As Congress stalls on fixing No Child, Obama today offers short-term fix
President Obama announced that states can get waivers from No Child Left Behind. (AJC file.)
No Child Left Behind — and how to escape it — dominated discussion in Washington today. President Obama announced waivers from the law for those states that make efforts “to close achievement gaps, promote rigorous accountability, and ensure that all students are on track to graduate college- and career-ready.”
“To help states, districts and schools that are ready to move forward with education reform, our administration will provide flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change. The purpose is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level,” said the president.
Here are the criteria to obtain a waiver:
1. A state must have already adopted college- and career-ready standards in reading/language arts and mathematics designed to raise the achievement of all students, including English learners and students with disabilities. The state will then help its schools and districts transition to implementing those standards and will commit to administering statewide tests aligned with college- and career-readiness.
2. A state will establish a differentiated recognition, accountability, and support system that gives credit for progress toward college- and career-readiness. The system each state develops will recognize and reward the highest-achieving schools that serve low-income students and those that show the greatest student progress as Reward Schools.
For a state’s lowest-performing schools — priority schools, generally, those in the bottom 5 percent — a district will implement rigorous interventions to turn the schools around. In an additional 10 percent of the state’s schools — focus schools, identified due to low graduation rates, large achievement gaps, or low student subgroup performance — the district will target strategies designed to focus on students with the greatest needs.
3. Each state that receives flexibility will set basic guidelines for teacher and principal evaluation and support systems. The state and its districts will develop these systems with input from teachers and principals and will assess their performance based on multiple valid measures, including student progress over time and multiple measures of professional practice, and will use these systems to provide clear feedback to teachers on how to improve instruction.
In response to President Obama, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander issued this statement:
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn,. today spoke on the Senate floor about the No Child Left Behind law, the Obama Administration’s plan to announce a waiver plan for states seeking relief from the law’s outdated provisions, and the introduction last week of five Senate Republican bills to fix the law.Alexander asked U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to “show restraint” with respect to his waiver-granting power, saying, “Just because the Secretary has every state over a barrel doesn’t mean he should be tempted to use this opportunity to become a national school board.”
Alexander continued: “Step back. Look at the applications for waivers. If they enhance student achievement, say, ‘Yes.’ If they don’t, say, ‘No.’
“Some might say, and they’d be exactly right, that the real reason the Secretary is granting waivers is that Congress hasn’t done its job. We’re in our ninth year of No Child Left Behind and we should have fixed it four years ago when the law expired,” Alexander said. Congress has instead extended it every year without fixing it.
He went on to say that there is “substantial agreement here in the Senate, except for these accountability provisions, these differences over whether we’re creating a national school board. We should come to a conclusion about this. We should get a result. We shouldn’t create a situation where every governor has to come to Washington to get a waiver from standards that don’t work anymore. That’s our job.
“The Secretary has the power to grant waivers, but he should do it in a limited way and Congress should get to work fixing No Child Left Behind so there is no need for waivers. I call on our Democratic colleagues, with whom we’ve met dozens of times, to redouble our joint effort to get a result. “This is not a case where we don’t want President Obama to succeed, as some have suggested. We want him to succeed, because if the President succeeds on K-12 education, the country succeeds.”
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued this statement:
“For the last two years, I have been working in a bipartisan fashion to do everything in my power to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Senator Enzi has been a great partner in this effort – we have been meeting on a regular basis since February to negotiate a comprehensive reauthorization, and have made tremendous progress. We have agreement on all but a few issues, and I remain hopeful that we can resolve the few issues that remain and move this bill forward.
“Having said that, I am not unaware of the obstacles that lie in front of us to get a bill to the President’s desk. Legislating is very difficult in this Congress, as we’ve seen time and time again, and local schools are crying out for relief from the most onerous provisions of No Child Left Behind. I certainly understand President Obama’s decision to proceed with a waiver package to provide some interim relief while Congress finishes its work, and am pleased that he is requiring states to show real commitment to reform in order to receive a waiver.
