In his State of the Union remarks Tuesday night, President Donald Trump expressed his desire to expand school choice options for all American children.
"No parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school," he said.
Trump singled out a fourth grader, Janiyah Davis, who was trapped in a low-performing school in Philadelphia. Davis and her mother were among the audience in the House chamber and were thrilled when Trump announced that she would receive a scholarship to attend a school of her choice. (Further details were not immediately available, noted Philly Voice.)
This change in Davis' educational situation comes in spite of efforts by Democratic Governor Tom Wolf to kill school choice in his state. The governor recently vetoed legislation that would have expanded the state's voucher program.
The Trump administration has recently made an increased effort to support nationwide school choice reforms. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, for example, wants to make billions of dollars in tax credits available to people who give money to education opportunity funds.
AlphaTangoFoxtrt on February 5th, 2020 at 14:55 UTC »
So let's repeal "No Child Left Behind". The single most disastrous thing to happen to our schools in our life time.
NCLB ties school funding to school performance on standardized testing. The problem is this creates a death spiral whereby a failing school loses funding, pushing them further into failure as they cannot update textbooks, equipment, and have to consolidate classes to fewer teachers.
So to counter this schools "teach to the test". Where you are not learning, you're memorizing and regurgitating. Additionally it has lead to things like The No-Zero Policy. Where teachers are forbidden from giving a 0, and have a "minimum grade". So you can literally not turn something in, and still get half credit.
Additionally with NCLB and other federal programs, schools have had to hire on more administrators to file the proper forms and applications, and audit for proper compliance. This has shifted the budgets full of administrative bloat. There's also bloat in other ways, when I was in HS we had a principal, and a vice principal. Now that same school has two co-principals, and 4 vice principals (one for each grade 9, 10, 11, 12). There's no need for that level of waste.
IMO we need to eliminate "standardized testing", and get the fed out of it or at least less deep into it. Put the focus back on actually teaching, not on passing a test.
Having grown up through the change, there was a marked difference where we transitioned from having tests that were 10 multiple-guess, 7 short answer question (pick 5) and 3 long-answer questions (pick 2) to tests that were just 25-50 multiple-guess on a scantron. As a kid it was great our tests got so easy. Looking back as an adult it's horrifying.
shag377 on February 5th, 2020 at 12:09 UTC »
What makes a government school fail?
The school I teach at is a Title One school, meaning we serve a large poor and disadvantaged population. We have the highest migrant worker population in the state (Georgia).
85% of the staff have an advanced degree. Several hold doctoral degrees.
One elementary school in town has 95% free/reduced lunch population. This is a failing school.
Another across town serves the families of professionals in the community - physicians, attorneys and the like. This school performs at the absolute top of the performance tasks.
Why is one failing and the other not?
Just curious. I am 💯 in favor of you doing what is best for you and your family.
Trevo2001 on February 5th, 2020 at 11:44 UTC »
Agree with that statement