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Friday, March 11, 2011

NCLB: Howard Dean Predicted in 2003 that 100% of Schools Would Fail by 2013

26Dems Editorial Comment:  Howard Dean was right.  We are almost there. It's 2011 and already the Secretary of Education has announced that 82% of the nation's public schools are failing.  Diane Ravitch a former Bush administration Dept. of Education official who spoke recently in Tucson has recognized the flaws in No Child Left Behind and has written a highly recommended book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch warns that the curriculum is being gutted as teachers have become technicians teaching to the test. No humanities, social studies, music, art or physical education. NCLB has been divisive. Harsh measures aimed at arresting school failure has led to panic among administrators as schools compete for standing.   Now parents and politicians seeking an easy fix find it easy to blame the teachers. Firing all the teachers in a city's public schools won't fix what's wrong and lead to better public school performance. Corporations see easy profit in the privatization of public schools.  Here is one retired teacher's journal from Democratic Underground looks back to Howard Dean's prescient warning back in 2003 was right on target. NCLB legislation has transformed our public schools into a politically divisive battleground with our children and grandchildren as pawns.
 

Click here for NPR Review
Arne having to change tune since NCLB is causing 82% of schools to fail....
Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion
Democratic Underground
Fri Mar 11th 2011, 12:39 AM

Instead of causing them to be successful, as the students meet a testing goal, the next year they raise the goal. The parents are not clued in that the standards are being raised, so they blame the schools and the teachers, especially the teachers.

I remember in 2003 when Howard Dean made an offhand comment after a rally, and remembered I was even questioning the accuracy of the statement myself until I thought it out. While the Bush administration was claiming it was a way for the schools to succeed, Dean said the opposite.

2003 Howard Dean on NCLB... "every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school."

"The president's ultimate goal," said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, "is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he's starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools."

He also said:
Dean criticized President Bush, saying his administration will lower the standards for good schools in New Hampshire, making them more like poorly performing schools in Texas. The Bush administration believes ''the way to help New Hampshire is to make it more like Texas,'' Dean told supporters in Manchester, adding that ''every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school.''
"Every group, including special education kids, has to be at 100 percent to pass the tests,'' Dean said. ''No school system in America can do that. That ensures that every school will be a failing school."
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