It's no secret that Obama and the Democrats have been wanting to radically alter the No Child Left Behind legislation that is up for reauthorization this year. One reason is that it exposes too many Democratic machines in big cities where schools are totally dysfunctional.
Can't have that now, can we?
So, the president has decided to gut the legislation Nia Malika Henderson of Politico has the details of Obama's plan:
Obama's proposal would toss out the core of the Bush-era law, which calls for across-the-board proficiency from all students in reading and math by 2014, and instead emphasize revamped assessment tools that link teacher evaluations to student progress, and a goal of having students career and college ready upon graduation.
Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have called the 2014 goal unreasonable, and have said that it led to watered-down standards. Instead, his blueprint calls for a new goal of career and college readiness for all graduating high school students by 2020.
The administration also backs the expansion of charter schools and has added a competitive edge to federal grants rather than funding by formula-much of the $3 billion increase in education in Obama's budget proposal is based on grants that go to schools that demonstrate progress and success.
The blueprint is "not only a plan to renovate a flawed law, but also an outline for a re-envisioned federal role in education," Obama writes in the introduction to the 45-page document released Saturday evening.
The only hopeful sign is the expansion of charter schools. But few details on how that will be funded lead one to believe that few federal grants will be headed that way and instead, poured into big city schools that are so far down (Detroit graduates only 25% of its high school kids), any improvement at all will be seen as demonstrating "progress and success."
Teachers unions are said to be up in arms because the plan will be "rolling back seniority, implementing merit pay and allowing districts greater flexibility in assigning teachers." Yeah. Good luck getting that through Congress.
Even conservatives found NCLB to be imperfect. But to gut the legislation and create "an outline for a re-envisioned federal role in education" is uncalled for. The Feds already have too big a role in local education matters. Expanding it won't improve most schools and will only give education bureaucrats more funding.
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