Achievement test scores--A weapon against public schools?
Get those scores upor else!
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I posted a version of this on the Huffington Post recently.
Feel free to respond...
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So-called "conservatism" will be the death of public education if it has its way (ah, but that is the point, isn't it?).
Once schools go over to vouchers, ALL STANDARDS TESTING CEASES. This has happened wherever a voucher system is instituted (see Wisconsin, etc).
That is a red flag right there.
Low test scores are used to batter public schools until vouchers are in place. Then, abruptly, the testing is phased out (or the results are no longer published).
Excerpt from a Daily Howler article linked to
in a post higher up the page from this one:
“…there are no systematic testing programs in the (Wisconsin) voucher schools whose data can be analyzed.”
That is an alarm bell for any observant person.
Conclusion: Test scores & the attendant pressures they can exert, have become merely a gimmick--Simply, a WEAPON to blow a hole in Public Ed so vouchers can be put in and private companies with good lobbyists can make a mint off the public dime.
In reality, it is all about money.
The private sector sees all those billions of dollars the government spends on public education (and we probably all agree the money is not always spent wisely or effectively), and they obviously, drool.
Corporate America wants IN to that cash stream
very very much.
And with weapons like NCLB testing, they are
making real progress towards their goal.
But after their goal is achieved--the privatizing of much or all of public education--Testing will no longer be needed, and costs will be "kept down" much in the manner that insurance companies and HMOs keep costs down in medicine.
NOT!
The way things look now, that is the future of
American public schools.
And in the long run, corporate-schooling America's children will cost much
more than public education does today.
Got to keep those stock prices going up, after all.
The conservatives are coming...Hang on to your wallets!!
And say goodbye to public schools.
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Some wise folks in Virginia agree:
http://www.epi.elps.vt.edu/cross.htm
http://www.solreform.com/
More and more states are responding to NCLB's
absurdly unrealistic test-score requirement "goals"
in the only way available to them----By finding loopholes:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060418/ap_on_go_ot/no_child_loophole
More and more people are starting to realize--The whole point of NCLB is to make Public Schools "failures", so they can be taken over and privatized by schools which will no longer be subject to the pressure of test scores.
Yet another "anti-NCLB" site by a teacher:
http://www.debracraig.com/
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posted by Da Manijment @ 9:22 PM
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