President Obama is attempting to revise the No Child Left Behind Act with the goal of producing more college ready high school graduates. These revisions may result in national academic standards for public schools instead of allowing for the traditional variances in schooling standards between states.
The national standards would include standards in more subjects than those defined in the No Child Left Behind Act, namely reading and math. These changes will affect over 100,000 public schools.
Obama’s plan would cost $3 billion more than what it cost to fund the No Child Left Behind act for this year, which was close to $25 billion. States that choose to accept Obama’s plan will receive $7.8 billion in grants for the educational systems.
After evaluation, the lowest 5% of public schools will receive government help in improving their performance, while the top performers will be rewarded. However, Obama will also exclude the provisions that provide free tutoring and the option for students to change schools if their school is considered one of the low performers.
Schools will not be punished for the low performance of the poor, minority, and disabled students under Obama’s proposal. However, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers say they are disappointed with Obama’s plan.
Randi Weingarten, AFT president, said “100 percent of the responsibility on teachers and gives them zero percent authority…For a law affecting millions of schoolchildren and their teachers,it doesn’t make sense to have teachers — and teachers alone — bear the responsibility for school and student success.”
The potential national standard will ask the kindergarteners can read 25 words. By the time students enter middle school,they will be expected to understand “Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” by Mark Twain. When they enter high school they will be expected to understand the writings of William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson.
By the end of first and second grade, students will be expected to know addition and subtraction. By the end of third and fourth grade, students should know multiplication, division, and fractions. By the end of middle school, or eighth grade, students will be able to solve algebra problems.
New York is the first state who plans to accept and implement these new benchmarks by August. Massachusetts is doubtful that the standards will be a rigorous as they ones they have in place currently, and will review them thoroughly before accepting the new standard.
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To read more about the educational revision visit:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF9wi8wsYgT0