“But as I’ve said before, the best way to fix problems in existing law is to pass a new one. I am concerned that waivers provide a patchwork approach rather than a national solution. Given the circumstances, it’s the best temporary solution available – but it’s my strong preference that we pass legislation that provides a path forward for all 50 states, not just those who choose to pursue the waiver package. I will continue to do everything I can to provide America’s children with a world-class education system that will give them the skills they need to compete in the 21st century global economy.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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161 comments Add your comment
Jackson Parent
September 22nd, 2011
8:10 pm
NCLB is one of the main reasons why Beverly Hall, Kathy Augustine and their gaggle of lieutenants were able to coerce widespread cheating throughout the Atlanta Public Schools. The reputation of our city and school district has been indelibly stained. Our children will be challenged with overcoming this stigma for generations to come.
Yes, Hall and her gaggle of thugs must be prosecuted. However, NCLB undergirded the district’s cut throat environment.
I understand that there are other school systems under investigation for cheating and I can only assume that the same dynamics are at play. The frenzy over end of year testing in our schools permeates all instructional activity from August through May. Until this madness is ended, expect a continued decline in the quality of education our students receive.
Jackson Parent
September 22nd, 2011
8:11 pm
NCLB is one of the main reasons why Beverly Hall, Kathy Augustine and their gaggle of lieutenants were able to coerce widespread cheating throughout the Atlanta Public Schools. The reputation of our city and school district has been indelibly stained. Our children will be challenged with overcoming this stigma for generations to come.
Yes, Hall and her gaggle of thugs must be prosecuted. However, NCLB undergirded the district’s cut throat environment.
I understand that there are other school systems under investigation for cheating and I can only assume that the same dynamics are at play. The frenzy over end of year testing in our schools permeates all instructional activity from August through May. Until this madness is ended, expect a continued decline in the quality of education our students receive.
Ed Johnson
September 22nd, 2011
8:13 pm
“President Obama announced waivers from the law for those states that make efforts ‘to close achievement gaps, promote rigorous accountability, and ensure that all students are on track to graduate college- and career-ready.’”
Corporatists Eli Broad and Bill Gates could not say it better. Well, come to think of it, probably they did say it, and Obama simply is repeating it.
Still, how about the idea of students being on track to graduate society- and democracy-ready (small “d,” not big “D”)?
d
September 22nd, 2011
8:43 pm
I will say there are a couple of things that I noticed in Dr. Barge’s plan that I find quite interesting. At the high school level, all EOCTs will count towards determining a schools’ level of success. On top of that, the Work Ready Assessment will be taken into account.
I tweeted earlier today to Arne Duncan that I think we need to lay off the standardized tests and focus on project-based learning – something that gets students out in the community working and applying what they are learning in school. Unfortunately, the question then arises, how is this evaluated. Since it’s not by machine, I doubt it will ever come to pass.
Fred
September 22nd, 2011
9:16 pm
Just more BS. It’s not up to the federal Gov’t to fix schools. It’s up to us. As long as we kid ourselves that ‘they’ are doing “something’ “we” don’t have to get off our lazy asses and do it ourselves. All I read from President Obama’s plan was the same “blah blah’ I read from “Don’t rock the boat’ Johnny’s plan. Stupid rhetoric that is meaningless. Oh wait, was I redundant there? Did I say the same nothingness twice? I MUST be a politician in training………….. someone shoot me……… quickly………… please.
HMLC
September 22nd, 2011
9:47 pm
NCLB is a flawed concept in which at least one of the assumptions is that 100% of children can meet the standards that are set which is a mathematical impossibility based on the normal curve of intelligence clearly indicates that IQ varies from 0 to 200. Granted that most people fall in the middle range of the normal curve, not 100% which means that NCLB is based on a mathematically and scientific impossibility.
