Lets Fire the Teachers

An interesting post from Diane Ravitch.  Years ago she was an ardent advocate of NCLB. One additional issue.  President Barack Obama should find out more of the facts before he makes comments about the teachers who were fired in Rhode Island. It was a cheap- political shot.

Historian, NYU professor
Posted: March 2, 2010

First, Let's Fire All the Teachers!
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Imagine that you are a teacher in a high school in a high-poverty district.
Many of your students don't speak English. Some don't attend school regularly
because they have to earn money or babysit with their siblings while their
parents are looking for work. Some come to school unprepared because they
didn't do their homework.

But you are idealistic and dedicated, you work with each of the students, you
do your best to teach them reading, writing, science, math, history, whatever
your subject. But despite your best efforts, many of your students can't read
very well (they are struggling to learn English), and many of them don't
graduate. If your school eliminated all its standards, you could easily push
up the graduation rate.

About 45 minutes away is another high school in a much better neighborhood.
Its statistics are far better than yours. The children are almost all born in
the U.S., and their parents are almost all college graduates with good jobs.
Their kids don't go to school hungry, they have their own room and their own
computer, and they have stellar test scores to boot. Their graduation rate is
very impressive, and most of their graduates go to college.

What is to be done about the first school? President George W. Bush signed a
law called "No Child Left Behind," which required constant improvement. The
Obama administration wants to rename the law but they too reject any excuses
for low performance and low graduation rates.