What do the following states have in common: Colorado, Florida,
Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and
Tennessee. Well this week all of them received a waiver exempting them from
some parts of the “No child left behind” act passed during the President Bush’s
error. This Reuters article by Caren
Bohan describes President Obama’s decision to give exemptions for the “No child
left behind” act. Bohan states that with these exception schools will no longer
have the dread of slapping a “label of "failure" on so many schools.”
She also highlights some of President Obama’s reasons for giving the waivers such
as letting “school and state officials pursue "higher, more honest
standards" instead of following a one-size-fits-all template.”
As much as I disagree with how “No child left behind” evaluates schools,
I believed it served the important role of shedding light on how badly the
American school systems need reform. I view these exceptions as a way for the
president to run away from fixing our school system. The aforementioned states
now have to come up with their own stringent benchmarks for which to hold their
schools systems accountable. I feel that some of the states will be more lenient
than the federal government when schools fail to meet their mandates. The federal
government was better able to create a universal (though flawed) system of
evaluation. And it also created a pressure that made people uncomfortable and
as a result pushed people to work harder. I am not sure that all states will give
people the same kind of pressure.
Furthermore, by going the route of exemption rather than the route of
create new guidelines to help the schools system, the issue of our failing
schools system will get pushed further and further down on the governments long
to-do list. I believe we should move to address the issues instead of differing
them for later.
Learn more about the article at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-obama-education-idUSTRE8182E720120209
1 comment:
Hi GK,
Thanks for your post - I think your concerns are completely valid and I agree with almost all of them.
That said, I don't necessarily view the waivers as free-for-all exemptions as a way for the president to run away from fixing our nation's schools. I see it as quite the opposite: ESEA reauthorization is unlikely to occur during this election year, and as our Congress likes to deal with things literally at the last minute - they probably won't get around to doing anything until it's closer to 2014. So I think it's completely fair for the President and the Secretary to take some action in the meantime to grant states some breathing room so that the ominous 2014 deadline is out of mind - temporarily.
The waivers, also, aren't giving something for nothing. In order for states to be granted a waiver, they had to adopt rigorous college- and career-readiness standards, higher quality assessments, state-designed accountability programs,with discretion on how to label their schools' performance and interventions, and teacher and principal evaluations that include student growth. This addresses many of the weaknesses of NCLB, and provides a temporary respite until ESEA is reauthorized.
I completely share your concern though that states will most likely be more lenient than the federal government when their schools fail to meet their mandates. But regardless, I think the waivers are probably a decent idea for the meantime, until Congress gets its act together to reauthorize ESEA. At the very least, the federal government is still putting up "guardrails" and "guideposts" so that states aren't being exempted without any restrictions whatsoever.
If anyone is interested in reading more:
http://www.quickanded.com/2012/02/the-waiver-wire-were-all-winners.html
http://www.quickanded.com/2012/02/transparency-funding-and-federalism-takeaways-from-the-house-esea-hearing.html
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