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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Stupid child tricks

The federal government keeps raising the standards for schools, which means more and more schools will fail to meet the standards. A reasonable query:

That raises questions of whether otherwise good schools are held to unreasonable standards or whether those standards will push schools to achieve more than they thought they could.

Perhaps a clue to the answer can be found in the standards themselves:

Under the federal law, schools will have to meet an increasingly higher target of students passing state standardized tests until 2014, when schools will be listed as failing unless 100 percent of students pass the tests.

No Child Left Behind was a stupid law because "no child left behind" is an impossible standard. Saying "100 percent of students must pass" is just a sterner way of saying the same thing. NCLB was one of the many ways George W. Bush failed conservatives, and he unfortunately left something behind for Democrats to "imporve." The act wasn't fully funded, you see, so if we just spend more on it, everything will be OK!

Comments

Michael B-P
Thu, 04/16/2009 - 9:50am

How did we let DC dirtbags talk us into meeting unattainable standards on our own nickel to begin with? Never mind, I already know: the same way they talked us into "The War on Drugs", AIG subsidy, and Iraq.

Alfred E. Neuman for President.

tim zank
Thu, 04/16/2009 - 9:53am

You mean to say mo' money isn't the answer?

Who'd a thunk it?

Bob G.
Thu, 04/16/2009 - 11:09am

No, Tim...mo' money isn't the answer...

But a HELLUVA LOT MO' MONEY is definitely gonna work....perhaps...maybe...they hope.

They NEED to STOP tossing good money after bad and start smacking these PARENTS around, so their little "rascals" will behave and get their butts IN the classroom to begin with.

I guess the whole "being in class and being attentive DOES lead to higher scores" gig is too primitive a concept for their primate minds to grasp...damn shame.

Failing is NOT (or should ever become) any child's "right of passage"...it makes them a pariah (or at least it USED to in my day), and reflects on their upbringing to no small measure.
I suppose parents' standards for their kids (and themselves) today IS a lot different.
They just don't give a damn.

(but tell 'em to stay off my lawn anyway)

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