Therefore, NCLB on that fact only beside the others is flawed.
Truth will out
September 22nd, 2011
10:05 pm
Let us abolish the department of education and let No Child die off as everybody agrees it should! In addition to letting the national government save billions of tax dollars, we would be upholding the Constitution, a win – win situation.
Kathy II
September 22nd, 2011
11:00 pm
NCLB = ESEA of 1965 with a few addendums….
“After Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson made education and civil rights the foundation of his War on Poverty. Johnson promised Powell that the Civil Rights Act would be enacted in the spring of 1964;
“Mandating desegregation neutralized some of the controversy around federal aid to segregated schools–if the law was upheld, it was just a matter of time until schools were somehow integrated. The other sticking point–funding for sectarian, non-public schools–was circumvented through the creation of Title I, “Education of Children of Low Income Families.”
“In a complex yet constitutional process, Title I funds provided services to students in parochial schools through funds granted to the public school districts.The public districts–in addition to taking care of their own students–also purchased books and hired teachers for the parochial school students. Due to the fact that publicly elected officials controlled the federal monies at all times, the separation of church and state was maintained. “Title I was clearly one of the most significant provisions of ESEA,” says Gordon Ambach. “That legislation was designed so that children in need at both public and nonpublic schools were served.That central concept is on the books today, 40 years later.”
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2005/08/esea0819.html
Atlanta retired principal, yeh i am black
September 23rd, 2011
12:09 am
Let teachers teach and let children learn. Leave politics out of education and we will be good. I will say it again, here is the problem in a nut shell. Let us talk about the real problem. Here it is again.
Silly rabbits, it’s about parents and nothing else. The problem with so many of our children is the fact that many of them lack parental involvement, they lack guidance so they fail. As a former principal in the Atlanta Public schools it was amazing how much energy we put into blaming teachers for failure and how little attention we placed on parents and community. Many of the children that I have encountered are lazy; hell shiftless if you ask me, and they do not see the connection between schooling and success.
Many African American parents do not see the connection between their involvement and their children success. Freedom has giving many of them a voice that is displaced by blaming institutions instead of their responsibility as the primary teacher. They come to the school angry and almost always ready to blame everyone but themselves for the basic lack of training they have afforded to their child. Additionally, the former superintendent insists in her every word that if children failed it was because of the teacher. I wish I could have disagreed with her in public and still have a job. I knew for years that the reason why so many of our children failed was because of the lack of connection between home and school.
Also, since so many African Americans have been afforded a poor education themselves they are unable to communicate effectively with the school and become blamers instead of helpers. Many of them, African American females come to the school angry and ready to fight because they are angry at the fathers that left them at home with these children. I believe that African American females are the biggest distraction to student receiving a quality education. I said it – black females are to blame for the reason why black males are out of control. They let these males become the man of the house and guard them like Parana’s to a point where they are never wrong in the home and they come to the school with the same attitude.
If we want our children to become educated we need to remove them from these uncivilized homes and place them in boarding schools away from their mothers and teach them discipline. Here is another statement, too many black females are in charge of public schools and they come with their excessive baggages and compound the problems even more. I am writing a book about my experience in Atlanta Public Schools, schedule to go into print soon. “I know why Black boys won’t learn – Black females”
Also look out for “The African American Female Mob, the Atlanta Public Schools Experience” also scheduled to be in print. It’s time for the truth and many won’t like it.
Black male parent
September 23rd, 2011
12:17 am
I have to agree with Atlanta retire principal, our boys are out of controll and i too believe its because too many of them are the man of the house. Check this link out and you will see how many of us feel. A black woman will do anything she can to try and distroy a black male and thats why so many of us date white women or become gay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6QQAv2VVKE
KNO
September 23rd, 2011
12:40 am
wOW POWERFULL. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
September 23rd, 2011
12:53 am
Bmp,
Strong. But much more true than poetic.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
September 23rd, 2011
12:56 am
Arp-yIab,
Strong, too. And containing much more than a modicum of Truth.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
September 23rd, 2011
12:59 am
And I thought my charge of character weakness among us teachers as a primary cause for test-cheating, as opposed to the diabolical NCLB as such a compulsive cause, would be controversial.
