight the closure of Dyett High School."
And go figure... Anna is a single Mom with 4 kids... Surprise !!!
I do agree with this statement though. Those parents did fail to raise the children well and support their schools.
"“But our schools aren’t ‘failing’,” Brown said. “They’ve been failed.”"
Do you know the best way to get unqualified parents engaged in the school district???? Threaten to close their local school... :-) You would not believe the number of people who came out of the woodwork when RDale had to close some schools because of declining enrollment.
sigh. I should have expected comments along the lines of what you just posted - just more criticism all around. Do you ever have empathy or consider that you might not know everything, such as what is best for at risk kids? Maybe you should try listening to what people who live in these neighborhoods have to say
What I meant by the schools have been failed is that in the case of the school in which I work - we are not provided the resources we need to provide a good or even adequate education to our students.
And again... Who's fault is it that your "Charter School" is not equitably funded? Certainly not mine or the GOP's...
Please remember that the Teacher's Unions, Government Bureaucrats and Democrats are fighting to starve Charters of funding... Remember that RDale has left an elementary school building empty for ~6 years instead of letting a local charter rent or buy it. There was no way they were going to support giving the local kids more choice...
"Under No Child Left Behind, Brown said, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, was able to push through an agenda of expanding charter schools and shutting down low-performing neighborhood schools that he deemed were failing."
Laurie,
Why do you think we should not close partially filled (therefore expensive) schools that are failing to educate their student body to the expected standard?
What are you hearing when you read these articles?
Most of these schools receive a great deal of state and federal funding...
I don't think failing schools receive the additional funding needed to educate at risk students. It is likely there are some failing schools where the best decision is to close them, but that should not be the default response. If they have low enrollment and parents are choosing other schools, that should definitely be a factor in the decision about whether to support them to a greater extent or shut them down.
There is much value to neighborhood or community schools and they should sometimes be given the support they need to become more successful. I think North high school in n. Mpls would be a good case study of a school that was to be closed but was kept open due to parent activism. I don't know much about their enrollment or achievment or how it has changed. Maybe I will look into it.
About neighborhood schools, based on the experience of my kids of attending school with 20 other kids from the neighborhood and getting to know many great families over the years from school events and youth sports I am a huge fan of neighborhood schools over the city model of families in a neighborhoods choosing many different schools.
I don't know how ESSA affects common core, but I think taking this thread or in a new direction of common core would be interesting (or maybe start with a new post about it.) I support the common core for a variety of reasons.
How Arne Duncan Lost The Common Core And His Legacy
New K-12 education law leaves schools behind
It does seem to be a step backwards in holding schools accountable and giving them the support they need.
Of course it is less likely to hold them accountable. Neither the Teachers Union or the Education bureaucracy wanted to be held accountable, so the Democrats happily gave up helping the unlucky kids. And the GOP dislikes any Federal intervention, even something as logical as demanding common high academic standards across America, so they happily gave up on the unlucky kids.
I assume that your "support they need" is MO MONEY... It seems to be the common theme of Liberals, Teacher's Unions, Education Bureaucrats, etc.
It costs a lot to educate at risk kids. My school is doing the best we can with the funds we have and we are falling way short. We don't even have a library.
What is your suggestion for school improvement? Wait, don't answer that, unless you have some new good idea to add.
I am just after absolutely baffled by your statement, "I am thinking many communities and States will go back to their old ways." I am trying to figure out which states and communities you believe have been successful because of NCLB that will no longer be successful? I mean we've had NCLB for what, 10 years? Has the achievement gap in the Minneapolis schools been eradicated in that time? Has every child reached the 100% proficiency goal established for last year? How many kids have been given the means to leave failing schools, and how many failing schools have been closed? I would say schools could go back to their old ways and nothing would change. Unfortunately, the tools to force change are simply not in play, and meanwhile we are destroying another generation of kids. It ought to be criminal.
I think NCLB did an excellent job of making the "crime" highly visible and drove a great deal of discussion. Of course change will be slow when all the adults are change averse.
- Status quo school systems spent 10 years fighting the tests and grades rather than becoming motivated and reinventing themselves. Kind of like a petulant child who receives a D in Physics on their first test and spends the whole semester blaming the Teacher instead of trying to improve themselves.
- Conservative citizens continue to be resistant to challenge Parents rights and fund Parent / Pre K education for the poor, irresponsible and/or incapable. Folks like yourself who are adamant that this is a school problem when it is obviously a societal problem.
As for academic benefits, only time will tell. It looks like NAEP's long term trend data is from 2004.
About needing more $- The biggest thing I am curious about is how Hiawatha Academies gets such good results with at risk students. I believe they make their teachers work 10 hour days. How do they find enough teachers willing to work that schedule when we can't even find teachers to fill open positions (we did fill 2 /3 positions recently.)
I am sure there are other things they do much better than we do at my school. Also the demographic at my school is more challenging (nearly 100% low income, 100% ELL, and high % - slife- newcomers with limited formal education)
Obviously a societal problem??? It seems to me that's exactly what happens when you try to blame society for criminal behavior, and fail to punish criminal behavior by separating out the criminals from the rest of us. The reason for the big up-tick in violence in SP schools is because of the new policy putting a "quota" on the number of minority students that can be disciplined. That is a SCHOOL problem, pure and simple, emphasis on simple (as in minded).
As Laurie points out, Hiawatha does more with less, with a similar demographic, PROVING that this is a school problem. Now, whether the public schools CAN change or even WANT to change to actually teach kids, that's the problem. Seems to me that the best way of curing society's ills is to get these kids properly educated, NOT the other way around.
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