Failing Schools Strain to Meet No Child Law

[cal04]

As the director of high schools in the gang-infested neighborhoods of East Los Angeles, Guadalupe Paramo struggles every day with educational dysfunction.

For the past half-dozen years, not even one in five students at her district’s teeming high schools has been able to do grade-level math or English. At Abraham Lincoln High School this year, only 7 in 100 students could. At Woodrow Wilson High, only 4 in 100 could.

For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.

But more than 1,000 of California’s 9,500 schools are branded chronic failures, and the numbers are growing. Barring revisions in the law, state officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.

“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/education/16child.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Kerrytravelers]

1. As an educator, let me say, this NCLB has been a systematic attack on public schools.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. And this happens only one year after a far more frightening and dire event.

Have a look at an extrapolation of world exports of oil through 2013 based on current data.

[liberal N proud]

3. Another bu$h failure working as planned

Destruction of the middle and lower classes in America. When there is no education system left they can force everyone into indentured servitude and turn America into an China like nation. Education will not be necessary because the children will be working serving the wealthy who send their children to private schools.

[flashl]

4. They are not smart enough to buy ...

to solve their problems.
:sarcasm:

[ChangeMaker]

5. Failing NCLB Strains to Enlist Support Using NY Times Propaganda

I took the liberty to bold some of Diana Schemo's words and my commentary is in parenthesis and/or blue. Please think of my commentary as my sorry attempt at teacher humor, in these 1984 times.

Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO, The New York Times, October 16, 2007

LOS ANGELES — As the director of high schools in the gang-infested neighborhoods of the East Side of Los Angeles, Guadalupe Paramo struggles every day with educational dysfunction.

(there are cockroach and rat infestations. to connect gangs with infested is to equate gangs with cockroaches or rats, which is a very clever neo-con propaganda technique)
(dysfunction means not function, saying every day the school doesn't function, which is a very clever neo-con lie)

For the past half-dozen years, not even one in five students at her district’s teeming high schools has been able to do grade-level math or English. At Abraham Lincoln High School this year, only 7 in 100 students could. At Woodrow Wilson High, only 4 in 100 could.

(I always connected teeming with bacteria. Seems her district is also teeming. I wonder if they want you to think her students are bacteria?)
(my god... "only 7 in 100 students could" and "only 4 in 100 could". How could NCLB have left so many children behind?)

For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.

(Could they be preparing the public to, as they say, "and turning them over to a private firm"? Wait a minute... this is almost starting to sound like what neo-cons did in Iraq? Could they be preparing for an Invasion of PublicSchools? Neo-con intelligence is probably telling them that PublicSchools have dangerous WMIs... Weapons of Mass Instruction.... could that be "teachers"? Could the Invasion have started with NCLB bombs? Will their first order of business be the disbanding of the PublicSchoolTeachers Guard/union?

But more than 1,000 of California’s 9,500 schools are branded chronic failures, and the numbers are growing. Barring revisions in the law, state officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.

(branded... isn't that what they do to cows? "chronic failures, and the numbers are growing"... doesn't that sound like a chronic disease that is getting out of hand? Is this some form of mad-cow disease in California schools?)
(when they say "restructuring by 2014", could they mean "privatizing"?)

“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”

(NO, not to worry Mr. and Mrs. Public. Just go back to sleep and let Mr. Government fix this problem. We will let Mr. Wonderful Private Industry fix our bad schools and make all of your children successful (cogs-in-our-machine). Mission Accomplished in New Orleans, Mission Accomplished in Afghanistan, Mission Accomplished in Iraq, and coming soon to a neighborhood near you, Mission Accomplished in PublicSchools.)

Email [e-mail] to complain about this article.
Go to www.cta.org for the link to tell your Representative NOT to fund NCLB.

[kineneb]

6. the whole reason for NCLB is to get rid of public schools

and "privatize" them, the way the occupation of Iraq has been privatized (and we all know that is working soooo well). NeoCons believe that government should not provide any public services, hence DipWad's veto of SCHIP and his comments thereon... couldn't have those little "darlings" have (horrors!) government-supplied health care, now could we...

...of course inner-city and rural poor schools are going to have problems... the students' families have problems which then follow with the student into the classroom... what the schools need are new, good quality buildings, up-to-date textbooks, well-paid teachers, and support from the parents... without those elements, of course the students will have difficulty on standardized tests... which, as a matter of fact, mean little about the student's future life- in 9th grade, I tested poorly in academics and in the 99th percentile in abstract reasoning...