KNO
September 23rd, 2011
1:31 am
WAW JUST LOOKED AT THE VIDEO, THIS IS REALY SAD. I HAVE HEARD THIS FROM MANY OF MY BLACK FRIENDS BUT NEVER KNEW IT WAS THIS AWFULL TO LIVE AND BE WITH A BLACK FEMALE. WAW BEVERLY HALL WAS LIKE THIS IN SHEEP CLOTHING. WAW WAW WAW, SAD AS HELL. NO WONDER BLACK MEN RUN AWAY AND DONT WANT TO BE TRAPPED
Dr. Proud Black Man
September 23rd, 2011
5:59 am
smh
mountain man
September 23rd, 2011
6:31 am
So schools are required to make sure that a Special Education student with an IQ of 40 os college-ready? That is what is wrong with the system, it demands the impossible. You have to educate illegal alien children who don’t speak English but do it while spending less money than you did last year. You cannot require students to even attend class, let alone pay attention, do homework, or even not disrupt other students, but you have to guarantee that they are “college-ready”. The only way to do that with some kids is to turn them into great football players. Then they would be “college-ready”.
mountain man
September 23rd, 2011
6:41 am
If you really want to improve the education system, institute a “High School Diploma Really Means Something Law”. Make it mandatory that any recipient of a high school diploma take a test to verify that they have at least the minimum basic skills in Reading, Writing, mathematics, science, history. If they don’t pass after several tries, they receive only a Certificate of Attendance with their days of attendance percentage from all through high school. At least then businesses would know what they are getting when they ask for a high school diploma.
catlady
September 23rd, 2011
6:47 am
Sounds like more money to be spent in the central office and state BOE level to me.
We have too many parents who are “teaching” their children that selling drugs and popping out babies is the best way to spend their time. That getting “their check” should be their focus–it is “owed” to them. That hair weaves, flat screen tvs, and the latest Xbox game are what matters. I expend thousands of calories per day literally doing everything except stand on my head, but when it comes down to it, I cannot overcome that mindset.
To improve education, we need to make sure the safety nets we have are not so pervasive that they cover those who choose to do poorly, time after time! So much of what we see goes back to that, I am increasingly convinced. Too many “disabled” folks who nonetheless pop out a baby every couple of years. Too many who draw “a check” without ever putting into the system. Too many kids who have at the age of 7 already learned, “You can’t blame me–I didn’t get my medicine today.”
First, CITIZEN accountability. Be a productive member of society. Then parent and student accountability. The material has to be delivered to the school, ready to be worked with, before the teacher can be held accountable. If the material is not ready, put the material in a place where it can be readied–quit passing it on to the next grade.
And cut out disability checks for kids, for goodness sake! No nonhandicapped child, no matter what challenges they bring, brings in money like that–$700 per month?!
We have to get a handle on changing behaviors by cutting out the rewards, instead of increasing them.
Dr NO / Mr Sunshine
September 23rd, 2011
8:28 am
Obama couldnt fix an empty water container let alone the NCLB program. But it matters not as he has only remaining a little over a year until he receives his pink slip.
teacher&mom
September 23rd, 2011
8:29 am
I sat in a IEP meeting and the mom said she wanted her son to earn a special education diploma because he could continue to draw a check. She didn’t want him to work as hard as his parents.(She doesn’t work and her husband works at a feed store.)
She felt he could “get by” just fine if drew his check and worked a little on the side. How do you change that mindset? How?
