"Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education" By Diane Ravitch

[YankeeLeft7x]

Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education

By Diane Ravitch
Historian, NYU professor
Posted: June 13, 2009 08:12 PM
The Huffington Post

“…The great mystery of education policy today is why the Obama administration is embracing the Bush program. I recently wrote in Education Week (June 10) that it is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. The overwhelming majority of teachers agree with me. Those who educate our kids know that NCLB is a failed program that is not improving our schools but rather turning them into test-prep factories and dumbing down our kids. Bush's main advisor Sandy Kress reacted with outrage on the website of Education Week, and Tom Vander Ark on Huffington Post called me an "edu-curmudgeon" for speaking plain truth….Let me say it again: It is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. This is a program in which the federal government requires every state to test every student from grade 3-8 in reading and math every year. If states do not make "adequate yearly progress" towards 100% proficiency by 2014, then the schools face a series of increasingly onerous sanctions, ending with their being closed down. Vander Ark thinks that this punitive approach to school improvement is swell. I don't….For some reason, first the Bush people and now the Obama people believe they know exactly how to fix American education. (Chicago, their model, is one of the lowest-performing cities in the nation on national tests, and Texas was never a national model for academic excellence.) Their answer starts with testing and ends with data and more testing. If children were widgets, they might be right; but children are not widgets, they are individuals. If reading and math were all that mattered in school, they might be right, but basic skills are not the be-all and end-all of being educated….The amazing thing about American education today is that the Obama people--who promised revolutionary change--have no ideas other than to tighten the grip of President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind program on the teachers and children of the United States….”

Read the Entire Article @:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/obama-gives-bush-a-3rd-te_b_215277.html

[Starry Messenger]

1. k & r

[snot]

2. K&R'D!!!

[indepat]

3. Seemingly a 3rd term in the conduct of the war or terror, tax policy, dealing with

the financial crisis with kid gloves, drill baby drill, to wit: a 3rd term on each and every policy/initiative ratified/continued rather than rescinded/dramatically changed. :cry: