Arne Wields His Dubious Magic

North Carolina has joined seven other states in getting a "waiver" from NCLB. This is bad news for students, parents, and teachers. Wholesale age discrimination under the guise of saving money will be the rule in states that have "waivers." That's because states would have to adhere to the guidelines set forth by Arne's bribe, also known as "Race to the Top."

North Carolina is in the process of gutting its "tenure" law. "Tenure," of course, is NOT lifetime employment in public education but merely civil service protections the same as police and fire personnel.

Nevada has to reapply for the "waiver." Idiot state, but Sandoval's regime has truly been a disaster for public education.

Kenny Guinn must be rolling over in his grave.

The Assholery of Arne

Arne is going around promoting his harebrained scheme of tying teacher evaluations to student test scores.

Given few students even take these tests seriously and thus don't give their best effort, the whole idea is ridiculous.

The Education Wars

It has been obvious from the beginning Obama and Duncan are enemies of public education:

Obama outlined three “strategies” for so-called underperforming schools, all of them reactionary. “One strategy involves replacing the principal, replacing much of the staff, and giving the school a second chance,” he said. “Another strategy involves inviting a great nonprofit to help manage a troubled school. A third strategy involves converting a dropout factory into a successful charter school. These are public schools funded by parents, teachers, and civic or community organizations with broad leeway to innovate.” The second and third strategies—featuring “great nonprofit” groups and “community organizations”—indicate that Obama may see a role for religious groups in public education.

Duncan, speaking before Obama, said that Race to the Top would be used to encourage states and school districts to fire teachers. They “must be ready to institute far-reaching reforms, replace school staff, and change the school culture,” he said. “We cannot continue to tinker in terrible schools where students fall further and further behind, year after year.”

Duncan outlined three other funds, a collective $4.8 billion, that will also be awarded only to those states and school districts “willing to turn around their lowest-performing schools,” as Duncan put it.

Obama and Duncan implicitly laid the blame for the problems of public education at the feet of “bad” teachers.

"Race to the Top" is a bullshit idea based on a bullshit premise. Oh, how disgusted I continue to be with politicians who haven't a clue what the real problem is in education, and it isn't with the teachers.

It's administrators because they aren't held accountable; school boards are jokes in the vast majority of school districts.

Here's more about the harebrained scheme.