I understand that some do escape poverty and I commend them for their achievements. However, many don’t because of the mindset mentioned above in catlady and Atlanta retired principal.
cobb mom of 4
September 23rd, 2011
8:39 am
This blog is turning into a hate-fest against parents, teachers, children, illegal immigrants, poor people, NCLB, Obama and now black women. Maureen is this what you had in mind? I hope not.
cosby
September 23rd, 2011
8:52 am
Why is the Federal Government in the Education business anyway…time to get government out of the Schools..Time to put the parents back in..Time to make the parents responsible for their children. Time to quit using the Schools as a baby sitting service, social philosophy mechanism and start teaching the three “R’S”. Time to reward great teachers and fire, that is correct, fire the dumb one who have no clue in stead of shuffling them atound for tenure – time to rid the system of tenure. Time to put local control back into the schools!
November 6, 2012
September 23rd, 2011
8:57 am
I hope everyone watched the FNC Republican Debate last night
To a man, and one very fine lady, all advocated closing down the US Department of NON Education. It’s gonna happen folks and the responsibility for the education of our children will be returned to the states. It might take longer than we’d like, but the Federal Govt. needs to butt out of the education business and Arne Duncan needs to be retrained (that’s a toughie). There were nine extremely smart people on that stage last night and any one of them could do a better job of running this Great Country than Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Remember to vote and vote responsibly on November 6, 2012.
Me
September 23rd, 2011
9:27 am
So where does this leave the recent GA waiver request?
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
9:34 am
Why the Feds are involved: “Mandating desegregation neutralized some of the controversy around federal aid to segregated schools–if the law was upheld, it was just a matter of time until schools were somehow integrated.”
Remember Jim Crow, the KKK, the Right to Work state.
Where are parents and what is their role as per the Georgia School BOard and Superintendents Associations? On the outside, waiting for the “system to produce and outcome”
“External stakeholders include parents, community leaders, the business community, civic organizations, the faith-based community, local, state, and federal elected officials, government and social agencies, and retirees
School Boards lobbying in 2012 to Totally eliminate of SOME parents, and highly likely parents whose kids do not attend a Title I school: “1.B.11 School Councils
GSBA urges the General Assembly to allow school boards the flexibility to give permission for a school council to represent more than one school.”
So, for all of you who are expecting parents to just waltz in and save the day, perhaps you can start letting the Local BOEs that US parents are responsible for our kids. BTW: and just tell them that clause in the constitution, Georgia’s Constitution, giving them the sanctioned power for the day to day operations of the school…actually means parents too…OTherwise you have BOEs treating parents JUST like the kids.
Reflection from Trinity Avenue
September 23rd, 2011
9:52 am
For most of the APS under achieving children at issue, AYP should not be the goal for staff evaluation. This target is unrealistic and stands as an inducement, forcing administrators to compel teachers into cheating.
Until the metrics of AYP are eliminated or significantly restructured, expect ever more devious means in “reaching” annual goals.
Considering APS’s “No Excuses” mantra for students not meeting performance targets, one would be delusional not to expect a continuation of systemic cheating. It is too deeply imbedded in its culture.
Lee
September 23rd, 2011
9:59 am
Fifty-seven years ago, the Feds wrested control of the schools away from the locals with the disastrous Brown vs Board decision. NCLB is merely the latest in a long line of bad decisions related to public education. Do you really think they are now going to tell the locals, “Here’s your baby back. Sorry for the mess.”?
Dunwoody Mom
September 23rd, 2011
10:05 am
OTherwise you have BOEs treating parents JUST like the kids
Or in DeKalb’s case, BOE members acting just like kids….
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
10:15 am
To blame Obama for the education dilema is just ignorant….if anything OBAMA gave states and school systems what they wanted…the federal money with no strings attached. Obama knows that nothing is gained by making United States Schools look bad…after all, tax payers are paying BILLIONS for such a process to exist.
I don’t think the whole US DOE should be dissolved, but I think the welfare checks to states and school districts MUST stop. If a community chooses to elect BOE members who give six figure salaries to central office instead of math text books…then the community has to live with those consequneces.
