We got the memo today that our school district failed its whatchamacallit test scores. So now we’re officially in “PI Status” which means “Program Improvement” but I think what that actually means is that we are now labelled a “bad” school district.
It’s hard to tell what effect the official status has: a confusing array of meetings and studies and inspections and Title Somethingorother funding reports or revisions. I’ll study it and figure out and report on all of that.
It seems likely that the immediate effect is that the yuppies will pull their kids out and put them in private schools, which probably makes the test scores go down further. And also, as the schools hunker down and freak out, teaching to the test, that is even more disincentive for anyone who doesn’t need “test lessons” to want to go to schools in this district.
And how stupid was it to de-fund bilingual education? And then just sort of expect that everyone learn English even though teachers don’t have any training or time to teach the kids from an ESL perspective?
What can I say. NCLB sucks. It is guaranteed to hit all of you. ALL of you. As far as I understand it, every school is deconglomerated or deaggregated, or… Whatever, split up into categories that are logical to that school. And in each category, a certain percent, say 24%, of the students must pass The Test. Every year the percentage of students that pass in each category has to go up. By 2014, all schools all over the country are supposed to have 100% of students pass.
So if you’re wondering why news about schools sucks so bad, blame “No Child Left Behind”, the worst idea ever in public education. It’s a horrible setup so that our entire public education system can be de-funded and undermined. Get ready for your kids to go to McCorporate Jesus Military Academy Elementary because that’s what will replace it.
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