Dumbing Education Down

Here's Checker Finn in an Op Ed in the WSJ last week with spot-on points about the flaws of NCLB that need to be fixed (but, sadly, probably won't be -- in fact, the law may be made worse!):

Congress and the White House erred when they agreed in 2001 that each state would be obliged to set its own standards and score its own tests; no matter what one thinks of America's history of state and local control of schooling, we now see the folly of a big modern nation, worried about its global competitiveness, nodding with approval as Wisconsin sets its  (eighth-grade) reading passing level at the 14th percentile while South Carolina sets its at the 71st. A youngster moving from middle school in Milwaukee to high school in Charleston would be grievously unprepared for what lies ahead. So would a child moving from third grade in Detroit to fourth grade in Albuquerque.
 
Yet official Washington seemingly lacks the stomach to take this on. The conventional wisdom is that "national standards and tests" are politically taboo because conservatives don't like "national" and liberals don't like standards and testing. The Gates and Broad foundations are spending tens of millions to overturn that taboo during the upcoming election, but few in the110th Congress seem to be  listening.

------------------

  
Dumbing Education Down
By CHESTER E. FINN JR. | Wall Street Journal |
October 5, 2007

http://edexcellence.net/institute/global/page.cfm?id=429

President George W. Bush's signature education reform -- the No Child Left Behind Act -- is coming in for a close inspection in Congress. And, it seems, members on both sides of the aisle have plenty of ideas of how to tinker with NCLB.