By Sam Dillon / New York Times
Concluding a yearlong study on the effectiveness of President Bush's sweeping education law, No Child Left Behind, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers drawn from many states yesterday pronounced it a flawed, convoluted and unconstitutional education reform initiative that had usurped state and local control of public schools.
The report, based on hearings in six cities, praised the law's goal of ending the gap in scholastic achievement between white and minority students. But most of the 77-page report, which the Education Department rebutted yesterday, was devoted to a detailed inventory and discussion of its flaws.
It said the law's accountability system, which punishes schools whose students fail to improve steadily on standardized tests, undermined school improvement efforts already under way in many states and relied on the wrong indicators. The report said that the law's rules for educating disabled students conflicted with another federal law, and that it presented bureaucratic requirements that failed to recognize the tapestry of educational challenges faced by teachers in the nation's 15,000 school districts.
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February 24, 2005
Report Faults Bush Initiative on Education
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2 comments:
More than anything else, this story shows how public education, the "learning" aspect of it, is simply a politico-cultural dance. The real goal of public education is to produce docile workers who know how to obey authority, but everybody believes that "education" is important, so there must be great pomp and circumstance that makes it appear as though the powers that be are actually doing something to improve it.
How long before it becomes obvious to us all that it's ultimately a big joke? That "education" is actually indoctrination? Really, the government could save a bunch of money if it simply gave up on this charade and simply put all its resources into the authority conditioning that is the true purpose of the schools.
By the way, Adam, you are now on my blogroll.
How did I know that article would get you going? I love it when you talk about education.
Thanks for the blogroll adding.
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