Thoughts Without Words: NCLB Waivers

No Child Left Behind was a good idea. It held schools accountable to teaching students material instead of fluff. Well, we all knew this day was coming when the bill was signed into law. By 2014, every student must be proficient or advanced. Now anyone in education knew that was impossible. Our school has high CST scores and we aren't close to 100% proficient or advanced.

So when Obama came into office in 2008, everyone expected NCLB to be dumped...I guess it just gets added to the list of things that people thought would happen. Anyway, the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan announced he would issue waivers to districts that applied. Hey that's good right? Wrong...much like most of what this administration has done, if you want something you have to change.

If you want the waiver, you need to;

States must agree to education reforms favored by the White House, such as tougher evaluation systems for teachers and principals and programs that tackle the achievement gap for minority students.

Sounds similar to the Race to the Top reforms. In fact, they probably figured since so many states opted not to do Race to the Top, they could force them to make these ridiculous reforms by waving a waiver in front of their faces.

If Duncan cared about helping states, he would have simply found a way to void some of the requirements of NCLB. Just another example of bullying by this administration.