I just hope the feds figure a way to channel funding to more charter or other competing education facilities.
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
10:28 am
Lee….let’s make this real clear…
BALCK people in this country were SLAVES…the were not educated, they were branded, they were raped, they were murdered, they were beaten, they were NOT educaated, AND the black skin PEOPLE were NOT allowed to marry each other, NOR were blacks counted as a whole person….THEN after “The War”…JIM Crow came along…de facto law.
BLACK skinned folks who were free labor to help build an empire known as King Cotton…black folks who tolerated the heat and worked til their death.
The FEDERAL government had a constitutional DUTY and responsibility to ALL citizens, who by the way, they defined. Perhaps that is when Amercians found Jesus…a conscience. SUch hatred, values, beliefs and traditions are the southern culture….
It is easier to claim our religious faith in a god and to know what is best for groups we deem inferior…. Lucifer, God’s favorite angel was never satisfied with his status in heaven either….Lucifer was cast from the heavens to earth…Perhaps it might be time to fully understand why some of us need to own others. FOr those of us who are mililstary veterans we served our country to uphold the US Constitution for ALL United States Citizens, even when states might not.
jarvis
September 23rd, 2011
10:34 am
Our dedication to this must be unwavering. Only through hard work and American resolve can this crisis be overcome.
We must support our children. They are our future.
Ashley
September 23rd, 2011
10:48 am
@Atlanta Retired Principal…..you are so spot on, as a black 53 year-old woman, I find it appalling the way young black children carry themselves. Generations and generations of todays black women use the system to advance their trifleness(a word my grandmother always used). They have babies by every Tom , Dick and Harry. Sometimes daughter, mother and grandmother are all gaming the system. I believe when everything is given to you , gratitude and appreciation is lost. The first time their child gets in trouble at school, they want to act a fool or fight administrative staff. Teachers get caught in the cross-fire and it is not pretty. These mother don’t respect education, because they weren’t taught to respect it. These same mother teach their sons to be hard and uncaring, only wanting them to be rap stars or ball players , get that scholarship so you can get that big money. If you will look at some of these black young atheletes and the trouble they cause …..you will find it is directly related to lack of respect and civility they haven’t received at home. The black community needs more men who are teachers of the fine arts and core-courses, not more sports stars or rap singers. What the black communitiy needs is more hard-working men in the household and not someone who has babies by different women who they do not support or just consider a notch on their belt. To these single-black women …..stop making a “man” be your main focus, concentrate on getting your act together before you bring another life into this world. Those that do have children, teach them respect for education and life……so many civil-rights activist gave their life so the next generation of black-americans wouldn’t have the struggles they had. Please do not let them down or disgrace their good works. Bill Cosby was right the truth hurts, but some things just have to be said. We must stop subscribing to the mantra that low-income black children can’t learn or aren’t good enough to go to school with the rest of societies children.
Jerry Eads
September 23rd, 2011
11:08 am
Somebody MUST have caught it by now but I didn’t see it. Maureen, you’re buried with some family thing I know, but – “Here IS the criteria”? tch tch
Have to do my testing thing:
“2. A state will establish a differentiated recognition, accountability, and support system that gives credit for progress toward college- and career-readiness.” – We can’t do it in Georgia – not until we totally rebuild our testing machine. We have minimum competency testing measuring essentially factoid recall and rote problem-solving at the 10th to 15th percentile level. The “scale” scores therein are only stable at the pass points (800 and 850); “scores” at every other point are mush (a 700 or 900 doesn’t mean the same thing from subject to subject or year to year).
If we’re going to measure “college readiness” we’ll need a completely different approach to testing – one that measures the progress of all students, including those above the 15th percentile. 15th percentile students typically won’t be going to college.
