NEA: Role of Federal Government in Public Education

The National Education Association has created a new plan for reorganizing and restructuring of education in America.

I was watching the actual television conference on C-SPAN today so since ABC, the CW, and Fox weren't showing anything worth watching, I watched C-SPAN. Pretty sad but quite informative.

I feel like our government treats education like a joke. It's been placed on the shelf and forgotten. And you know what happens to food when you leave it on the shelf for too long, it goes bad and spoils. America's system of education has done just that. We have forgotten about the fundamentals that generate successful economies and promotes a competitive global market by ignoring the significance of educating our youth.

We need an educational revolution like 5 years ago...

Outline of Discussed Problems with NCLB:
* Resources not available as promised by Federal Government ($170 million??)
* No credit is given to beyond proficient and below proficient students
* Lack of community mobilization and support systems
* No teacher support, PD opportunities and resources to train are unavailable
* Poor support and resources for ELL's and ESL students
* Unauthentic accountability (fiscal responsibility, testing)
* Research!! (Most research is political and we know how reliable that can be, right?)
* Missing opportunities to promote innovation and creativity in classrooms (unclear)
* Unbalanced (overemphasis on testing and not enough funding)
* Title 1 complications in low-income areas (no resources allocated)
* Standards are unclear and standardized tests are not effective in evaluation

McCain vs. Obama
* McCain is someone who would consider national merit pay based on student performance
* Obama is someone who considers enhanced pay determined by local unions

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

Best Verbatim Quotes of the Day from the NEA:
"The No Child Left Behind Law reminds me of a Russian novel, it's long (more than 1000 pages of regulations), it's complicated, and at the very end, everybody dies."

"Reform without resources does not work."

"We support the idea of accountability. But we are looking for accountability that makes sense."

"We are not opposed to using tests. Testing should be a mechanism for measuring student success, not THE mechanism."

"For every $100 earned by a low-income family, they take $11 for local schools. For every $100 earned by a high-income family, you take only $5. You cannot build the system to burden the poor folks. Poor folks don't have any money."

"On the topic of merit pay, data that supports such initiatives should be used to benefit student learning, not abused to determine teacher competency. But to implement a system should be a local decision in cooperation with unions and districts, not a national one. There is little evidence that supports that merit pay promotes student learning."

"There are a lot of inequities that we must address to improve this system for our students."

"Trying is the first step towards failure."

"And how is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

Just kidding, the last two are from episodes of The Simpsons... Oh Homer how I love your one-liners...