A new federal study has shown that nearly 1/3 of all U.S. states have lowered their academic proficiency standards to help the schools comply with the No Child Left Behind law, which threatens schools with penalties if they do not have 100% of all students proficient in reading and math by 2014. Schools, struggling under low teacher pay, long educator hours, and cut budgets, did the only thing they could do. If the kids can't get to the mountain, bring the mountain to them.
We may want to blame the schools for such a low move, but really, lets look at the policies that set the standards with no means (budgets) to create them. Spin straw into gold? We're not Rumpelstiltskin here.
Is there a call to action with this? As I write this I realize I need this in my BEAT too, but what should we do?
ReplyDeleteHow about those of us without kids? Or those that do not want them?