Accountability here means the teachers and the schools. They are getting huge amounts of money and doing worse every year. And the students aren't getting dumber, and there should not be such a huge disparity in results, as two standard deviations in intelligence are a very small range. To be totally crass here, the input into the system is of very narrow range, so why is the output so very different, and declining in quality? If Ford or GM produced such a low quality product, they would be broke. Since the money increases all the time, and the students skills seem to decrease, there seems to be a need for accountability in the process of education.
That is something that really rocked for me in the McCain speech. Hold the schools accountable. They are the experts, we want results from them.
I see what you're saying, but I am not sure I like the current way of dealing with that. Taking away federal money won't help struggling schools. That's what NCLB does. Furthermore, that same "accountability" law is demanding that kids of special needs take the same tests as other kids their grade level. Of course that's bad for the individual student to be taking a test they can never do well in (in some cases of special needs kids). To top it all off though, those tests of the special needs kids reflect the overall image of how well the school does. So a school can be in danger of losing federal funds because kids were demanded to take a test they couldn't necessarily take. I'm hoping Palin would be willing to work toward fixing that part of NCLB.
McCain says he wants to help teachers who can't teach "find another line of work", and I would support that.
What they really need to do is stop having this "one size fits all" system. Start allowing raises for teachers who do really well.
One point...NCLB merely supplies the framework, each state writes their own tests. Therefore, if the libs in the particular state don't care for NCLB because "it's Pres. Bush's" legislation (ignoring Ted Kennedy's authorship), they simply make the test nearly impossible for the kids to pass. Then the teachers are forced to "teach to the test" instead of to grade level. I don't know who writes the tests in every state, but in Kansas, it's the elite libtards in KU who write the tests. In 4th grade, my daughter had to learn statistics...things I've never studied and Mr Smith learned in college. Obviously, the KU 'tards don't like NCLB, and are making the test as difficult as possible to express their opinion.
If we want results from our schools, giving teachers raises would be nice, but the
union won't agree to that. As the union supports the Dims by about 95% to 5% (just like the NEA), good teachers have just about no chance of reward.
Removing money from schools IS an acceptable solution, in that case. It also forces the school districts to allow kids to move to different schools, something many districts refuse citing desegregation laws. When they've screwed up badly enough, the schools gets a kick in the backside, and the parents who care get their kids into better schools.
Vouchers would, of course, be even better...but the libs, teacher's union and NEA hate that idea. The more kids escape from the regular public school, the fewer they can brainwash.
