DOWN WITH TESTING IN SCHOOLS

Arne Duncan during Chicago Public Schools.

Image via Wikipedia

No Child Left Behind was designed to improve the quality of education by allocating greater funds to schools that teach than to those that do not.  That statement is not as much of an over characterization of failing schools as one might think.

Giving support to schools that teach successfully enables the better schools to maintain and enhance standards and systems that are working.  Substandard schools are incented to improve.  Pouring more money into schools that are failing to educate their students benefits no one other than the incompetent school administrations.

To know where the money should go you need to know which schools are graduating educated students and which ones are just passing children through the system.  This is not a difficult assignment.  Test the students.

However:

(AP) – State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn’t answered the call.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break.

Set a standard for improvement – then waive it.  Welcome to your government at work.  Secretary Duncan says the waivers will be granted to all 50 states.  No Child Left Behind is a program that was set up by the Bush administration and is now being undermined by the Obama administration.  Remember that the next time you hear a Democrat say the program is not working.

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