Maureen and the AJC continue to insist on telling us that when PASS RATES (the percentage of students passing a test) changes, SCORES go up (or down). We don’t know that, because the so-called “scale” scores on the tests are meaningless except at the pass/fail points. If we want to know anything about progress, we’ll have to spend LOTS more to build tests that can measure progress. PERHAPS the tests being built by the multi-state consortia will do such and Georgia can buy those.
Paulo977
September 23rd, 2011
11:16 am
“I will continue to do everything I can to provide America’s children with a world-class education system that will give them the skills they need to compete in the 21st century global economy”
Whatever that means!!!
Pluto
September 23rd, 2011
11:17 am
I’m sorry but our Teleprompter in Chief always looks for some short term band aid when addressing BIG issues. He has no idea or vision of what is going on and where we need to head. This is an election driven presser designed to attract his disaffected voters. He does not give a damn about this country or its institutions. He’s just plain scary.
Lee
September 23rd, 2011
11:17 am
@KathyII, word of advice, back off the expresso so early in the morning. Good grief.
You say it was your DUTY as a military veteran to uphold the Constitution for ALL citizens, but yet, the military is one of the worst offenders of the discriminatory practice known as affirmative action.
But I digress.
Brown vs Board was a disaster because it allowed the Feds to wrest control of education away from the locals. I still remember riots, mainly up in the “enlightened” Yankeeland when they tried to integrate schools. Passage of bad legislation such as IDEA and NCLB further eroded local control.
And yet, here were are, decades later, and they’re still trying to solve the black/white “Achievement Gap”.
I really must get me a pair of those rose colored glasses the politically correct wear. I figure they are akin to an acid trip of the 70’s.
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
11:24 am
@ashley: you said, “What the black communitiy needs is more hard-working men in the household and not someone who has babies by different women who they do not support or just consider a notch on their belt. ”
Did the black slaves work hard? What did they get?.. .During Jim Crow, what opportunities, economic, political, or social did BLACKS get simply because of the color of their skin?
Desegregation in educational institutions was enforced only 40 years ago in the South…1970.
We have only allegedly been educating blacks 40 years..how old are most of us posting here? What is on paper in one thing, what we practice in our cocmmunities is another. Too many blacks have seen their great grandparents work hard and some until their hands bled, then the next generation working just as hard trying to feed their families, but never actually getting ahead, you know the working poor. How many generations does it take for the next generation to learn? Why get an education if you can’t get a job or you can be fired for neven the color of your skin.? Blacks and women do NOT make dollar for dollar doing the same job as a white male…. so of course there is going to be resentment and a gap in political, social, and econoomic achievement between minoirty and majority groups.
Parents who go up and “act a fool” are emotional, and may be a mama grizzly, but is that not to be expected? When we leave parents out of the local educations processesoutlined in Georgia and Federal laws, then of course parents are going to be defensive.After all, what are schools doing differently from when they were in school?
IF there are not enough jobs in this state for all kids who graduate from high school, then what is the incentive or carrot to be educated? ….
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
11:36 am
@Lee…”The story of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas 1954, which ended legal segregation in public schools”……in a timely manner
You are right though….in this: “Feds to wrest control of education away from the locals.”
These same locals who went to church one minute and the next hung a black person from a tree. Local communities that burned blacks out of their homes, the same locals who hate groups of people for the color of their skin. Locals who HATE blacks because in some distorted way, those same white locals probably BLAME BLACKS for them losing the war to the damn yankees. Locals who blamed blacks for everything that went wrong in the community.
America is no way perfect, but I am proud to have served my country. and tried to be part of the solution….
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
11:40 am
LOCALS today who blame blacks for all the education shortcomings in this nation….when are we going to take responsibility for ourselves? All of us, blacks, browns, and whites.
When are we actually going to recognize everyone as deserving an equitable opportunity? Perhaps when we start paying all groups, regardless of gender or race the same wage for doing the same job.
Pluto
September 23rd, 2011
11:52 am
@ Kathy II … and why is this a race issue?
“When are we actually going to recognize everyone as deserving an equitable opportunity? Perhaps when we start paying all groups, regardless of gender or race the same wage for doing the same job.”
This is but another “fairness” argument. You know what I have found out about fair? It usually happens in October and has great funnell cakes and carmel apples.
Prof
September 23rd, 2011
11:53 am
@ Kathy II. I can’t help thinking that actually you and Ashley are on the same page. However you look at the history of Southern systemic oppression of black people, while she focuses on what black people should do TODAY about “taking responsibility for [them]selves,” as you put it at 11:40.
Also, you sound like the sympathetic white person looking in, while she’s the feisty black person looking out. (She identified herself as black.) Maybe history created the mindset she’s complaining about, but that mindset is only hurting present-day black folks and she’s trying to point that out.
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
11:54 am
@Jerry: you asked/stated, “If we’re going to measure “college readiness” we’ll need a completely different approach to testing – one that measures the progress of all students,”
wouldn’t the PSAT that all sophomores in Georgia take be at least a precursor to how a student is likely to do on the SAT?
…and according to the Goergia School Council Handbook, the SAT is a norm reference test that predicts the liklihood of any given student regarding his or her readiness going into a post secondary institution?
Linda
September 23rd, 2011
11:59 am
Kathy II – do you think that Black people are the only people whose ancestors were enslaved? Just about every race or ethnicity has their story to tell. It takes strength for any people to move on from those dreadful pasts. As another poster wrote once on here: why do you think a large segment of Eastern Europe is referred to as Slavic? Learn more at this link and you might understand why some are losing patience with some Black American’s obsession with the slavery past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
Black people in America were educated long before 1970. Just ask Thurgood Marshall, Bill Cosby, Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice. And why do you think they succeeded? Their parents instilled in them the importance of education.
Ashley
September 23rd, 2011
12:05 pm
@Prof…..thank-you…..in essence I refuse to be classified as an uneducated, baby making black woman.
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
12:10 pm
@prof: maybe the culture I come from didn’t own black people…my moral develooment did not include an inferior and superiour race.
My education, life experiences, religious upbringing, and being an ethnographer (pur se) certainly influlence my opinions…
Beliefs, values, and traditions in the United States are as diverse and varied as each or our micro systems. I believe parents or leaders like Ashley have a place and probably would be be the ideal role model for other parents… however, I have yet to see any school in my district put a black or brown face in such a position. We have no blacks in any of the 12 pwoer seats at our Central Office…we have some schools with NO black administrators….so, if we can’t find any Educated and qualified blacks to be in decision making positions, I hesitate to believe that anyone might think an average black or brown parent would bring anything to the table.
BTW: As the economy plumented, and new superintendennts came in, the number of black and brown faces in positions of power, or the high paying positions…dwindled…May just be a coincidence, maybe not.
William Casey
September 23rd, 2011
12:10 pm
@LEE: Brown v. Board was absolutely necessary because the education system of that era was contolled by state governments that wanted to keep some people in second class citizenship by maintaining “separate and unequal” schools.
Kathy II
September 23rd, 2011
12:16 pm
@Linda, It was the US government to decide that all kids deserved an equitable education and took action.
BTW: I believe that is why Title I funds are allegedly appopriated to level the education playing field for POOR people….given that we do not pay everyone an equitable wage for doing the same job helps to maintain the social, economic, and poliical stratas in our country.
@Ashley: Just as you feel about sterotyping black females, I resent being a parent who is stereotyped by educators.
d
September 23rd, 2011
12:19 pm
@Mountain Man – it’s college or career ready, not just college ready.
@Nov 6 – why did you feel it is necessary to stress the President’s middle name (before you go off on me, no I didn’t vote for him).
William Casey
September 23rd, 2011
12:19 pm
In spite of NCLB (which was a bad idea,) the Federal government does NOT “control” education in any meaningful way. It harasses education. LOL